"So, are you guys like dating now or what?" Charlie asked in the car ride to college. Again, we didn't have a lesson at the same time but this time he was the one with the 9am class but I was growing accustomed to the lifts he gave me, so I decided to just come in earlier than needed.
"What? No, of course not," I replied maybe a little bit too defensively. "We're like barely even a thing. We're just talking."
"Ahh the talking stage. Let's see if you make it any further. I'm routing for you."
"I can get past any stage if I want to," I said this time maybe a little bit too confidently.
"Yeah yeah, sure. Oh, I wanted to ask actually, what are you doing at lunch time?"
"Sitting with Dahlia as usual in Cafe B," I replied referring to one out of the five cafeterias we had. Only two actual served proper lunches while the others all served things like sandwiches and paninis. Cafe B's specialty was subs where you can choose all your own fillings.
"Cool, why don't my friends and I come join you? If you're cool with that obvs," he suggested. Charlie wanted to come sit with me?
"Uhh, yeah sure, I'll tell Dahlia to get us a bigger table."
——
By the time lunch time came around, I'd had one class and spent all morning, until that class started, watching Brooklyn Nine Nine on my laptop.
I hadn't had History yet this week, so everyone stared a little too much when I walked in with my still healing black eye. With a seating plan and too many people in our college for me to actually know many people, I knew about two people in this class and those were just the two sat on either side of me. They always spent the whole lesson talking to people on the other sides of them though so unless the teacher asked me specifically a question, I barely talked at all.
"Alden, what would you say was the main cause of World War One?" Steven asked, my history teacher. Our college had a very casual policy in terms of clothing and teacher-student relationships. We could pretty much wear whatever we wanted as long as we weren't just shirtless, and we called all our teachers by the first name. I remember it took me a while to get used to not calling my teachers 'miss' or 'sir' and it always felt so embarrassing whenever I got it wrong.
Shit, okay I know this. "Umm I think I would argue that a series of international crises sort of escalated all the events that led to it, and that it wasn't just one main cause," I replied.
"Can you explain that?" Steven asked.
I'd been working on this at home while I hadn't been in college, so I knew exactly what to say. Kind of. "The Moroccan crisis led to Italy declaring war on the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan League was created afterwards leading to the Balkan Wars where Austria and Serbia's conflicts grew. The second Moroccan Crisis led to Germany getting more insecure in their position so they created the 1912 Army Bill but then that triggered an arms race."
I then went on to explain how I thought all of this started to destabilise European relations between the Great Powers with Germany also wanting to desperately prove themselves as a Great Power. "Then there was the July crisis because every decision just provoked and radicalised the crisis like Russia starting mobilising and then Germany demanding them to stop. Obviously, Russia refused leading to Germany declaring war against them and then against France. And then Germany invaded Belgium which brought the British in who declared war on Germany because of Belgium's neutrality, and then the world war began."
"Good, good," Steven said when my nervous rambling was over. "Make sure you have evidence to back all of that up. I like how you brought in the army bill. Well done."
"Thanks Steven."
For the rest of the lesson, I didn't open my mouth once. I'd pretty much used all me mental sanity to answer that one loaded question that I couldn't be bothered to actively participate anymore.
"Alden," Steven called at the end of the lesson. I was about to head straight to lunch, but Dahlia would just have to wait for me now, not that she couldn't handle that. Hopefully she got a table big enough for us and Charlie and his friends. "Can you stay behind for a minute."
Steven didn't actually look that much older than. He definitely hadn't hit his 30s yet, that was for sure.
"What's up?" I asked.
"You weren't here last week when I handed back those essays you all did. Here," he said opening his bag and pulling out my essay which he'd marked. I got an A. "It was good. You used some good evidence from the sources to make your points and backed it up with your own knowledge. Keep it up and I'm pretty confident you'll get an A in your actual exams."
"Really?" I asked unsure.
"Really."
"How would I get an A*?" I asked wanting to push myself further.
"Well, I think you could benefit with trying to think outside of the box a bit more. When the examiners are marking everyone's papers, they're probably going to read hundreds of people arguing the same exact thing. If you can bring in something a little more unique then they might be more impressed."
I took on board what Steven said and contemplated how I could do it. Maybe I should try and do some more reading. See if that generates any ideas or at least provides some extra knowledge I could use in my exams at the end of the year.
When Steven tried asking about my busted-up shape, I brushed it off like I'd been doing for everyone else who asked. I appreciated all the concern, I really did, but I was fine.
