caught I h.s

Chapter 10

"I know."

Our position stays the same for a minute. I watch the clock at the end of Harry's room, on the right side of his door.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

For a moment I hear nothing but the obnoxious sound of the clock, and I shuffle slightly, moving Harry's weight he still is there. He sits up, and wipes his eyes.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," he apologizes.

"Hey, it's okay," I console him. "Honestly."

Harry smiles lightly and sighs, flipping back onto the bed and placing his arms under his head. "I suppose we better get down to business, then," he suggests.

"What?" I ask, puzzled. Harry looks at me and rolls his eyes, and I remember why I am actually here in the first place, sitting on Harry's massive bed in his massive house.

"Oh, right," I say. "Yeah, we probably should."

"Again, I'm sorry," Harry says, pushing himself up off the bed and strolling over to the other side of the room to collect his bag. "I just let emotions get the better of me sometimes."

"Stop apologizing," I reply, hoisting myself off the bed as well.

"Sorry."

---

"Harry Styles?" Dr K peers over the lens of his glasses, tapping his pen against his wooden desk. A few students look around behind them, as they always do whenever someone is not present during roll taking.

"Absent, again," Dr K shakes his head. "What a surprise."

I protest inwardly, defending Harry silently by thinking that he had only been absent once during my time here. Then again, that's only been a couple of weeks, so who am I to judge?

However my reasoning is that he is just simply taking a day off to rest, especially after the whole situation yesterday.

"Scarlett," Dr K addresses me suddenly, breaking me out of my pool of thoughts.

"Yes?" I inquire.

"Reminder that your project is due on Monday, so you have the weekend to finish that off. Okay?"

"Yes, that's fine," I reply. We'd finished most of it off yesterday afternoon, but there were still a couple of touch ups that need attending to.

"Everyone else," Dr K says, standing up and gesturing to the whole class. "Yours were due in yesterday. Obviously there were a couple of you who neglected to hand them in - you have till the end of school today, or you get an automatic fail, understood?"

The whole class nods, and I hear a few scared whispers coming from behind me.

"Those who completed the task on time though, you will be presenting to the class today. Any takers for first?"

No one offers to take the lead, everyone simply looking around at the other pairs in the class as a way to distract themselves.

"Don't all jump up at once," Dr K says dryly. "You know how it goes, I'm going to have to choose a pair then."

"Fine, we'll do it," the blond boy in front of me sighs, to which his partner looks at him with a betrayed expression.

"Better to get it over with," he adds quickly, seeing her annoyance.

"Thank you, Luke and Olivia," Dr K says, as he sits back down in his chair.

---

I sit down at my table in History, trying to ignore the cacophony of whisperings and gossip floating around the classroom. I'd been assigned a seat at this particular table for no reason other than the fact that as soon as he saw me walk in on my first class, Ansel stood up and told the teacher that I could sit next to him. Which I did. I was glad, obviously, as I knew no one else in the classroom. Ansel quickly introduced me to Liam, the friendly brown haired boy I sat opposite, and Michelle, the blonde he sat adjacent to.

I soon found out Liam has an intense passion for History, or he's just really quiet. Either way, he is the most focused person I have ever met in my life, and there is no doubt in my mind that he would pass the year with top marks and then go on to become a lawyer or something prestigious like that.

Michelle, on the other hand, was quite the chatterbox. The amount of gossip I've heard from her in the last two weeks is possibly the most gossip I've ever heard in my schooling career.

And Ansel - always charming, amiable and a great conversationalist, which is often helpful since I'm not.

"Hi!" I hear the bouncy voice of Michelle say, the first one to accompany me before class starts.

"Hey, how are you?" I ask politely.

"I'm great, thanks," Michelle replies, pulling out her chair and sitting down, her blonde hair spilling over her shoulders like a waterfall despite the uniform regulation of having hair tied up at all times. "You know who's not great, though? Jessica, oh my god, did you hear what happened with her? No? Well..."

Michelle begins to spin her yarn about the girl Jessica, who I barely know, and I pretend I'm listening but am in fact zoning out and thinking of Harry. Typical.

A few seconds later I see Liam enter the classroom, living up to his reputation with his books all collected tightly in his arms. "Hey guys," he says when he reaches our table at the front of the classroom.

Michelle and I both greet him, and Michelle offers to take a couple of books from his arms, to which Liam gratefully agrees.

"Thanks, I was nearly about to drop them," he admits. Michelle shrugs, smiling lightly.

"Anytime."

The class quietens down as our teacher enters, the few people who were previously yelling now dropping their tones to whispers.

"Good morning, class," our teacher, Mr Lorrimer, says in a monotonous voice.

Mr Lorrimer had quickly become one of my least favourite teachers, which is unfortunate due to the fact that History is my favourite subject. He has one of those voices that I could fall asleep too, and not in a good way, despite being interested in the topic at hand. Luckily, that has yet to happen, and this lesson will again probably be spent trying to evade the awkward situation that would come out of falling asleep during class.

"We'll be carrying on from yesterday's lesson, then," Mr Lorrimer states, and I realize I just missed half of what he said previously. Oh well, that's what classmates are for.

I notice the missing presence of Ansel, who usually by now would be in his seat beside me. I wonder where he is, and by chance he walks into the room at the same time.

"Ansel," Mr Lorrimer says. "Nice of you to join us."

"Sorry," Ansel says, and he moves quickly over to our table. We all say hi quietly, and then the lesson begins, Mr Lorrimer's tedious voice droning on about the effects of World War 2.

"Isn't this boring," Ansel whispers to me, Liam looking up from his note taking to shoot him a glare.

"It wouldn't be if you actually listened," he fired.

"Yeah, yeah," Ansel dismisses, chuckling. "Not all of us find History interesting. Anyway, Scarlett, how are you finding England?"

I frown, slightly annoyed at the seemingly random questioning during the middle of class. "You sound like you're interrogating me."

"Just making conversation," Ansel shrugs lightly.

I laugh quietly, shaking my head. "In the middle of class? When no one else is talking? Nice."

"Okay, okay," Ansel defends. "I'll be quiet, just for you."

"Thanks," I say, not sure whether he is joking or actually being serious. Not that I didn't want to talk to him; our assessment was coming up in a couple of weeks and despite the fact that it was pretty boring, I know that this information I'm hearing now is vital. Ansel sticks to his word, and the only voice I hear for the rest of the period is our teachers.

---

A/n: sorry it took ages to update, school has started again so yeah updates might be a bit slower from now on.

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