FULL LOCKDOWN (Book #1)

𝕱𝖎𝖋𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖓

"Oi!" a teacher points to a skinny white boy with vans. "Label the heart for me," she holds her marker to the whiteboard with a big drawing of a heart with one side red and the other blue.

It looks like I'm back inside my head again, back where I left off – Health class with Ms Halliday as our teacher.

"Actually, never mind," Ms Halliday changes her mind. "You go sit back down. Dean, honey, you come up instead."

I stare at the ground, fully lost in thought. Hopefully, my plan works and we get to the tallest building safely in the real world.

"Dean!"

I snap out of it.

"Are you off with the fairies?" Ms Halliday sticks an eyebrow up. "Having a little picnic up there, in dreamland?"

I clear my throat, "no?"

"Because it seems to me like you are, darl'."

"Say what?" I ask, a little irritated.

"Label the heart for me, hun," she ignores my slight attitude.

"Why me?" I counter, she obviously thought I wasn't paying attention – I wasn't. "Didn't you ask him to do it?" I head nod to the skater boy.

"Yes," she smiles forcefully like she wanna beat my ass now, "but now, I've asked you. Unless you didn't do your homework and don't know what any of the parts are called. Surely, you know at least one? Just one, honeybun?"

I scoff, murmuring, "please," under my breath.

"Excuse me?"

"Okay," I sit up. "You wanna do this? Let's do this then. That's the superior vena cava, inferior at the bottom. Left atrium and ventricle, right atrium and ventricle. Pulmonary artery and the pulmonary veins, of course. Aorta..is that..." I pretend I don't know, "that big one, Ms," I insinuate to something else and some boys snicker in the back. "Oh, and let's not forget about the valves. We have the tricuspid valve down there and the bicuspid valve up there. And the pulmonary valve is in the middle next to the aortic v-"

"QUIET!"

Thought you'd never ask.

"There's nice ways to do things, Dean," she mutters bitterly.

Lol, she can't kick me out 'cause I didn't do anything wrong. So she moves on.

❖

I'm in the foyer, Health class is over.

"Alright," I smack my face. "You're the captain, you can do this, Dean."

I wriggle my shoulders, loosening up them tensed muscles. I turn around and start walking. No, I can't do it. I stop and turn back around. Yes, I can do it. I take a deep breath, fuck it and turn around again.

"Dean," Ella stands right in front of me, hugging a bunch of textbooks.

I jump.

She giggles, "sorry."

My crush.

"I.." I begin to speak but seem to choke on my words like an idiot. "I.. You.. We.."

Wait a minute. No one, and I mean, no one will know about this if I fuck up. It's all in my head, right? Say less because I can just use this as practice so that I can ask her out in the real world. Fuck yeah.

"What do you say you give me your number and we go out on a date sometime, pretty?" I lean my arm on the lockers next to me, then I doubt myself and remove it awkwardly.