Write In My Heart

Chapter Three: Bullies and Black Eyes

Whoever decided that calculus was "quintessential" to the high school learning experience deserved a special place in hell right next to Christopher Columbus.

With each passing second that I sat in my homeroom and started at the calculus problems that I had to have done by third period, the more stressed I became. I hadn't had time to finish my homework following the damn near mental breakdown I went through after everything with Niall in the locker room, I was too mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted to get out of bed and get food, let alone exert enough brain power to even try to understand calculus. And though I knew that we would be going over the answers in class, I was stubborn and independent, toxically so at times. So I wouldn't stop until I had some kind of feasible answer written for the four questions that had none. I loud out a quiet groan of frustration as I put my face in my hands. Maybe if I stopped looking at it for a while, my brain will slow down and start making sense of it all.

"Come on, Asa. You've got this," I whispered to myself. "Just logic it out. You've got this."

"Why so stressed, stranger?" A familiar deep voice asked as I felt a hand bury itself in my hair and give it a nice deep ruffle. Only one person did that, and he should've been in his homeroom on the science side of the school, on the completely opposite side of the building. But, when I looked up, I was surprised to see Johnathan pulling up a seat beside me.

He scoffed. "Don't look too happy to see me, Asa."

"I...What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in–"

My words died on my lips once I saw a fresh and painful-looking black ring forming around his right eye. Without thinking, I instantly grabbed his face and started turning it, inspecting it for further damage. "Johnathan, what the hell––"

"It's nothing. Promise," he said with a chuckle as he put his hand on top of mine to keep me from moving his head. "I just had to teach a couple lessons, knock a head here and there. Nothing too serious. Kid put up a good fight though."

"What? Who?"

He shook his head. "Someone. But because he was in my homeroom, we had to be separated as a part of the 'disciplinary actions' being taken or whatever. Now I'm here."

"Oh," was all I was able to say as I studied his face, confirming that there indeed hadn't been any further damage beyond the eye. That's when I realized that I hadn't let go of him and I quickly retracted my hands and looked down. "You know I don't like it when you fight. It's dangerous." My voice came out small and quiet.

He softly chuckled. "I know, I'm sorry, but...just trust me when I say, it was for a good reason. Okay?"

"Okay..." I trailed as my brain tried to process what was happening. Though a part of me was happy that I'd be having more time with him, a bigger part of me knew that this was bad. It was really bad. Now, not only did I have to worry about wrestling, but now I had to worry about homeroom, a place where my biggest fear was supposed to be finishing my homework on time, and not being outed as a homosexual.

But despite my stress and fear, I picked up my pencil as I forced myself to start writing mathematical nonsense on the page in order to distract myself. However, as I wrote, my hand started viciously shaking in a very obvious way.

"What's going on? Why are you shaking like that?" Johnathan asked as he looked over my shoulder.

"N-Nothing, just... stressed about this work. I can't seem to figure it out."

"Here, let me see..." He trailed as he slid the paper from under my fingertips and looked at it. His deep grey eyes studied the contents of the page as they moved from side to side. After a few moments, the corner of his mouth tugged into a lopsided grin as he slid the paper back over to me and took the pencil from my hand. "Okay, so it seems complicated but it's really easy once you break it down. First, all you have to do is..."