Walker's POV
The school was closed for one week for repairs. The damage wasn't severe; mostly the room that the laptop was in and the hallway by the bathroom were damaged. The smoke was the biggest problem from that fire.
There were no other injuries besides Aaliyah and I. Her parents thanked me whenever they had the chance. I was a hero to them.
After the week of repairs was over, I went back to school on Monday. I was still on crutches but was excited to get out of the house after lying around all week tending to my leg. I was also excited to give Aaliyah the biggest hug when I saw her again.
As I hobbled into the school on my crutches, I heard rumors about how I injured my leg had already started.
"I heard his whole leg fell off, and he has a prosthetic leg."
"Nothing happened. He's faking it."
"He saved that one girl. What's her name? Aaliyah?"
"I heard that the burn was so bad you could see the bone."
I ignored the comments about me and went as fast as I could on crutches to the Algebra room. I really wanted to see Aaliyah.
I got my stuff out, but I didn't see Aaliyah's things by her locker. She probably just wasn't here yet.
Eva walked in. "Walker," she said to get my attention. "Aaliyah said to tell you that she's not gonna be here today. She's taking an off day. She was going to text you, but she thought you would be at school already."
My heart dropped. "Okay, thanks," I replied, trying to seem unfazed. I wasn't. I'd never needed a hug from her more. Today was going to be an awful day.
The day inched by as slow as it could possibly go. Everyone I knew was asking me random questions about my leg, but I brushed them off. The only thing I could think about was Aaliyah.
During literature, I decided to sneak my phone into the bathroom to try to call her. I shut the door to one of the stalls and dialed her number, praying that she would pick up.
She did right away, and I was so grateful to hear her voice.
"Aren't you at school?" She asked.
"Yes," I replied. "I snuck my phone into the bathroom so I could call you."
"You little rebel," she teased.
"Why weren't you at school today?" I asked. "I mean, Eva told me you were taking a rest day, but why?"
"I didn't really want to go back into that school right away," she admitted.
"Oh yeah, that's fair," I replied. "I miss you, though."
"I miss you too." I practically melted at those words. "I'll probably be there tomorrow."
"Okay, good."
"Anything important happen?"
"Nah, nothing really. We haven't taken many notes. All the teachers are going over fire drills again."
"Those drills are dumb. No one's gonna get into a single file line and walk out one by one," she grumbled. "If I had tried to go slow, I would've been in the flames."
"Thank you for not listening to the fire drills," I said in a joking way.
"Ha, you're welcome. Also, I know I've told you this about a million times, but thank you for coming to get me."
"And I told you a million times, I would do it over and over again if I had to."
"You're the best."
"So are you."
I heard someone come in the bathroom, so I rapidly hung up. I texted her why I had to leave and left the bathroom stall.
The person who had walked in was Adam. I groaned when I saw him.
"Dang, what did I do?" He asked, referring to the groan I had just uttered.
"I was calling Aaliyah," I told him, showing him the phone I was stuffing in my pocket. "If I had known it was you, I wouldn't have hung up."
"Awww, you were calling Aaliyah?" My best friend teased.
"Don't act like you don't do the exact same thing every time Eva's absent," I shot back.
"Yeah, but the thing is, Eva's my girlfriend. You and Aaliyah aren't dating. Yet."
"Can I just call her and have it not be a thing? We're just friends."
"Aaliyah's my friend, and I wasn't just calling her, and I don't give her hugs every day."
"You have a girlfriend."
"Right, bad analogy," Adam paused for a second, thinking. "Think about Trevor. He's friends with Aaliyah, and he doesn't call her or give her hugs every day."
"Aaliyah's closer to me than she is to Trevor."
"In what way?"
"Screw you, Adam," I groaned, heading in the direction of the bathroom exit.
"Walker, wait," Adam stopped me. "You don't need to keep lying to me. I know you like her."
I hesitated. "Okay, fine, maybe I do like her," I gave in.
"I knew it. I'm telling Eva," he snickered.
"No! Adam, I swear to God you'd better not tell anyone," I told him firmly. "I mean it."
"Okay, okay. I won't tell anyone as long as you promise me you'll tell her soon."
"She doesn't like me back."
"Dude, are you blind?" Adam said, shocked. "The way that she hugged you in the waiting room last week. She likes you."
"Maybe..."
"Now, do you promise?"
"I promise," I said in a whiny tone.
"Alright. And I promise that I won't tell Eva and she'll find out from Aaliyah when you tell her how you feel." With that, Adam ended our conversation.
With my phone safely secured in my pocket, I hobbled back to class with my crutches. I had fallen into a predicament. Aaliyah would find out that I liked her no matter what I did. She would either learn from me or from Adam and Eva. I would rather her find put from me, but I just didn't know how to tell her.
