Her Knight In Rusty Armor

Chapter X

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Detention
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"Does he have bandages on his forearm?"

"He must've gotten shot!"

"Why's it always him who plays the bloody hero?"

"Is he okay?"

I was growing sick and tired of the remarks and assumptions being passed around by people for the past two weeks. Couldn't everyone just mind their own business? Why was I the hot topic and not the loose security of the university?

Clearly, they couldn't keep their noses out of someone else's life, so hoping for such an unobtainable thing was useless.

I sat in my seat, twisting around the black hoop dangling down my left ear. Thankfully, my left arm was fine and I could still use my earring as a fidget toy, albeit my right arm had healed a lot since that day.

One downside of this, though, was that I couldn't take any notes during my classes as I was right-handed and, as you may have noticed, my right arm was quite useless at the moment.

However, that was hardly a bad thing, considering how I could daydream during my classes instead of wasting my energy on writing useless blocks of paragraphs about the events of the Civil War that took place circa 1860 which had literally zero relevance to what I needed to know in order to get a freakin' job and to raise a family.

And so, Drake's sloppy notes were left as my last resort.

It was currently our English lesson. The teacher was immersed in smearing a lipstick of a deep shade of maroon onto her plump lips while reading a book. Around me, students scribbled relentlessly on their notebooks, writing essays on the advantages and disadvantages of television.

As if anyone cared about those boxes of technology anymore.

I glanced at Drake, who was sitting to my right, his tongue tucked in between his teeth in concentration. His excuse of a handwriting was quite... illegible, to say the least.

"Drake, you handwriting could be better, no?" I mumbled to him, running a hand through my dark, wavy hair. He glared at me, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"You should, for one, be bloody grateful that I'm lendin' you my notes," he retorted, going back to writing his essay. I leaned forward, peering at whatever he was writing.

"Never said I wasn't grateful," I whispered, smirking. "I'm just lending you some constructive criticism in return, buddy."

He narrowed his eyes at me, his glasses glinting malevolously.

"Sod off, smartass," he mumbled, to which I snickered.

"Ashton Miller, stand up," Miss Martha, our English teacher, called out, seeming offended as if I had stolen her stash of blood-red lipstick or something. She sat on a low seat and peered at me from over the book shielding her face, her glasses sitting at the tip of her nose.

I stood up, all eyes slowly settling on me.

Spectacular.

"The fact that you're injured doesn't give you the right to giggle in my class." Her sharp voice pierced my ears.

A wave of hushed giggles passed across the front of the classroom.

"Yet it gives them the right to giggle?" I shot back, glaring at the students in the front seats who uncomfortably shuffled in their spots under my spiteful gaze. Miss Martha raised her eyebrows at me, pulling her aggressively crimson lips into a firm line.