Heart Strings <3 ~Complete

Heart Strings Chapter Seven

Mr. and Mrs. Woods had been considering a divorce for almost a year when Adam ‘came out’ of the ‘dark, dark closet’ as he liked to call it. Since then, they stopped hiding it. Mr. Woods couldn’t take the pressure. They argued more frequently, louder. Sometimes things got broken and Tabby had to stay at my house for 3 days. Adam was missing for almost a week. It was a hard time for all of them. Their parents were trying to suppress their arguments but sometimes they still erupted and there was nothing Tabby and Adam could do but leave them to it.

‘I, we, don’t feel up to going back home straight away after school so, we probably won’t catch the bus with you guys after school. We’ll just walk so it takes longer. Just to give them time, and stuff.’ Tabby sighed. Adam looked down.

‘Oh. Well, you guys could come over to my house for a while if you’d like...?’ I offered.

‘That would be great!’ Adam smiled, his eyes still slightly pained. Adam was so sweet. Whenever he was upset, even I felt like I could cry.

‘Any ways, what happened yesterday with the band thing? Adam doesn’t know anything about it yet because he was ill yesterday, remember.’ Tabby wanted to know. I acknowledged the ever-so-subtle change of subject and filled them in with all the details of the day before, earning many more excited ‘oohs.’

‘If you are going to sing with them, I could take some photo’s again.’ Adam offered.

G’aww. I loved my friends. They were like the best books in the bookshop. ‘And can I just add, you and Nathan sound totally compatible! No offence to Nick or anything.’

Tabby and Sammie laughed while Adam kept a completely innocent face on.

Ugh.

I rolled my eyes; sometimes.

The bell rang, signifying the beginning of registration but Mrs. McLeod was nowhere to be seen.

There I was sitting impatiently at my desk, waiting for Nathan to come sit down when I happened to notice him at the back of the room with a group of other guys who had to be the Horn boys as Ian was there too.

I studied Nathan for a second. Once again, his hair was in an incredibly neat mess. His uniform was also similar to yesterday. Completely ruffled, blazer sleeves rolled up, tie hanging stylishly out of place, shirt un-tucked and trousers almost too low. His shoulder bag was on the floor by his strangely unscathed trainers. They looked really expensive too. I looked down at my own black plimsolls. I would never get shoes that expensive. I'd break or lose them in the first week of receiving them.

I got out of my seat and made my way to Aimee who was sitting the closest to me and pointed the group out subtly.

‘Wow...’ she stared at them. ‘Those are the Horn boys? Two of them are in my English class!! And I just remembered, Nathan is in my maths class too.’

‘Really!?’

‘Yeah! It’s strange how we’ve barely noticed them before.’

‘Totally,’ I agreed. We watched them, engrossed. It was like mating time at the zoo.

Wait, no...

'By the way, did you call me yesterday? Couldn’t call back, out of credit.' she said.

'Yeah, kind of. Long story,' I sighed heavily. I wanted to keep Nick out of my head for a while. We focused on the boys.

They seemed to be talking about something rude if their hand gestures were anything to go by. Unfortunately, their actions were pretty hilarious and as I’m okay at the lip reading thing, we found ourselves laughing whenever they were.