I'm The Geek Who Slapped A Football Player.

71 - Vivisection

Well damn, now what?!

I can see a figure standing against the back of my van, the sleeve of some white or light colored shirt poking out passed the taillight. I stop next to a dinky yellow Chevy car and squint hard through my glasses to see if I can figure out who it is.

Not Sebastian, he was wearing a black tshirt, and not Abel, when I'd glimpsed him in the hallway he'd had been wearing some grey pullover. And Teddy is wearing red today...Scarlett was wearing white but I doubt she'd hide behind my van and neither would Farida or Em, who are each wearing darker colors...

I hike my backpack up on my shoulders a bit more, wrinkling the old windbreaker of my dad's I'm wearing over my polo against my neck, and stomp forward, heart thumping.

It can't be Flora right? She's not allowed at the school...but she could sneak out, oh shit, OR IS IT TAMARA?! How attached is that bitch to the PugFace bitch?! Would she dare!? Or—

All my fears are wiped away once I see Simon Beagle's little brown head pop out from the edge of the van.

Oh thank fuck.

He's glancing around and has his phone in his hand, and when he spots me, his expression melts into relief and he waves with his phone in his hand. His sweatshirt is a super pale blue, emblazoned with I think the Marvel logo on the left chest.

"Hey! There you are!" He says with a cheerful little grin.

Here I am. I think a bit tiredly. I'm not sure why but I'm exhausted today, and while meeting him feels easy and harmless, I kind of just want to get home. "Hi,"

He gestures with his phone at me. "I was just about to text you— I guess I'm faster at getting out of here because my locker is closer to the doors."

I've never questioned where his locker is and now I'm a little curious...not enough to ask though. I'd instinctively reached for my phone in my pocket at his mention of it and with a delightfully graceful fuck up, fumble it out if my hand where it WHACKS down against the blacktop with a crack like a gunshot.

"FUCK!" I gasp. God dammit I don't need to wreck the damn thing yet JEEZUS CHRIST—

Please don't be cracked PLEASE DON'T BE CRACKED!!

By some miracle when I turn it over the stupid thing is unmarred and glows to life to show the background picture of Nibbles and Cuddles I took when they were both sitting together in the chair once. "Oh thank fuck," I breathe out.

"That's pretty lucky!" He exclaims beside me, inspecting my phone as if it were his own. His eyebrows wrinkle a tiny bit. "You don't have a...case?"

My mind blanks for a split second and then fires on too many cylinders.

THE PHONE CASES. HE GAVE YOU A PHONE CASE — all of them did, they all gave you one and you hadn't decided which to use so you'd just stuffed them in your backpack—OH GOD— I'm suddenly sweating bullets and give him a panicked little half smile while my brain tries to work overtime in Panic Mode and make up an excuse.

One that isn't the damn truth.

"Ah no, I haven't gotten my own or used the one you were letting me borrow..." I'm nervously wiping some dirt off the screen and avoiding his gaze and feeling so guilty I wish I could break my own screen (face) on the pavement.

"Oh it's ok, you can keep it."

GOD DAMMIT THAT IS WORSE—

"I-I think I'll be ordering one myself. Something, um..." No comic book or movie related?! Not from you!? I can't say that shit!!! "...purple. With cats. Yea purple cats."