"Do you want to revise for the maths test with me during lunch? I think I'll definitely need it" Ella said while walking next to me in one of her usual dresses.
"Uh, I don't think I can today, I'm sorry" I replied as we entered the cafeteria.
"What? Why's that?" She asked, half-outraged by the fact that I was telling her no, since it happened rarely.
"I'm busy with some friends?" I said, a hint of hesitation in my voice, not wanting to tell her the truth. Most of all, because I was quite sure she would ask to come with, and given the already embarrassing situation, I didn't want anyone to come witness my awkwardness.
She gave me a weird glance. "You don't have any friends besides me, Sierra."
I sighed. "Alright. I was paired up with a partner for an art project, I need to take some pictures of him. That's just it."
"Oh, it's a him?" She asked excitedly, "Is he hot?"
I rolled my eyes at her words, hesitating a bit before replying. "He's Harry Styles."
"Holy mother of god" she replied, "No fucking way you got paired with the Harry Styles. Well good luck with him, he's a prick. And before you start begging me to come with you, no, I won't do it. I've had my fair share of assholes for this week."
"Okay" I said, trying to feign at least a little bit of sadness at her words. "I will go now, I guess."
"Where did you ask him to meet?" She asked, already supposing he hadn't said anything to me in the first place.
"In the courtyard- oh." The school courtyard was enormous. And I was officially screwed.
She sighed. "Just go stand in front of the main door or something, he'll have to get out anyway, won't he?"
"I certainly hope so" I replied before parting ways with her and reaching the entrance of the school, sitting on the small wall next to the door.
I waited for a few minutes, but he didn't get out. Resorting to thinking that he wouldn't come, I took out my notepad and started sketching. Why would he come anyway? I was not part of his clique, I was nowhere near it to be honest. It just made sense for him not to spend his lunch break out here with me. It would be better if I looked for him again and asked him to meet in another moment. The simple thought froze me to my bones. He didn't even want to spend ten minutes with me during school, why would he agree to wasting his precious time outside school with me?
I looked in front of me, to the tree on the school ground. I had never been good at drawing anything that wasn't people, to be honest, and fairly, I had close to no interest in facing my failure again. But it would be even harsher to face another kind of failure and go back into the school, admitting my defeat for Ella to laugh at.
I sighed, drawing the straight line of the trunk of the tree in front of me. First of all, the basics, I told myself. I had never been a fan of drawing through shapes— that was mostly why I sucked majorly at sketching anything that wasn't people. So I sketched the trunk, leaving it to be shaded for later, before adding the outline of branches.
How do I even draw leaves? I'd always had a hard time in drawing what people would define the easiest things, because I had an interest, almost borderline obsession, in realism. Everything that came out of my pencil had to be as close to reality as possible, or else I wouldn't be happy with it.
All of a sudden I looked up, just to discover that I wasn't as alone as I'd thought I was.
He was leaning against the frame of the main door, sheltered in the shadow of the building, watching me just as impassively as before.
"Uh, how may I help you?" Was what came out of my mouth in pure nervousness, and I felt sudden warmth rush to my cheeks as I realised what a stupid thing to say that was.
He raised an eyebrow again, just as he had the first time I had opened my mouth in front of him, showing me that he was probably thinking the exact same thing.
I closed my notebook, way more forcefully than I intended to, jumping at the unexpected loud sound. "Sorry" I breathed, resigning to the fact that there wouldn't be another way to deal with the next hour that wouldn't have been pervaded in the most complete embarrassment - on my side, of course.
He was just watching me, almost completely untouched by the whole ordeal, seeming to be above it all.
"Uh, follow me" I said, just then realising that I didn't even have the slightest idea of what I was doing. I just had to get it over with as fast as possible. "Here's good" I said when we were next to the white wall of the school. I raised up my phone and snapped a fast picture, hoping that it would've been enough not to get a bad grade. "Done" I said, "Bye."
He turned around and walked back to the main door without saying anything, leaving me outside.
I sighed, before entering the school as well.
• • •
"How did it go with Mr I'm-too-cool-to-even-breathe-your-same-air?" Ella said as soon as I sat next to her in maths.
I sighed. "Just drop it."
"Uh oh, that bad?" She asked curiously.
I hid my face in my hands. "I embarrassed myself in front of him. Multiple times. And he didn't look impressed not one bit, kept glaring at me. If I didn't know that he doesn't waste time with people like me, I'd say that he hates me."
She stifled a laugh. "It can't have been that bad."
"It was terrible. Absolutely terrible. You should've seen how he was looking at me. He was judging, and he was judging hard. I bet the only reason why he didn't just drop me in the middle of the courtyard and went away is that he wanted to get it done as well." I raised my head, just to see the boy himself enter the class as well, and I groaned, hiding my head between my arms.
The class started and I tried to push the recent events out of my mind, to concentrate.
"So like, did he look at you the whole time?" She asked again, and I gave her a fast glance.
"Pretty sure he did" I whispered back, before trying to busy myself by sketching on the sides of the page I was writing my maths notes on.
"And he didn't say anything? Like, not even a single word?" She asked, and I shook my head. "Not even a single sound?"
