The Hollow: Adam x OC

Date Night On A School Night

I fill mine out pretty quick and once I finish it, I check it over just to make sure that I got everything. I did get everything and then I raised my hand for the TA to get it; the TA saw my hand pretty quickly and then grabbed my paper and walked back to Mr. Monty's desk.

Once they took my paper I started to tap my pencil on my desk since I didn't have anything else to do. Out of curiosity, I looked over at Mira to see if she was done yet; she's actually just one the last question and once she finished that, she raised her hand like me and waited for the TA.

Since the TA's busy chatting with Simone, I leaned over to Mira and whispered, "Hey." This caught Mira's attention and she turned her head toward me. "Yeah?" she whispered back. I glanced at Olive from across her shoulder to make sure that he wouldn't hear us and then whispered, "Do you think you could leave Olive and me alone at lunch? I've known him pretty long so I think I should ask him what's wrong."

Mira nodded when I said this and then glanced at the TA, who finally noticed Mira's hand and was walking towards us. As the TA got her paper, Mira leaned over to me and whispered, "Sure, it'll probably be best if you ask him in the library since it's so quiet and everything, and if you want I can hang out in the computer lab if you need me."

"Sure that'd be great." I started to think through what I was going to say, just so I wouldn't sound rude or anything or clam up. I think I would probably just ask Olive why he seems upset, I mean after I tell him that he seems upset to me, and then based on what he says just be supportive.

Maybe say 'I'm always here for you if you need me.' No, that sounds kind of cheesy; maybe just say that I'm not going to judge him or something like that. Yeah, that'd be good.

"Adam." I jolted a little bit when I was broke out of my thoughts and turned to face Mira, who had a little smirk on her face. I blinked a few times as I tried to gather all my thoughts and figure out what to say. I couldn't come up with anything and just stared at Mira while I waited for her to say something.

Mira stared at me a bit too, probably wondering if I'm going to say something, and then just sighed and asked, "Weren't you listening?" I smiled nervously and shook my head, scolding myself a bit for spacing out. "Olive was trying to ask you if you wanted to talk with him at lunch."

I looked at Olive kind of surprised since as long as I've known him, he's always waited for the other person to ask to talk and kind of waits for people to come to him. He must be coming out of his shell. I nodded to Olive and said, "Sure that's great. Where do you want to talk?"

"The library. There won't be a lot of people there." Did he hear us talking or does he just have the same thought process as me? I shook the thought from my head and then replied, "Sure, I'll meet you there once I get my food." Olive nodded to me and then went quietly back to the doodle he was doing; the doodle kind of looked like a really pretty flower.

I turned back to my desk and started tapping my pencil against my desk as I tried to think of something to do. Luckily it was right then that Mr. Monty decided to walk to the front of the class and start talking about the literature circles. Impeccable timing.

Time-skip (25 minutes):

I hovered next to the gym door as I waited for Olive to get his food. The line he's in is pretty long and the cafeteria's kind of crowded today, so it's been taking a while. Luckily, Olive finally gets his food and starts to head over to me; I start walking towards him so we can meet and then head off to the library but some of the jocks get in my way.

I wait for him again and he, miraculously, maneuvers around the jocks table and walks up next to me. "You ready to go?" His voice sounds really sad when he says this but also kind of pretty-sounding since it's kind of quiet now. Nevermind that. I nod to Olive and follow him as he leads us to the library.

Time-skip (5 minutes):

Olive and I walk into the mostly empty library and, following Mrs. Laurey's guiding finger, sit down at the tables near the non-fiction section. We don't say anything when we sit down, we're probably both waiting for the other person to say something, and awkwardly start eating our food.

I got Pizza Hut and potato slices with milk and some peaches while Olive gotta salad and grilled cheese with milk from the veggie line. His lunch is pretty typical of him, he and his whole family are vegetarian and he really likes grilled cheese. It's kind of cute that he still eats the same thing he did in elementary school.

I set down my pizza slice and start to ask him how his food is, just to lighten the mood, but when I see he's not eating I quickly change what I'm saying. "Aren't you hungry?" Olive looked up from his salad, which he was just pushing around his plate and stabbing with his fork, and looked at me.

He glanced back down at his salad and then mumbled, "Not really." He went back to pushing and stabbing his salad and I got kind of quiet since I didn't want to make Olive uncomfortable. I finished off my pizza slice and most of my fries while I tried to think of a way to ask Olive how he's doing without seeming rude or something like that.

I couldn't really come up with anything good and just decided to wing it, also because we're dating and were really close as friends so there might be some cushion from any rude stuff I say. "Uh, is there some-something that's making you upset?" I tried to ask it in the kindest tone I could and I think it came off pretty good.

Olive cringed a bit and set down his fork gently, his other hand nervously fidgeting with his gold earring. I pushed my tray away from me and then took a deep breath before I said, "If you need to tell me something you can but you don't have to. I was just wondering why you seemed so sad earlier."

Olive looked up from his salad at me and seemed to be thinking of what to say, or maybe just working up his courage, and then said really quietly, "I, uh, do have something to tell you. I've been waiting to for a bit." He looked back down at his salad after he said this and started rubbing his hands together like he was washing his hands.

I reached out my hand to him and, after hesitating for a bit, grabbed one of his hands and gently squeezed it. "You can tell me."

Olive let out a little sigh and then squeezed my hand back. He took a deep breath and then admitted, "I'm, uh, I'm ace." I don't really know what my face looked like when Olive told me that but it must have been something that Olive didn't like since he looked down at his lap and got really quiet.

I worked up all the courage I had and said, probably louder than I needed to, "I'm ace too!" Olive looked up really fast when I said this and had a look of complete surprise on his face. Some other people who were in here looked up too but lost interest or something and went back to what they were doing.

Olive kind of gaped at me but not in a shocked way, more of an 'I'm so glad that you're ace too' kind of way. I started smiling, probably out of relief of finally telling someone and just out of nervousness, and Olive started smiling too. Neither of us said anything for a bit and just smiled at each other.

Eventually Olive broke the silence when he joked, "Now our parents won't have to worry about us fooling around." We both started giggling at this, which got us a few weird stares, but we didn't care since we were both so relieved.