Asymptote (bxb)

Chapter 19: Self-Centred

I didn't go back to the cafeteria after the call. I took a walk to try and ease my nerves, and then went straight to my next class. I knew if I went back to the cafeteria that I would see Miles' smirking at me, his face dripping with "I told you so". As I stood outside the portable of my last class that I shared with Miles, facing that reality was again inevitable. The only question was whether he had made it to the portable before me, and if he was already inside waiting smugly for me to come sit next to him, with a snarky note placed on my desk.

"Bro, move," I heard from behind me as I felt someone push passed me on the 5 stairs leading up to the portable door. I probably deserved that. Although he didn't turn around, I could tell by the curly and blond back of his head that it was Austin. If I was forced to create a Venn diagram of the popular kids at school and the kids that regularly bought weed from us, Austin would be in the middle. I wasn't surprised that he didn't seem to know my name.

"Sorry!" I called back, just as the portable door was closing behind him. I sucked in my bottom lip as I pulled open the door.

Although Miles had made it to the class before me, he was doing his typical dejected-Miles thing; head-down on his desk so you were uncertain whether he was asleep or not. I'd seen him do it the entire class before. Looking back on it, I often wonder if they teachers let him get away with more because they sensed something, and I wondered even more so why no one did anything. I wished to do something, anything to help him. But despite everything he wouldn't leave his mother, the only family he ever knew. Although, probably the more likely reason I didn't do anything was because I knew that he would never talk to me again.

"Tired or done with the world?" I asked.

"Not the world," he replied, muffled through his uniformed arm that his head laid on. I filled in the unspoken ending to his sentence in my head: just you.

I wanted to say something, but I was out of lame conversations starters. So, I opted to just start unpacking my backpack onto the desk, waiting for Mr. Culan to get to start the class.

Much to my horror, the class started right on-time, with the handout of a test that I was apparently unaware of.

"Is this a pop quiz?" I whispered under my breath to Miles as the tests began to circulate.

"Even I knew about this, and I haven't been here since last week," he said, lifting his hand slightly to reveal the pencil-scribbled cheat notes on his desk.

When the test reached my desk, I felt my heart rate soar. It was entirely about angles, and I knew nothing about them. I had decidedly not done the homework amidst all my self-created drama.

"You may now begin," Mr. Culan announced, which created a chorus of page-flips and pencil scribbles.

My eyes skirted from side to side, watching as everyone around me hurriedly wrote on their papers and typed on their calculators. Hell, even Miles looked to be doing something. I just stared blankly at the page, listening to the sound of my own heart beating.

How could I possibly have managed to come to every class, and yet been so absent that I missed the existence of a test? I was supposed to be making decisions about the rest of my life in the next week, and yet I couldn't get my head from my failure of a romantic life long enough to even remember my present schoolwork. Screw thinking years in advance, I couldn't even manage hours.

I felt the pencil slipping in my sweaty grasp and caught myself from staring in a direction that could be misconstrued as cheating. Cheating was impossible at this point; I didn't even understand enough of the concept to know who was good to cheat from.