room 207 | shyland ✓

twenty

he squeezed my shoulder and we sat down at our table in the corner of the lunch hall. the blonde leant over to kiss andrew's cheek and i fiddled with the sleeve of my shirt.

"did you get my texts?" the red head asked, scanning me with sympathetic and worried eyes.

i shook my head. "no. my mom's taken my phone, laptop, tv, everything." i admitted, staring at the table and not meeting his gaze. he muttered a quiet 'oh' in reply.

"so, he was the mystery person you've liked for two years?" garrett probed and my eyes glossed over as i nodded, not feeling the need to say anything back. "did you... did you actually sleep with him and everything? what's going to happen now?"

i blushed, feeling my stomach flip over in sadness. "if you don't mind, garrett, please can we change the subject?" i gently asked and he apologised, turning red; this was how the rest of the morning went.

dwelling over his question, i soon come to realise that i had absolutely no idea. there was no possibility whatsoever that whatever shane and i had could go back to normal after last weekend. every aspect of the situation had been flipped on its head and somehow, amongst it all, i was out of my depth and drowning.

it was in math class when things took a turn for the worst, and since this was one of the few periods in my schedule where garrett was not in my class, the vulnerability of my weaknesses were only amplified. i was quite comfortably keeping to myself at the back of the classroom and slowly working through the textbook pages we'd been assigned when the teacher excused herself to go to the photocopier and the class was left alone.

my heart skipped for half a second when i felt a body slide into the empty chair next to mine and i hastily looked up, locking eyes with sam anderson. i vaguely knew him as my brother's fellow teammate, and as a bit of an asshole to the younger kids in the school, but we'd never actually interacted. there could only be one reason for him choosing today as our first conversation, and that made me beg the floor to swallow me up.

"your brother's been telling everyone a few little stories..." he commented loudly, causing several heads to turn. a few snickers felt like a slap to the face. i didn't respond, or even look up, instead carrying on scribbling intently in my maths book. i wasn't even answering the question in front of me anymore, just writing the first numbers that came to mind. "who knew ryland adams was into older men." sam continued and my grip on my pencil tightened.

"leave it, sam." a girl butted in and my head jerked up to see a familiar blonde. it took my mind a few seconds to recall her name, but i soon realised it was casey, the senior who worked behind the scenes in the school plays that shane had introduced me to a few months ago. both sam and casey were the only seniors who had been held back a year for maths, but i'd never realised she was in my class until now.

"i wonder what dawson sees in you..." sam taunted with a smirk, leaning closer to me. "he must have some kind of daddy issues to be interested, or perhaps the fact that you're so short and skinny means that he can just pretend you're a girl when he closes his eyes."

i thought of the night shane had confessed everything about his father, and how broken and destroyed he had felt when cancer had taken his dad away. my fists curled up as a few more ripples of laughter floated across the room and i finally brought my eyes back up to meet his.

"shut up." i said quietly, watching as he unscrewed the lid of his bottle and took a sip of water. why was the teacher taking so long to photocopy just a few pieces of paper?

sam laughed, leaning back in his chair. "i bet he makes you beg for it, doesn't he—"

"sam, seriously, stop. he's only a kid! leave him." casey warned and the smirk on his face only grew.