Outer Space / Carry On | Michael Clifford AU

9.

At lunch time on Tuesday, I beat a certain blue haired boy to the Reserved for Michael Clifford rock. Eloise and Kelsey looked over at me a few times, gesturing for me to join their table but I shook my head. I was on a mission here.

"Nice rock," his voice smiled. Michael stood tall, his shadow turning the grass around me into a dull green. "You don't give up easily, do you?"

"Nope," I shook my head.

He sat down next to me and I was bathed in the warm, glittery sunlight again. He squinted at me, not bothering to shield the sun from his eyes. "I told you. I can't help you. I'm sorry... I'm really am."

I exhaled. I'd been prepared for him to put up a fight, which is why I prepared one of my own. "I'm not asking you to help me because I think you're the guy that fixes things. It's not that kind of story... I want to fix it myself." This was a revelation that came to me last night as I laid in bed, staring at the Humpty Dumpty picture for what seemed like forever. "But I don't know how to get there on my own. That's why I need you."

Michael ran a hand through his blue hair. He wasn't looking at me like a I was a complete kook, which was something. "Why me?"

"You said it yourself, we're the same."

He laughed. "I don't think those were my exact words..."

"It's what you implied."

"Implication can be a dangerous thing."

I nodded. "My Dad would say the same thing."

"Ah, that's right. You're the daughter of a lawyer."

"Right. So, let's deal in fact. You've been at this school for almost three weeks now, and aside from the young girls you taunted in the halls, I haven't seen you talk to a single other student."

"Taunted?" His smile tipped over so that it was crooked. Endearingly crooked. "How was I taunting?"

I pretended to think, like the words hadn't been stuck to me since I'd first heard them: "What was it... something along the lines of you being a total babe, and great in bed."

His smile tipped over a little more. "That wasn't taunting, Alice. That was flirting."

"That's you flirting?" I laughed. "You're doing it wrong."

"Come on, don't tell me I'm making jokes wrong too." He looked at me with defeat. "And for the record, if I was flirting, you'd know about it."

There was a weird little pop in my stomach which I ignored. "Fact two: you like art too, and don't even try to deny it. Your mum dobbed you in, remember?" I grinned.

"Get a glass of wine into her and she'll tell you anything," he said, flipping his eyebrows upward. I got the feeling him and his Mum didn't always see eye to eye. "But there's a bunch of other kids in our art class, why don't you ask one of them?"

I'd prepared myself for this question too. Goodbye dignity and pride, I'm surrendering you for the greater cause. "Fact three: not many people talk to me either."

"What about your two friends over there? They've been watching us for the last ten minutes."

I rolled my eyes, at Kelsey and Eloise, not at Michael. "They're both paper geniuses. Give them a book exam and they'll crush me, but art is my thing. Plus, they don't get me either."

He raised his eyebrows again. I wondered if his face knew how to sit still. "That I get. I feel like that everywhere I go. Look at me," he lifted up his navy school tie. I knew what he meant, it didn't make him blend in at all. "I don't fit here."

"If it means anything, I like that about you."

He dropped the tie. "Is that you flirting?" he sang, in a mocking tone.

"If I was flirting," my voice dropped an octave, trying to mimic Michael's. "You'd know about it."

He laughed, and I gave a half-laugh, half-shrug but inside my organs were screaming: abort mission, abort mission, because was I flirting? I didn't know. I didn't know a thing about flirting. I didn't know anything about anything. Back to the original mission, I reminded myself, marching onward, "So, does that mean you'll help me?"

Michael's crooked smile straightened up. It was still endearing. He let out a breath, as if weighing up his decision. "I guess it means I'll try," he said finally.