The days dragged by as I looked for Hunter everyday in school. I looked for him in the cafeteria, the corridors. I looked around every corner waiting for him to arrive. For days and weeks I had carried his jacket around with the pure intention of giving it back.
The day that he got back I was ready to confront him; ready to ask him where he had been, and why he hadn't been in school.
Truth be told, I had missed him.
I was sat on the cafeteria bench on Monday morning. Early again; so that I missed the chaos of the late bell. I was sat with my book in front of me and my headphones in my ears; ready to get lost in literature.
Sat two benches along from me was a jazz band musician. He had sheet music lying everywhere as he frantically tried to find a melody on his French Horn. Every so often I would look over at him to see him panicking even more as he scribbled notes in a book and made notations on each piece of paper. How he kept track of what paper came where; I do not know.
It shocked me when someone walked in front of me.
"'The Great Gatsby', good choice." Hunter said as he sat down opposite me.
I was lost for words. His hair was shrivelled and his clothes creased. Deep, red bags hung under his eyes as if he hadn't slept in weeks. They were puffy as if he had been crying for days on end. He leant his arms on the table and I saw his knuckles. They had been bleeding, repeatedly and it made me wonder what had happened to him. He wasn't the sad boy who had given me that jacket weeks ago. His eyes stared at me; a gentle smile tugging at his lips even though his eyes shimmered with previous tears.
"Spoiler alert; it's all a dream." He said as he took Grandma Nora's bookmark in his hands and looked at it.
I gasped as he turned the bookmark over in his hands. He looked at me as I tried to grab it out of his hands. I pulled it from his fingers, smoothing it back out again.
I looked back over at Hunter. "Sorry." He said referring to the bookmark. "Is it important?"
I just nodded putting it safely back in my book and placing the book in my bag. Clearly, I was not getting much further in the book today.
I looked back up at Hunter. The top of his hair was pulled back into a messy bun while the bottom half hung just above his shoulders. He wore his signature high top converse and a black denim shirt over a white t-shirt. His chain hung around his neck, again buried inside his t-shirt neckline.
"See anything you like?" He said, his left eyebrow rose taunting me. It was evident he had gotten quite good at hiding his emotions behind a mask.
I scrunched up my nose and shook my head mocking disgust.
His face lit up with a small laugh. His eyes flickered and his smiled etched its way ever so slightly further up his face.
His smile was contagious. Even a small one.
He shook his head and looked away from me. When he looked back at me he had composed himself. The smile was replaced by a much more serious tone.
"So how long have you been carrying that around?" He said pointing to his jacket laying on the bench beside me. I rolled my eyes and handed it back to him.
He shook his head and looked over at something through the window behind me. "It's yours. Keep it." He said.
I shook my head profusely. I couldn't keep it.
"Seriously, it looked much better on you than me anyway." He said still looking out through the window. It was as if he didn't want to look at me.
I held out the jacket in front of him. I could not keep this jacket.
"I'm not taking it back." He said a smile forming on his face. My face dropped into deadpan.
I pulled my phone out and typed into and showed it to him.
"You let me carry it around for weeks to give it to me in the end? Unbelievable." He read out loud. He laughed once he had finished reading.
As he laughed he looked down to his hands. As if seeing the half-healed wounds on his knuckles for the first time, he ran his fingers over them. When he looked back up at me all traces of laughter had left.
"I should go the bell's about to ring and I was supposed to be somewhere before first period." He said standing up from the bench. He slung his bag over his shoulder and picked up the book sat next to him.
Then he looked at me. Properly looked at me. His eyes softened slightly as he looked at my face. And then with a small wave, he turned over his left shoulder and walked out of the cafeteria.
As I watched him leave, I pulled the jacket over my legs. The leather was cold against my trousers. I held the collar between my fingers. There was a small piece of red material that looked as if it had been sewn onto it. There seemed to be something written on it, but the material was old and faded and you could no longer decipher what it said.
As I looked to my left, I saw the French Horn guy jump up to leave, looking up o the small alarm bell on the wall. He hurriedly packed his sheet music into a pile with one hand and picked up his French Horn and jacket with the other.
I put the earphones back in my ears, picked up my book and bag. I placed the jacket over my arm and walked out of the cafeteria.
The corridor was packed, swarming with high schoolers as they went about their daily business. Friends waved across the corridor and ran to say hello before the morning classes started. Kids, hidden by lockers, dug through in search of their textbooks. Teachers stood by, shouting and pointing and pulling phones out of passing student's hands.
As I walked down the corridor, I could see posters advertising the upcoming charity game. Posters that contained endless pictures of the whole team, smiling in front of the field with their arms around each other. I could see the excitement behind their eyes, even in a still picture. The Coach had arranged a charity game where our school would compete against the local school and raise as much money as possible to help both get better facilities. But not only that, I've been told, multiple times by Sammy, that it was big game of the 'non-league' season. Local scouts attended and pretty much everyone turned up to watch. It sounded like chaos.
The crowded corridors started to slowly disperse, doors to classrooms six feet away from each other opening and closing around the students as they chatted and walked into the room.
I ran to my first classroom of the day. Mr Drew was, as usual, sat at his desk huddled over his books and his mop of hair looked, if possible, even more dishevelled ever day. His eyes locked with mine and I waved at him. He gave me a small smile and went back to his book in front of him.
