The new, geeky kid in school gets partnered with a popular jock in biology. He believes that geeks and jocks can't be friends until this particular jock proves him wrong. And there may be something even better in the air...
*****
After his family mo...
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-Luke-
I woke up hearing weird sounds. They were so quiet that I didn't register them at first, but when I remembered Troy was in my room, I opened my eyes to see where he was and what he was doing. I was lying on my side, facing the wall, and the second I even thought about moving, my knee started hurting. I ignored it – I was pretty good at it at this point.
Instead, I turned to look at Troy. He was sitting on the bed, and when I tried to push myself up to take a better look at him, he lifted his gaze from whatever he was doing, and gave me a smirk.
"I hope I didn't wake you up," he said. For some reason, he had a big black marker in his hand.
"What are you doing?" I asked when I realized he was drawing something on my cast.
"I wanted to be the first one to sign your cast," he smiled, and continued with his work.
I sat up on the bed, and he was forced to stop again when I turned around to see what he was doing.
"The first one, or the only one?" I laughed.
There was a huge "TAP DANCER" written across the cast, from top to bottom, taking up the whole outer side of it. Apparently, he was in the middle of coloring the letters in, since the last three letters only had outlines done, and the rest were completely black.
"Just making sure everyone can see it," he said, pushing me back down so he could continue with his work. "Could you roll over, so I don't get your sheets dirty."
There was a short moment of dead silence in my room until he started snickering at his own words.
"My god..." I chuckled quietly, when he started laughing harder. "Why do you do that to yourself?"
He only laughed as a reply. I took a better position on the bed and put a pillow under the cast. Troy kept chuckling for a long time, and I couldn't help but smile the entire time.
But eventually, it died away. I started thinking about what happened at the hospital when we were leaving. It was easy to laugh with him and act like a normal kid with no worries, but I had to face the fact that I was not being completely honest with him. He was writing his name on my cast, and sure, people would probably think it was just a joke, but I wished it was his way of telling everyone else to back off. I had no right to wish that, not yet.
"Troy..." I muttered his name, and he let out a questioning hum without looking up from his work.
I couldn't remember if I had ever said it out loud.
"I tried to kill myself."
It was one of the scariest moments in my life. I couldn't even breathe while I waited for his reply. I didn't dare to look at him. And then...
