Out of Your League

Chapter 17

To no-one's surprise, it only took me a couple of days to get over my expulsion scare and stop going to sleep at sensible times and not drinking. So, by Saturday, when Ed asked me to join him on a trip to one of the less disreputable bars in town, I agreed, already fed up of the same sights of the school and desperate for a change of scene. This bar was... it was as clean as bars went and the alcohol was strong, not watered down or a cheap substitute. Even the walls and stools in this place were clean – there was no stickiness to them from previous occupants.

After several minutes of silence, Ed took a glug of his red wine and looked at me nervously,

'C, you know George feels bad don't you?'

'He doesn't though, does he? He probably thinks it's hilarious,' Ed grimaced into his glass,

'He won't do it again, don't worry. We made sure of that,' I gave him a faint smile before looking down at my martini again. This was awkward – conversation had always flowed easily with us, there had always been something to say, but now... we were struggling for topics. It was awful so I needed to approach the topic we'd been skirting around for nearly an hour now.

'Ed, you George's a dick right? There are so, so many occasions...' Understandably, he shook his head – defending his friend, as he should.

'I know that George has been a twat on lots of occasions but... haven't we all made mistakes? I know my parents strongly hate the way I lived before we got together and I don't imagine your parents love it either,' and we were back to it. My reputation. But did it really bother him that much? I gave a sharp shake of my head, this was not the time to talk about that. That was a topic for another time.

'But the difference is, Ed, my mistakes and everyone else's never hurt anyone except ourselves but George... he nearly got me expelled, he broke Belle's heart and... do you not remember that it was George who paid people off not to tell anyone that he was sleeping with a teacher who then got fired for it? Yet he's still at school, no tarnish on his record,' Ed was silent, unable to defend George from all the obvious wrongs.

'He'll grow up, he'll grow out of it C,'

'He won't though, we've been saying that since we turned 12... you know what? I'm going back to Brooke. You coming?'

'Yeah, I'll walk you back,' Finally, we'd dived right into the middle of the problem. And although it was awkward now, I knew that soon that would fade now we both had been able to give our opinions on the topic. And even as we got close to Brooke a shift between us occurred and Ed nudged towards me and put his arms around my shoulders and to return the gesture of peace, I laid my head on his shoulder.

Once we got to Brooke, he kissed the top of my head,

'See you tomorrow C,' I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and lingered for a moment, enjoying the closeness.

'Bye,'

*****

Unfortunately, the Lent Term also meant exams. Which I absolutely hated - I didn't have the concentration span to revise and I always got bored halfway through the exam and started watching other people doing their paper's. It was a wonder really that I had scraped through my GCSE's and done acceptably enough to be allowed back for sixth form. Belle, on the other hand, loved revising. Whenever she was in revising mode, she locked her door and would yell at anyone who even knocked. If she was studying in a communal area, anyone who made the slightest noise, even the shuffling of textbooks, would get a fearsome stare and be shushed. Basically, I always avoided Belle the week of exams because the slightest noise or wrong comment would result in an awful argument, and I had learned the hard way that you should never argue with Belle. She never looses, even if it takes veering off topic completely and criticizing you until you back down. Anyway, the extent of Belle's seriousness about exams even went to the point where her outfits looked less put together and she stopped worrying about her hair and makeup. For Belle, this was critical point – if she stopped caring about her appearance... I can't put into words how unusual, almost scary it was to see her do that. Having said that, even with Belle looking slightly less good, she still managed to look better and more put together than everyone else.