Broken, Flawed & Living (Discontinued)

Chapter Seven

But I didn't refuse. More of an opportunity to know him better. "Okay, yeah. Sure." Other than the times I knew he was a horrible dancer, a lightweight and such a flirt. If you combined all three, you were in for Christmas - and not the holy kind, mind you.

The two of us stood in the middle of the classroom, surrounded by other groups of two while Mr. Walker took to the front. But just as he opened his mouth a shudder came from the door. When he went and answered it, curiosity thickened the air. A policeman showed and everyone caught his narrowed eyes on me.

I'm sorry... come again?

"Sorry to bother you but can I excuse Thomas Hayne for a while?" he asked.

Mr. Walker's hesitant actions showed, but he replied quick and calm, in a sort of a composed manner. "Uh, yes. Thomas?"

All these eyes, all these questions, they burned. My driving improved, I didn't kill anyone and yet a policeman wanted to take me out of class and for what? Tori complained about my driving in the beginning but I always countered with, but did you die?

As I walked out with him, my heat jittered and maybe a cold sweat streaked my forehead. My hands clammed a bit, my mind fluttered with all my past mistakes in life, especially that mailbox I kicked over as a kid. I didn't want to go jail, I wasn't ready. No, sir, nooooo. Juvy wasn't a private school I'd attend. Imagine all those badass kids ready to kick my butt or claim it! Nah, can we not?

Confusion fluxed my emotions and a million questions scattered around, but when I looked around the corner on my left the minute we came out, I fumed with just one question. Leone leaned against the wall near the door. The policeman stepped aside and took a call down the hall and Leone just looked at me. Didn't say a word, didn't move his body, and just looked. Stared with an intent to say something but nothing.

I was going to talk, but no, I waited. He needed to explain himself first.

"That's Officer Kingston," he first said. Okay, good. "He's my mentor and I convinced him to come here so I could ask you something." And I knew Leone was a busy guy.

He did this apprenticeship thing with his program and in order to gain experience and backdoor into his field they placed students on the field alongside other policemen and women, or whatever else you were doing. Since the second week of school he had been out and about training, learning things about how to get away with murder, psychology and what it meant to be a good policeman, a hero to kids. That much I knew.

Everything else like Kingston I didn't. There were a few nights he'd come back to residence and we'd have a little talk because I'd be up. But why did he convince him to come here just to ask me something? "Why?"

"Because," he began, pulling himself off the wall, "I wanted to ask if you were free this Friday. After school. We could go out and do something like watch a movie, go to Gravity Falls. You haven't been there, right?" Now it made sense. I shifted, parted my lips and could tell he read my face, so he spoke up before I did. "And yes, I know. Nothing's ever gonna change but come on... when's the last time we ever hung out as just friends?" I read his eyes, watched them glimmer with a hope for change. He wanted to prove to me he changed. Yearned for the bond we shared before he made the daring move.

Sort of like the chemistry Tori and Chris were blinded by.

I sighed. "I'm sorry. I don't know if I'll be free." I knew I was really sure if I wanted to be alone with him just yet. Three years, four, and I still got awkward around him? "Jared, Mikayla and Josh might want to do something that day and Chance wants to do something that day, so I really don't know."