Banter || Hemmings

Ju Ni

L U K E 

I did in fact turn up to school on Monday. I wasn’t going to fake sick, and my mum would know anyway. The group seemed surprised to see me, but I played it as if I was still a little worn down. 

“I see you getting laid changes your will to hit on younger girls,” Ashlynn said and opened her locker. 

“I see you getting laid hasn’t changed your mood. And you still look like shit,” that was a lie. 

Ashlynn was in fact looking amazing. The way she was wearing her hair made her look even more beautiful. It took everything in me not to kiss her there and then but I somehow managed. 

“Luke,” Ashton said and clicked his fingers in front of my face. 

“What?” I asked then looked at him. 

“I asked you what you were staring at,” he repeated. 

I looked behind him and saw that Ashlynn had left, “nothing,” I answered. 

“You ok mate? You still seem a bit off. Do you need to to go sick bay?” Michael asked and pressed the back of his hand against my forehead. 

“I’m fine guys,” I said then opened my locker. 

The bell rang shortly after so we all got to form as quickly as possible. I rubbed my face with both my hands tiredly then answered when the teacher called my name. When we were let out to go to our first class there was a note taped to the door saying we needed to go to another classroom. When our class got there we saw there was already another class there. And that’s when I saw her. 

“Ah, Mrs Fallon’s class. Sorry for the short notice but she needed to prepare a few things for your text tomorrow so I said I’d take you guys. Luckily for you, today we’re just doing presentations so just take a seat and listen,” she said then sat in the middle desk in the front row. 

Most of us sat at the back of the room and I could see Ashlynn perfectly from where I was sitting. And oddly enough she was first up. We hadn’t been filed in on what the presentations were about but we just went along with it. 

“Love. It’s something we as human being crave. Everyone believes the worst thing about love is when it ends. The pain…the heartache. But everyone has it all wrong. The worst part about love is when it’s all over and done with, and you’re left there for six months after. You have to sit there and pretend. Pretend that you don’t love that person anymore, pretend that you don’t miss them. And it hurts. It hurts to just watch as they don’t miss you, don’t love you and love someone else. But once that six months is over you feel fine. Like you’re ready to move on. 

So you decide to do just that…move on. And you find the perfect person. They’re perfect in your eyes and you just want to be with them so bad it hurts just thinking about it. So you lay all your cards out on the table; put everything on the line. But even their rejection is so perfect. It’s sweet and they remind you just why you like them. But all you can do is play it off. You act like it doesn’t hurt just so they don’t feel bad for you. So after a while of hurting, you start to feel better. You start to get over it. But then one day your feelings slam into you like a freight train. 

So you try again, hoping for a different result. And when you think you’re finally getting somewhere they put you back where you belong, in the friend zone. And as we all know, the friend zone is not the best place to be. And it hurts more now because they gave you the impression you were finally getting somewhere. And you’ve cried over this person once before. And after that night you promised yourself you’d never cry over them again. But one night you just can’t help it. You lay there awake and just imagine why you like them, why you think they don’t like you and just list all your flaws in your head,” she said then we could all see her start to cry.