——
"Where have you been?" Dahlia asked when I finally joined her at lunch. Charlie and his friends had seemed to find her and were already sat at the table. To my surprise, so was Roman and his friends. Roman's usual table seemed to be pushed against a larger table that Dahlia had gotten for us and now we were one big group of people. I was not used to the eyes of so many people turning to look at me. Sure, it was like this in our children's home, but something about this was different, not necessarily in a bad way either.
"Uhh Steven was just giving me back an essay I did for history," I replied taking my seat in the only available one which happened to be in between Dahlia and Roman.
"How'd you do?" Roman asked.
Everyone seemed to have taken their attention off me and went back to their earlier chatter with the people around them. Dahlia seemed to be talking to the girls, Ellie and Naya. I was a little jealous in hoping they wouldn't steal my best friend away, but I was glad she was making more friends. She knew a lot of people, but she said she never felt like they were more than acquaintances. Maybe this time around she could finally get herself some girlfriends if she wanted in a platonic sense?
Charlie and his friends seemed to be talking to the other boys, Nate and Keaton. Arwyn was here but after a brief nod in acknowledgement, he turned to the conversation among the other boys. James and Ollie, were the other friends Charlie brought, but I'd only seen them a handful of times and didn't know them very well. Though they obviously knew me better than I would have liked.
"Oh, my essay?" I asked Roman for clarification. When he nodded, I told him what Steven had said to me.
"So basically, you're a smart one. That's good to know," he said smiling. I noticed Roman move his arm to the back on my chair and wondered if he did it on purpose because it was me or if it was just something he did with everyone. I also noticed Arwyn spare me a quick glance in my peripheral.
"Did you think I was stupid?" I teased.
"Course not."
We got into an easy conversation after that. We talked about our day, and he asked how I was healing up. At some point we all got into a debate about which of the cafeterias were better as Charlie and his boys usually sat in Cafe A. We won the argument of course, even though Cafe A served the main hot lunches like roasts every Friday, we had large glass windows as most of the walls in this cafeteria as it stood as a solitary building of its own among all the other separate buildings of our college. It made it feel more open despite being on the smaller side of all the cafeterias but at the same time felt cozy and warm because it was physically smaller.
"Dahlia you should totally come ice skating with us on Friday," Naya said to my best friend nearing the end of lunch when we'd all gone back to our private conversations. Roman and I had been teasing each other back and forth and I was trying to keep the butterflies in my stomach in check.
"Sure, if Alden comes with me," Dahlia replied to the girls.
"I'm not sure, my ribs are still a bit meh," I said.
"Oh, shit yeah," Dahlia said realising the current state of my body. "Never mind then I guess."
"I can come with," Roman suggested to the girls and me. "I'll make sure he doesn't fall," he said now moving his arm around my shoulder from the back of the chair and leaning into me.
"Alden?" Dahlia questioned.
"Yeah. Yeah alright," I said. Roman's arm felt warm around the back of my neck, and it felt nice.
"Alright. Perfect. No one else though. It's meant to be the girls and the gays," Ellie concluded while adding, "and the half gays and the girls that are gay," to the end to better include Dahlia and Roman. It made me stifle a little laugh I felt coming on.
——
"Hey!" Roman called from a little ways away. "Wait up." He did a little jog to catch up to me quicker. I was only stood by a tree near the car park as I waited for Charlie to get back from a lesson as he said he'd give me a ride home.
"Hey," I said giving Roman a warm smile as he approached.
"Hey," he repeated smiling back. "Uh, so my driving test is this afternoon."
"Yeah, I remember you saying last night." Ever since Roman and I decided to I guess 'talk', we'd started texting every night when we had nothing else to do. Roman had just started to watch the show 'You', after I told him about it, and he'd rant to me about how insane the show was every time things got crazy. Last night, I guess he couldn't get it all out on text so he'd ended up calling me and we'd talked over the phone for an hour; first about the show and then whatever the conversation went onto next.
"Yeah, like I said last night," he said blushing a little. I wonder what he was thinking about. "Well, if I pass, do you want a ride to the ice rink on Friday with the girls if mum's not using her car? I can pick Dahlia up as well. Ellie will drive Naya."
"Oh sure," I said. "I'd like that."
"Great."
I was so tempted to kiss him.
~~~~~~~~~
What do you guys think of the story too far? Also how's the pacing? Do you think it's too slow or too fast or maybe just right?
Tbh I didn't realise I was already on chapter 14 and I feel like certain things have happened faster in my other books but I also feel like it wouldn't make sense for those things to have happened now already in this one idk