Superheroes

Chapter Fourteen - Faith

                                           Chapter Fourteen – Faith

Eventually the pathetic sobbing had to end.

When I finished throwing a tantrum on the lawn, I stumbled into my History lesson half an hour late, mumbled an apology, and took my seat. My eyes were puffy and red enough for it to be glaringly obvious that I’d just spent the past thirty minutes crying like a child. Fortunately, the boys at Hawthorne were the kind of creatures that didn’t want to hear about your emotional issues. No one spoke to me, not even the teacher, who simply handed me the class worksheet and then left without a word.

Despite the location change, however, I still felt like hell. I could barely focus on the worksheet before me, rereading the first sentence ten times without ever understanding it. My mind kept latching onto that fateful meeting, playing pictures of their understanding faces over again and again, broken record style.

Mr. Wright just thought that I’d gone a bit mad.

In all honesty, I felt a bit mad, a killer headache setting in as the background noise blared in my ears like static on a TV. My bad mood was parasitic, spreading to everything. All of a sudden I realised just how much I despised my classmates, how god-awful the teacher was, and that even the chairs were shit. For a school that cost so much, they could at least afford to splurge on comfortable seating.    

I spent all three of the morning lessons in a sulk that grew progressively moody. It was the sort of bad mood that meant once you were in it you required serious bribery to get back out. By the time lunch came, I was almost too irate to worry, yet worry I did.

I wasn’t sure which idea scared me more: the possibility that Andrew wouldn’t show up, or the chance that he would. After my morning theatrics, even I in my sour mood felt more than a little ashamed. Storming out of offices had never really been my style before.

Edging around to the back of the toilets, I braced myself for either outcome. I turned the corner to find the grass empty.

Andrew was instead leant back against the toilet block wall, a cigarette pinched between his fingers. He didn’t notice me at first, so naturally I hesitated, momentarily paralysed. His attention was focused on the cigarette, his drags from it long and heady. Even in just the short time I watched him for, he kept fidgeting, leaning away from the wall before sighing and slumping back.

It wasn’t the world’s most reassuring sight, so I proceeded with caution, stepping round and watching him reproachfully. “H-hi,” I said in a small voice. Once again the whole storming out of the office ordeal came flooding back to me and I cringed internally, heat rising to my cheeks. So much for things no longer being awkward.

“Hey,” Andrew said with a bit too much perkiness, stepping away from the wall hastily, like he’d been bitten.  He dropped the cigarette, scrunching it into the grass underfoot before looking back at me. I took this as a good sign; At least he didn’t think badly enough of me to desire my asthma-induced death.

“Are you alright after…?” Andrew tailed off, making a meaningless hand gesture to try and finish his sentence. I understood all too well regardless.

“Fine. A-always thought Mr. Wr-Wright was kind of a p-prick anyway,” I said with as much casual disinterest as possible, going so far as too shrug. God, I was acting like Andrew. Next I’d be smoking and pulling creepy false smiles all the time.

“Yeah,” Andrew agreed with a shaky laugh and a grin. He dropped his eyes back to the grass and gave his fallen cigarette another push with his foot.

The silence that followed would have killed weaker men. I was tempted just to slip away then and accept that things were going to be eternally too tense between us. For some reason, however, I decided to try and patch things over.