"Completely silent for the whole time" I replied with a sigh.
"Miss Regan, would you mind sharing what you were talking about with Miss Grayson?"
I slowly raised my head, just to see that my maths teacher was standing directly in front of my desk.
I tried to say something, but nothing came out of my mouth.
"Share, or shut up" he said menacingly before going back to the front of the class as a few snickers behind us were heard.
"It can't have been that bad" Ella continued as soon as she was sure he wouldn't have heard anything.
I gave her a glance. "It was. I would've thought he's mute if I hadn't heard him speak to his friend sometimes."
She chuckled. "Nah, he's not mute. He's clearly just a prick. At least you got a few quality pics of Harry Styles."
"They're quite bad, actually. I mean, he still looks great—" I paused when she gave me a I-knew-it glance, "shut up. But the quality is still quite low like they aren't artistic. But he looks good so I suppose it'll be fine for my teacher. I'll just draw him really fast today and give her the drawing tomorrow. And finally I'll be done with it."
"It's a bit sad though. You had a chance to befriend, or you know beboyfriend Harry Styles, like the Harry Styles, hottest boy in the school, that's what we're talking about, and you completely spoiled it. How sad."
"Trust me, he's nowhere near interested in that." I sighed, trying to go back to listening to the class.
She hummed. "Then why is his friend looking at you?"
I turned around fast to look at where I knew he was sitting by now, just to find out that he really was looking at me. He didn't shy away when he noticed I had noticed, but kept shamelessly watching me until he deemed he had had enough. I frowned, looking down to my notebook again and starting to draw little flowers on the corner.
After a while the bell rang, and this time I was the one to rush out faster than Ella, leaving her behind. What I hadn't realised, though, was that in that way I had exited the room just before he did.
"So is that the girl?" A round voice with a thick Irish accent said behind me, and I realised that if I was hearing Niall, then there was a pretty good chance that he was right behind me as well.
"Which girl?" A deep voice replied monotonously, confirming my theories.
"Artistic girl. The one you got paired up with. Miss let's-go-outside-so-that-the-green-of-your-eyes-will-match-the-grass."
My eyes widened. They were talking about me. And they were right behind me. There's no way they hadn't noticed. Didn't they care about the fact that I could hear them? I frowned at Niall's words. I had never said such a thing.
"Oh yeah. That's her." Could he have sounded less impressed? I mentally slapped myself. I had fucked up big time.
"She's cute. You could hook up with her."
I almost huffed at Niall's words, annoyed by them. But at the same time, I couldn't help but wonder what he would say.
"I have higher standards" was the lapidary reply.
I almost stopped in my tracks. He hadn't even lowered his voice. How could he not care whether I would've heard him or not? I felt a wave of insecurity rush through me as I realised that, since I was right in front of him, he could look at me. As used as he was to standing amongst beautiful people, he was probably judging me and my not as pleasant looks so severely right then. It wasn't that I considered myself ugly, because I didn't - I just knew that he had probably seen so much better. That, only if he cared enough to even double glance at me, which, considering how our lunch time had gone, wasn't that much of a given.
"Come on, she isn't ugly" Niall replied, a little urge in his voice as he tried to save the situation.
"A loner too shy to even open her mouth. I can do better than that." Despite the harshness of his words, his voice hadn't changed one bit, and was still low and somewhat sweet sounding.
A small silence followed, before Niall spoke. "Are you sure you don't want the phone number of Luke from English?"
"I don't want to hook up with your friend. Stop asking, it's tiring" Harry deadpanned.
"I'm just trying to be helpful. Don't want you to hook up with that overexcited rabbit."
"Over... what?" he asked, sounding a bit surprised.
"Janette" Niall replied. Something told me that he didn't like Janette at all. "I'm not kidding. The second you stepped into this school, that bitch was already there telling all her friends she would've gotten a piece of that fine British ass or something like that."
"Why would she say that? We're in Britain, we're all British."
I furrowed my eyebrows at the weird turn the conversation was taking but kept walking, not wanting to make it even more obvious that I was listening to them.
"She's American or some shit, that explains it I guess. You should know where she's from since you're basically fucking her, Styles! But that's besides the point. The point is, find someone. And Janette is a snake, so she doesn't count."
I reached my locker and opened it, letting them surpass me.
"So dramatic" I heard him say as I was taking the books for my last class.
I raised up my head to look at them as they reached the end of the hallway and were joined by a tall blonde.
How could he say something like that about me?
The girl laughed loudly making many people turn in her direction, wrapping an arm around Harry's middle. He passed his long fingers through his hair, taking a step aside at the same time to put a little distance between himself and her.
There was no way he didn't know I would've heard.
She said something else and bit her lip seductively, her hand on his chest, trying to get his attention. But he, like always, seemed too above everyone else and the situation, his beauty almost otherworldly as he didn't even spare her a second glance before going to his last class, soon followed by a relieved looking Niall.
Why did he behave like that?
I couldn't understand. He didn't seem to care about what people thought, or what other people felt. Was he really that detached from others, or did he just pretend to be?
Janette rolled her eyes before walking to another girl, resuming the conversation she was having before she saw Harry.
I sighed, making my way to my last class as well.