Rolling Dice [sample]

7: Rolling Dice

Uploading on time again! :) although I make no promises about uploads over the next few weeks - I start school again on Monday. I've made this chapter extra long though, put two chapters into one :) hope you enjoy!

 

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Chapter 7

School seems to get very busy very quickly, with hoards of students pouring inside through doors and corridors everywhere all of a sudden, with five or ten minutes until school actually starts.

Bryce and I have only just reached my locker. I don’t have any books yet, so I don’t bother opening it. Other kids are filling the hallway rapidly, though, the sound of excited chatter and laughter bouncing off the walls. Lockers clatter open along the hallway, but most people just lounge against them and catch up with friends.

It’s the kind of scene I see every year. Everyone’s excited to be back in school to see their friends again, to talk and exchange stories and laugh and joke. And every year, I’d stand by my locker and scroll through songs on my iPod, trying to look occupied, and remaining pointedly oblivious to everything going on around me.

Now though, my earphones aren’t in, and I’m stood with someone who is willing to talk to me. I feel lost. And I’m getting kind of claustrophobic.

“Bryce! Hey, man, how’s your summer been!”

“Yo, Bryce!”

“Hey, Bryce!”

I expect him to ditch me to see these people calling out to him, but all he really does is nod at them and call hello back, saying he’ll catch them later.

The bell goes, and the throngs of kids start to disperse to homeroom.

Bryce pulls my schedule from my hand to see it, and then he says, “Up the stairs and take the corridor on the left. Room 27B.”

“Um, okay…”

“You don’t sound very sure,” he laughs.

“I’m not.”

“Do you want me to walk you there?” he offers, and I can see him restraining a laugh. I don’t know whether he wants to laugh because I look and sound so terrified, or because he thinks it’s funny I’m scared to be on my own for the first day of school.

“N-no.” I stammer when someone bumps into me and I lose balance in my heels, toppling over into the lockers. I gulp. “No,” I repeat. “It’s fine.”

“No,” Bryce says firmly, and grabs my forearm. “Come on, I’ll walk you there.”

I laugh in an attempt to get rid of this nervous energy, and let him guide me toward a staircase off the side of the hallway of lockers, and up the stairs. The crowds thin out as we turn down the corridor on the left, and he stops as we reach Room 27B.

“This is you.”

“Thanks,” I say, a rush of relief spreading over me. “Seriously, I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. Hey, I’ll, uh, catch you round later, yeah?”

He shoots another of his 100-watt grins at me, and I find myself grinning right back at him. “Sure. Yeah. Thanks again.”

“Anytime, Mainstream.” There’s a chuckle in his voice when he says that, and then he walks back the way we just came. As I turn around to watch him go – though I’m not entirely sure why I watch him go – I jump when there’s a girl stood right behind me.