I made my way over to my usual seat; left aisle, middle row. Just close enough for me to lip read, but far enough to not have any distractions. Alice had picked the seat back on that fateful first day and although I had stayed put, she had moved. It seemed that Justin liked having his girlfriend sat next to him in every class.
A head of red hair caught my attention. The curly hairdo bobbed up and down as she walked, pushing through the students in her way. Alice and I had rarely spoken for a while. She used to always smile at me when she saw me, and I would always wave, but that very quickly stopped. It hurt that we weren't as close as we were those beginning months. I hadn't told her about Lucas, and I wasn't even sure if she would care anymore.
She made her way over to the back row. My eyes stayed forwards, her's stayed back. No doubt she would be joined by her idiotic boyfriend.
As if he had been summoned by the mere thought of his name, he walked through the door, chatting over his shoulder to the remainder of his idiotic entourage. Mr Drew ushered the boys to take their seats
Justin brushed past me, purposefully knocking my arm so that my books would fall to the ground. I looked up at him, annoyance evident on my face
"Sorry, Mute." He said, a cruel grin spreading on his face as he looked me up and down. Then for good measure, he kicked my books so that it meant I would have to leave my seat to pick them up.
That was also a new development. Not only had he taken my best friend away, but had picked up on the gossip heading around the school.
Sammy had gotten quite popular over the course of the last couple of months, due to their newest win. Sammy had led the team to victory; as I knew he always would. His popularity had surrounded his new special talent. However, Sammy's new found popularity had pushed his spotlight onto his very un-special twin sister. Yet again, I was the weird, silent sister; the sister that never spoke and always had her head in a book. The sister that kept herself to herself. The weird girl that had dismissed the 'Populars' to sit in a cafeteria on her own
I think it's fair to say that the 'Populars' didn't take that too well.
I picked up my books and sat back down in my seat. I could feel Justin's eyes burning into the back of my head, but I didn't dare look. I didn't want to give him the ammunition or the satisfaction.
So instead I focused my attention on Mr Drew and learning all about the French Revolution.
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Sammy had lunch time practice and Hailey had gone to watch, so I was left by myself in the cafeteria. Again. Not that I minded.
I pulled 'The Great Gatsby' out of my bag and opened it up to the page marked. I placed my earphones in my ears and began to read, every now and then stopping to eat some fries.
I had not long been reading when I felt my earphones being ripped away from my ears and the book pushed out of my hands and down to the floor. I looked up at the culprit.
Justin.
He stood there with a smug grin on his face. "Whoops. Sorry. I guess my hands slipped." He said as he laughed around at his entourage behind him.
Everyone was staring. People from all around the cafeteria had stopped to stare at what would happen next.
With anger bubbling in my chest, I stood up. I was ready to tear Justin limb from limb. He could not treat me this way.
"Oooh. What're you going to do? Hit me with some harsh words?" Justin sneered, gaining laughs from everyone around him. "Oh yeah, that's right. You can't talk."
I looked around at the people next to me. My fist clenched; I could feel my nails digging into the palms of my hands.
"Come on, Mute. Give it your best shot." Justin said, goading the audience around him into sneering with him.
I looked over at 'The Popular Table' and caught eyes with Alice. She looked at me; remorse written all over her face. But she stayed silent. She just watched.
I gave her a look as if to ask her if she would say anything. Tell them that I'm so much more than the 'silent sister' or the 'mute'.
But she did nothing. As I knew she would.
She turned her head to the side as if it was too much for her watch.
I looked back over at Justin; a full-fledged smile plastered over his face. I released the tension in my fists. I calmed myself down. And I did the one thing that I never expected.
I smiled.
I picked up my book and set it straight on the table in front of me. I put in my discarded earphones and turned back around, completely dismissing Justin and his band of baboons. I began to read.
I could feel the eyes on me slowly start to drift away. Justin, after a minute of me ignoring him, gave up and walked back to his table. Not before knocking over my lunch tray and shouting a few words in my face that I didn't have the energy to read.
Finally I was alone again. But not for long.
A figure slid themselves into the seat opposite me. I glanced up and was greeted by the green eyes I had grown accustomed to. He intertwined his fingers and rested them on the table in front of him. His black hair was slightly wet and it looked as if he had been out in the rain.
"What a group of absolute imbeciles." Hunter said, staring over at Justin and his friends. I quickly threw a glance in their direction. Justin had his arm protectively wrapped around Alice. He was telling her a story, but she was sat watching me.
Her eyes met mine. We spent a minute just looking at each other; letting this new relationship between us sink in.
Then I looked down and back at Hunter. He had made himself comfortable opposite me. He had placed his feet up on the seat next to me and was watching me intensely.
"Want to get out of here?" he said so casually I almost missed it.
With a quick glance over my shoulder, and knowing that Alice was still watching, I gave Hunter a look as if to say 'I thought you'd never ask'. I picked up my books and bag, pulled Hunter's jacket over my shoulders as he walked around to meet me.
And in that moment, I trusted him. For some crazy reason, I knew going with him was the right thing to do. I felt as if nothing could hurt me. Not Alice, not the hundreds of students looking at me as if I were a piece of meat. And not even Justin and his friends.
I let him lead me away; out through the school corridors and I didn't stop him when he pulled me out of the school gates.