It's Complicated

Five

Madison's POV

"Archer."

"Huh?" Presley had a confused look on his face. It was all wrinkled up. He always was cute when he was confused. I just looked at him and playfully rolled my eyes.

"The new girl. Her name is Archer."

"Ohhhhhh. How'd you figure it out?" His face unwrinkled, and his expression turned curious.

"She's in choir with me."

"Hmm." Presley continued to messily eat his sandwich, while I slowly shook my head and grinned. "It's a good thing you're pretty, mon amour." He gave me a toothy grin and went back to his sandwich. Boys and their food.

We had talked during lunch about that morning. He said he was sorry about a billion times. I was sure that if I hadn't forgave him, he would've burst into tears and begged me to. I smiled and focused my attention to my phone screen. I was looking through all the disappointing news articles, when I saw a flash of black in front of me. I immediately looked up to see Archer practically sprinting passed my table and towards the girl's bathroom.

"I'll be right back." I got up and tried not to run to the bathroom. There I found her sitting in the corner, softly crying. My voice broke the silence. "Are you okay?" She looked up. Her eyes were red, puffy, and fearful. Tears were still streaming down her face. She weakly smiled and said wearily, "Hey. Yeah, I'm fine. Madison, right?"

"Yeah. You don't look okay." I squatted next to her, daringly looking into those beautiful, sad eyes of hers. "What happened?"

Her face fell. Something flashed across her face, but it was too fast for me to read. She shook her head. "It's not important. Someone was just being stupid."

"I'll beat 'em up. Tell me who it is. I know people."

She laughed softly. "I'm fine. I promise." She wiped the tears away before adding, "Things just get to me easily."

"Okay, but I'm staying here until lunch ends." I sat down next to her, crossing my arms.

"Okay. Have fun with that." She stood up and walked off. I called after her, "Archer?" She spun around, "Yeah?"

"Would you stay here with me?"

"There's a price, tesoro." Italian. That meant the word she used earlier was also in Italian. I made a mental note to look up that word later.

"What is it?" I was confused. Why did she have to make it so hard? Most girls would have stayed there in the first place. Then again, she wasn't like most girls.

"You have to sing for me." She grinned. Her eyes were fiery.

"Only if you sing with me." She raised her eyebrows.

"What song?"

"The one from choir." And we started to sing. She ended up siting back down as our voices filled the bathroom. I had remembered that song had an alto solo, so I could listen to her sing just by herself. She was marvelous. Better than I could ever be. Wow, was she so-- My phone started to buzz loudly, cutting her and my thoughts off. "You gotta rude phone there, tesoro."

"No kidding. It's just Presley. I'll call him back. Continue where you were." Her face became confused as she asked, "Who's Presley?"

"My boyfriend." Her expression changed, but it immediately went to neutral before I could analyze it.

"Oh. Maybe you should call him back. Lunch is almost over anyways." A moment ruined. Stupid Pres. Always ruining things. I couldn't blame him. However, Archer was right. I should at least let him know I was alive and still in the building. I knew he always worried about me. "I'll just text him. You haven't finished your part, so continue."

She looked at me, completely ignoring my previous statement, "Do you know where E103 is? That's my next class and I couldn't even find the cafeteria, so the day will probably be over by the time I find it."

I looked at my schedule. After lunch is math. In room E103. This'll be interesting. I looked over to her. "No, but it looks like we'll be looking for it together."

"And why is that?"

"I have math in E103 after lunch."

"Is that so? Well then, we should probably get on our way." We stood up and eventually found our way to math.

We walked in, the class pretty much empty. "Front or back?"

"It doesn't matter to me."

"Okay." She lead me to the back of the class and sat down. She motioned for me to sit next to her. Without thinking, I immediately sat in the seat next to hers. I asked, "What do you have next?"

"French. Then, study hall in E129." My eyes widened as she said this. Our afternoon was the same.

"Me too." Now her eyes widened. Before she could respond, the teacher started talking loudly.

"Good morning, class!" As abruptly as it started, the class ended. "Remember, pages 1-4 are for homework! See you tomorrow!"

We rushed into the hallway and started walking towards our French classroom. The hallway was surprisingly empty and quiet. "That class dragged." Her voice startled me, but it made me smile. "Yeah. I thought it was never going to end"

"I think the only good thing about that class is you." My face became warm. I looked up at her. She was looking straight ahead, her expression focused. "Right back at you." Was that a stupid thing to say? Oh well. What's done is done.

We found our way to French. We sat in the back again and I asked her a whole bunch of questions about her at-home life. She seemed hesitant telling me about her family. I learned her brother, Slater, and her were adopted by a gay couple when they were 7 and 5. I thought that was interesting. I was going to ask her about her life before them, but I decided not to. I figured that could be saved for a less public place.

Study hall was okay. We mostly did homework. Well, I tried to do homework, while Archer was speeding through hers. I had asked her a whole bunch of questions about my homework and, somehow, she knew all the answers.

We walked out of the school together. I quickly spotted Presley. My heart warmed, and my stomach churned. I felt bad for ignoring him pretty much the entire day. I said bye to Archer and went over to him.

"Hey." He turned around. Once he saw me, a huge smile spread across his face. He engulfed me in his big arms, and I thought he would never let me go. After he did, he said, "I missed seeing your pretty face."

"I missed seeing yours, beau garçon."

"It sucks that we don't have any classes together."

"Yeah." My phone buzzed. I looked at it.

Mom: Here in the parking lot! <3

"Hey, I have to go. My mom's here. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Definitely."

"Okay. Bye, amoureux." I hugged him one last time before kissing his cheek and walking away. My heart was aching for a reason I didn't know. I did like him. I was happy I had him. Wasn't I?