Aaliyah's POV
On Tuesday morning, I went back to school. I didn't go the day before because the school had some trauma connected with it after the lock-in. I wasn't ready yesterday, but I was today.
I really wanted to see Walker. He had snuck his phone into the bathroom, which was risky. That wasn't even the most that he did. He risked his whole life for me. He did that all for me.
When I walked through the hallway, I tried not to look at the part of the hall that was right outside the bathroom, where I had passed out just over a week ago. In that hall, Walker had gotten a third-degree burn when he saved my life.
I walked into the Algebra classroom, and it didn't seem like Walker was there yet. Eva and Adam were, though.
"Hi Aaliyah," she said, giving me a hug. Eva didn't hug me a lot, but I didn't blame her for doing it now.
"Hi," I said. "Walker's not here yet, is he?"
"Nope," she answered, letting go of me. "You like him more than me?"
I knew she was joking, but I didn't want her to think she didn't mean anything to me. "You and Walker are my two favorite people. You're equal."
"Except one of us saved your life, and the other didn't," Eva said. I couldn't tell if she was actually hurt or not, but I chose to leave it at that.
"It's okay Eva," Adam said. "I like you more than Walker."
Eva blushed and hit his arm playfully. From what I could see, Eva's love language was teasing.
I took my stuff out of my backpack and placed it on the desk when I heard a familiar voice.
"Aaliyah."
I looked up to see him.
"Walker."
It felt like the whole world melted away, and so did everyone in the room, and it was only me and Walker.
He limped over to me and attempted to hug me with his crutches but was unsuccessful. He simply tossed them aside and balanced on one leg as his arms enveloped my waist. I reached up, and mine slipped around his shoulders. His cheek rested on the top of my head. We held each other for a moment.
"I missed you," I muttered, only loud enough so he could hear.
"I missed you too," he murmured into the top of my head.
He let go of me but grabbed one of my hands. Still balancing on his good leg, he held my hand over my head and spun me around. I got butterflies immediately, giggling as I spun. When he was done, he held me to his chest once more.
We broke apart eventually, and I fell back into reality. All of our friends were trying their best to ignore us, but they weren't being subtle about sneaking peaks.
I noticed Adam raised his eyebrows at Walker. They seemed to be having some sort of secret conversation because Walker dragged his hand quickly in front of his neck, giving Adam a signal to cut it out.
"What was that about?" Eva and I said in unison. We had both seen what just happened.
"Nothing," Adam and Walker said at the same time as well.
Eva raised her eyebrows at her boyfriend, who raised his back at her. However, both of us dropped it, and the four of us headed over to chemistry.
We had a test in chemistry coming up, and when we do, Mrs. Niles lets us work in groups for our review packets. However, she said we could have a maximum of four people per group. My group ended up being me, Walker, Eva, and Adam.
I sat next to Walker and across from Eva, and Adam was next to her. We got out our packets to make it seem like we were doing work, but we knew we wouldn't get anything done.
"So," Walker began, speaking to Adam and Eva. "Fill us in on how everything is going with you guys." He sat in an amusing way, with his elbows on the table and his hands propping up the sides of his face.
"I mean, you both know mostly how it's been going," Adam said.
"Yeah, I've told Aaliyah all the important stuff," Eva added.
I sighed. "So, no kiss?"
"And no I love you?" Walker asked.
They both shook their heads.
"It's only been about two months," Adam said. "It's too early for that."
Eva was looking at him and smiling in agreement. I couldn't help but smile too. Parker had said I love you within the first month. Seeing someone who was as much of a green flag as Adam was must've been a breath of fresh air for her.
Mrs. Niles strolled by to see how we were doing. We quickly made it look like we were working until she was out of earshot and continued our conversation.
"So how about you two?" Adam asked.
"No kiss? No I love you?" Eva inquired, smirking.
"You guys can't let this go," I sighed, but also noticed Adam looking at Walker with the same raised eyebrows he had earlier. Eva evidently didn't know what was going on with the two of them either because she hit Adam's shoulder affectionately.
"Stop raising your eyebrows like that if you're not gonna tell me what it means!" She exclaimed.
"I'll tell you later," he told her.
"No, Adam, you won't," Walker said seriously. He wasn't messing around.
"What the hell is going on with you two?" Eva demanded.
"You both are acting super weird," I agreed.
"You'll find out soon enough," Adam said, smirking at me.
Walker reached over and pushed him lightly. "You just can't shut up, Adam, can you," he hissed.
Mrs. Niles came over at that very second and interrupted our interrogation of the boys.
Adam was up to something. It was obvious, and it looked like it also had something to do with Walker. Eva didn't know, and Adam told her practically everything. It must be something super bad or just a lot of tea. I needed to figure out what was going on as soon as possible.