Not Her

CHAPTER 5

Short, not satisfying. If it was only a bit longer.

The break was over.

Here I am again, sitting at the back of the class alone at eight am. All the students are here except for him. Why is he late? He is so getting in trouble because of all this absence. Especially on the first day after the break. He lives literally five minutes away. Is he still sleeping or something? Why I'm I even thinking about it?

I was all shaking and biting my nails nervously staring at the classroom door. He entered later holding a tissue at his nose. Raged with anger, dirty clothes and messy hair.

What the hell happened?

'You're fifteen minutes late young man,' the teacher said before raising her eyes from the book. 'Oh, Jordan! Do you want to see the nurse?'

That made all the students stare at his direction.

'No need,' he answered, sitting down in the back, like if getting into class bleeding was the most normal thing ever. All the students were fixing him, murmuring.

'You are sure?' the prof repeated. Jordan nodded at him giving a black look to everybody who was staring. Meanwhile, I was trembling in my chair and he didn't even glance at my direction.

'Ok everyone, open up your books.'

As the bell rang, Jordan went to the basketball field instead of going to the next classroom, he sat on a chair in the middle of the stadium alone.

I stood away watching him, but not for long. Because this time I gathered all my courage and decided to go talk to him. I don't care about his reaction; he might push me away or tell me to stay out of his fucking business. Or hopefully, he is going to open up to me and tell me what's wrong. I can't know if I don't try.

I walked towards him and took the seat next to his. He noticed me but kept his head down.

'You can talk to me; I'm a good listener,' I said in the most convenient way possible.

He looked at me and smiled, 'it's no big deal.'

His lips were still bleeding; his eyes were red and sad but he put that little smile on his face that made me feel better. Even though I was the one who was supposed to make him feel better.

His tone made it seems like I could never make him say anything no matter how hard I would try. So I should forget the idea of knowing what happened and just start a freaking conversation. Which is rocket science for me, considering my whack social skills.

I said the first thing that came into my mind 'Would you like to take revenge after school? I'm opened for a street fight; I have some karate techniques you know.'

What the fuck was that? This is the last time I'll talk to anyone. ever again.

He looked at me as if I were the most bizarre human ever. I swallowed my tongue ready to fuck off. But all of a sudden he burst into laughter making me tremble...

His eyes were shining towards mine as I laughed too relieved that he got my poor sense of humor. It made somebody's day slightly better. And that somebody mattered.

'Yes I'm totally in, or we could go like for a dance battle or something,' he said laughing.

'We would totally win that, thanks to my awesome dance moves.' I added sarcastically. 'I don't have any.'

We both had chuckled before the heavy silence came back.

I couldn't ignore his lips, he had a small cut in the bottom one, it started bleeding again. 'Let me try,' I said taking a tissue off my pocket and putting it softly on the side of his lip.