We're Not Sleeping, We're Just Dreaming (Waterparks fanfic)

Two - Keon

"Name, please?"
The teacher behind the desk tapped her pen against it, a stern look across her face. I was going to be here for an hour and a half? The least they could have done is given me the teacher who barely pays us attention.
"Keon Parker", said Mr McKenna, knowing I wouldn't talk.
"Take a seat." The sterner teacher said. I grudgingly walked over to the table where one other boy was sat, with purple hair, fiddling with a piece of paper, and sat opposite. He glanced at me, with judging eyes, before staring back down at the paper between his fingers. I shrugged and began to pick at my fingernails, bitten down to the bone. I felt the sleeve of my hoodie begin to slip so pulled it up but played it off as playing with my wristbands. I didn't need them to see the scars and get upset, not again. I don't need the hospital.
The ticking if the obnoxiously loud clock in the corner filled my every thought as the hands slowly made their way around the face of it. My mum was going to kill me when I came home late with no good excuse. I sighed slightly - "just like everyone else", I mumbled in my head. "Judgemental". My thoughts however were abruptly interrupted by a teacher at the door.
"Any chance you can help with this thing?", the second teacher said, sticking their head through the crack in the door. The teacher behind the desk stared at us, before sighing and getting up to leave. "If i come back and catch you talking, you're both for it", she said, her eagle eyes unwavering from us, before she walked off, her heels tapping their way down the corridor, fainter and fainter with every passing moment until the room became silent again, save the annoying ticking of the clock. 4:43pm - fifteen minutes left.
"What are you here for, then?" the boy with the purple hair mumbled. "Surely you're here for something, better make it good."
I sighed. "Walked out of Lloyd's lesson, left the premises without permission. Fourth time this term."
He smirked. "Kind of pathetic but okay."
I pulled a face at him. "What did you do, then?"
He leaned back in his chair and smiled. "Vaped candy floss flavoured stuff in the bathroom. Set off the fire alarm."
I smirked. "Lucky you weren't expelled for forcing a whole school to evacuate."
He sighed. "Wish i had been, to be honest."
I yawned and stretched my arms above my head, the sleeves of my hoodie falling down to expose my forearms - he saw every inch of them.
"That's the quickest way to get hospitalised if you're into that kind of thing." He mumbled at me.
I pulled my sleeve back down over my wrists. "I know." I whispered.
He sighed. "I'm Awsten, by the way."
I stayed silent for a second. "Keon", I mumbled back.

*

I pulled at my backpack straps as i walked to the bus stop and waited for the half past five bus. Scrolling through my phone, I didn't notice Awsten come up behind me.
"Buses are lame," he mumbled at me, reaching into his pocket for a rainbow coloured vape pen which glittered in the light of the late spring afternoon. He inhaled deeply, the pen between his lips, before blowing out a puff of smoke and sighing deeply. "That shit's good."
I picked at my wristbands. "I'd ride on a bus all day if it meant I wasn't going home."
He stared at me for a minute, before quietly mumbling something.
"Not all of those marks were you?"
I nodded slowly. I could feel the lump in my throat forming, like an internal Adam's apple.
"Sucks, dude"
I nodded again, sighing. "It doesn't matter."
He let out another large cloud of smoke. "Kind of does. That teacher who dropped you off in detention looked like he cares."
I ran my fingers through my hair. "He shouldn't but I guess he does. He's my tutor."
"You know," Awsten said, yawning and stretching before leaning back against the wall of the bus shelter. "It might not be such a bad thing to let people help you."
I scoffed. "I'm beyond saving. Everyone hates me so I don't think anyone would notice my absence."
He stood up straight. "You know that isn't true."
I shrugged. He looked me dead in the eyes, with his now less judgemental own.
"I'll always be around." He said.
I went to shrug again but eyed up the bus now approaching from around the corner, reaching into the pocket of my jeans for my bus pass. I straightened myself up, pulling my hoodie down and adjusting my wristbands, before running my fingers through my hair to give it my iconic messy look.
"I guess this is goodbye?" He said to me.
"Yeah."
He took another puff on the slender pen before the bus doors slid shut behind me and i wandered through the bus for a seat or place to stand, the engine causing a jolt as we moved off. I watched him fade into the distance, becoming smaller and smaller until he was gone.