The Boy In The Back (Muke)

5

I walked into another unfamiliar classroom for the eighth time that day, and the teacher told me to just sit wherever. Once everybody was seated and there was less than one minute before the bell that started class, I chose a seat close to the front. It was one of the only few open.

Michael was in there, as well. That made five out of right classes I had with him. My first two, the two before lunch, and my last class of the day.

Eventually, the bell rang. The teacher closed the door before turning to us.

"Ready to start?" He questioned. He received murmurs and groans as a collective response from the class.

"We're taking a quiz today. Don't worry, it isn't too difficult. Not if you've paid any attention at all in my class this last month. Luke, just do your best, alright?" He turned to me.

"Okay." I replied. He nodded before grabbing a stack of packets. Each packet had three pages, I realized once one was placed on my desk. I took a pencil out of my sparkly pencil case and began doing the first equation.

This is so simple, I thought. I loved math, but it likely wouldn't be difficult even if I hated it. A couple of kids around me complained about the packet's size, which didn't really do any good. Why bother complaining about it if you had to do it anyway? It only made things worse in my opinion.

I finished the first page faster than most of the kids that surrounded me, and turned it to reveal a page full of graphs an functions.

It wasn't long until I had the entire quiz completed, though I was sure I got a few wrong. I didn't know how to do the last six, so I just guessed on them. They were wrong, but at least I tried.

I began to work on the English homework I had been assigned while I waited for everybody else to finish. However, the bell rang before everyone was done. At least five people still had blank problems by the end of the class period.

When I got home, I almost immediately fell asleep.

The next morning, Michael sat next to me again. The same girls that had said something about him the previous day whispered to each other and looked at him. Why did they care so much about him coming to school? That's what students do. Yet, they acted like it was such a big deal. Like a miracle or something.

"Are you okay, Michael?" I softly asked the boy next to me. He peeked at me for a moment, and it seemed as if he was debating on ignoring me or speaking to me.

He shrugged before putting his head back down.

"I hope everything's okay." I sighed.

"Why do you care?" He growled at me.

I frowned at his words.

"I- I don't know. I care about everyone. You've seemed upset since yesterday. I figured I'd check." I explained.

"Well, don't worry about me." He said.

"Why not?" I challenged. I refused to let him get away that easily.

"Because I don't matter to you. You don't even know me." He responded. That was true, that I didn't know him, but I wanted to. He seemed like a good person.

"I just wanted to see if you were okay." I replied, unsure of what to say.

"Well, I'm fine." He snapped before burying his face in his arms again.

I didn't say anything else, afraid that he'd snap again or even move away from me. I didn't want either of those to happen, so I kept my mouth shut.

Though Ashton and Calum had warned me to avoid Michael, I couldn't take them seriously. The only thing that was actually wrong with Michael was that he was a bit snappy with me, but that's only because I was pushing him to talk to me. He really wasn't bad at all. Not from what I knew, anyway.

The bell rang and our teacher walked in, closing the door loudly behind her. The action sent a loud boom throughout the room, which made most of us, including Michael, jump.

"Okay, class, let's start." She sighed. Michael groaned quietly at her sentence.

She began lecturing about the PowerPoint she had put together, but only got about ten minutes in before Michael deeply sighed and stood up.

"Nobody cares!" He exclaimed.

Everybody's eyes, including mine, were on him. Had he really just done that!?

With that, he walked out of the classroom.