Artwork [h.s]

twelve

The next day, as soon as I walked in my maths class, I noticed that I wasn't alone. Ella still wasn't at school, for some unspecified reason, and Aiden was sitting in her place again.

"Hi" I simply said sitting down, giving him a little smile and opening my notebook.

He looked up from his phone. "Hi" he replied, before going back to whatever he was doing.

I took a pen and started sketching a leaf in the corner of the page as I usually did as I waited for the teacher to enter the room. I looked up as a shadow was projected onto the white paper, meeting the to me now familiar green eyes of none other than Harry. "Hi?" I said confusedly, not understanding what he was doing standing in front of my desk, especially given that his was on the other side of the room, at the same attracting the attention of the blonde boy sitting next to me, that locked his phone to look at Harry as well.

Harry said nothing and he stared at me for a couple seconds, something in his eyes I couldn't quite define, before turning around and going back to his seat.

I stared after him, confusion in my eyes.

"Woah, what did you do to him?" Aiden said sarcastically, and I shook my head.

"I have no idea."

"Well, now that he moved out of the way..." He let out a little laugh. "I'm joking, of course. Anyway, how'd you fancy going out this afternoon?"

I smiled. "I'd like to, actually." I almost went back to my drawing, but then I realised something. "Hang on... I don't think I can."

Aiden frowned. "And why?"

"Harry has to come to mine. For the drawing due on Thursday" I replied looking down at the leaf on the page. With some shading, it would've looked like it'd fallen right off of a tree on first glance.

"You still haven't finished it?" he asked confusedly, and I just shrugged, to act as if it was irrelevant.

"We had a little bit of an issue yesterday."

"Oh" he said, nodding as if he knew something I didn't. "What did he do?"

"Who said he did anything?" I asked right away, but then I sighed, dropping it. "He was upset about something and left."

"About what?" he asked again.

"About a comment I made. I said he never seemed to smile."

Aiden shook his head in disapproval. "Now why would he react like that. Classical Harry Styles, I told you he had an awful behaviour. But hey, since he basically bailed on you, you wouldn't be blamed if you did the same" he suggested.

I frowned. "What do you mean? I can't do something like that, I need to finish the drawing on time."

"You can still do it tomorrow. You could tell him that you changed your mind or I don't know, have other plans and you can't meet today."

I sighed and glanced in Harry's direction. "He'd kill me if I did that. Besides, he might not be the nicest person out there, but he's still helping me to get this done."

"But really, he's not" The blonde haired boy said. "He has to meet with you so that you can draw him. Which means that he's basically forced to. You owe him nothing, basically."

I shrugged, trying to find another reason not to bail on Harry, not wanting to admit that, for some reason to me unknown, despite Harry's unfortunate behaviour, I wanted to spend some time with him. The first time I'd had to draw him I was scared by him, because he was so different from me that I felt like we were two worlds apart, despite being in the same room. But as I had started to spend time with him, I had started to see there was more to him than he let on. He was intriguing, and that interested me way more than it should've had. And maybe I was being too quick in changing my mind about him, and maybe I would've ended up being hurt if I had discovered that I'd seen way more in him than what was truly there and that in reality he was just an asshole, but in that moment, I really didn't care. I'd picked out the worst scenario, and I had decided that I would've been ready to handle it if it had come to that. And at that point, I just wanted nothing more that go on, and discover if I'd made my fortune or my demise. "I don't know... I really have to make sure I finish that drawing in time for Thursday."

"I'd like to get to know you, though" Aiden said softly, and I looked back at him.

"Can't you wait until Thursday?" I asked him, adding a smile to show that I wasn't reprimanding him.

"The right question is, will you really turn down a coffee with yours truly to spend time with a known prick?" He asked back, a mischievous look in his eyes.

I sent him a glance. "Be careful to the kind of words you choose to speak of him, I might come to think you have some kind of history."

"Would you be interested in knowing it, if that was the case?" He asked me.

"Is it interesting?" I asked him, a feeling that I couldn't quite identify in my chest.

"Very interesting, actually" Aiden replied, showing me that there was indeed something I had no clue about in his relation to Harry. The question was, though, did I really want to know?

"You seem very willing to share secrets, but I don't think I'm that interested, honestly."

He furrowed his eyebrows. "And why's that?"

"Because your willingness to talk about it makes me feel like they might be lies, or you want to talk negatively of Harry for some reason I'm not aware of." I turned around to look at the teacher.

"Oh come on" Aiden hissed. "Okay. I don't know Harry personally, okay? But I know someone who does and trust me, that shit ain't pretty."

"Why do you want to talk about Harry so much? Who cares, anyway. I don't know him, I'm not interested in knowing things about him." It was a lie. But the way Aiden was pushing to tell me something about him was starting to annoy me.

"Alright" he said, "does this mean you won't go out with me today?"

I sighed. Time to make a decision. Should I have stayed at home and spent an awkward afternoon with Harry while trying to find out what had happened in the morning, or should I have gone out and possibly made a new friend? The answer was obvious, but I was a bit reluctant in giving it. Harry interested me, but I knew he would've come to my house only because he was forced to. It made no sense to turn down an actual friend to spend time with someone who wasn't interested in becoming friends at all. "I'm coming with you" I replied in the end. I would've had to talk to Harry at the end of the class, given that I didn't have his phone number. Thinking about it, I was probably the only person in my art class that didn't have the phone number of her model.

"Lovely! I'm coming to get you at, let's say, four?"

"Okay" I replied, "but I have to be home by six at most. Some people have to study, you know" I replied, tapping impatiently on my desk as I waited for the bell to ring and announce the end of the class.

After about ten minutes in which I only barely listened to what the teacher was saying, the class ended. Not wanting to waste any time and risking to miss Harry, I stood up leaving all my books on my desk and I made my way to the other end of the class. Harry looked up as soon as I stopped in front of him, standing up.

"I can't make it this afternoon. Can you come to my house tomorrow instead? At the same time, of course" I told him.

"Why?" He asked me, glancing at something behind me for a second before going back to focusing his green eyes on me.

"I'm going out with a friend" I simply replied.

He motioned at someone next to the door. "Is he the friend?"

I turned around, spotting Aiden standing on the side, holding what looked like my books as well. "Is it of any importance?" I replied turning around, happy to be the one giving that reply for once.

"Not at all" Harry replied, an unnatural quietude in his voice.

I nodded at his reply. "Alright. I'll be going then, if you don't mind." I turned around and walked towards Aiden, taking my books from him as soon as I reached him.

"What's the verdict?" Aiden said sarcastically as we exited the classroom.

I sighed at the way he was acting. "I'm coming."