"What do you mean, you gave him your number?" Ryeanne asked in disbelief. "What have I told you."
"You see this is why I waited a couple of days to tell you," Lindsey said putting her head in her hands.
It was Friday and Lindsey was ready for the weekend. She had been swamped with her Art drawings, the first two were easy, but these latest ones were harder. She had to draw Damian's family and where he grew up. Miss Blakeman told them today was going to be easy so they can turn in the portfolios at the end of class today.
Lindsey and Ryeanne were in the school's courtyard, alone. They were sitting at a table underneath a tree. It was time for their dance class, and the teacher's kid was sick so the substitute let them do whatever they wanted. The two asked if they could go outside and get some fresh air.
"You should have told me once you did or you should have told me before you gave him your number," Ryeanne said.
"I don't have your number, Ryeanne," Lindsey pointed out. "I gave it to him when I was at his house working on a project for our Art class."
Ryeanne's mouth was gapping open as she was staring at Lindsey. She was frozen in place and Lindsey sighed. She was getting prepared for Ryeanne's freak out. Lindsey thought maybe saying whatever came to her mind around Ryeanne was a bad idea.
"You were at Wayne manor, with Damian?" Ryeanne whispered as she was looking around.
"What are you looking for?" Lindsey asked looking around the courtyard. "We are in this courtyard alone. No one has followed us out here. All the other students are in class."
"Just answer the question!" Ryeanne said as she hit Lindsey's arm.
"Yeah, I was at Wayne Manor, I had to draw the sword he had in his room for the pr-"
"You were in his room?" Ryeanne asked gripping Lindsey's shoulders. "What did you to do in there?"
"We worked on our drawings," Lindsey said quickly. "He was at his desk, I was sitting on the floor next to his door. We were on opposite sides of the room from each other. Nothing else happened."
"Was his dad there? Does his dad know you were even there?" Ryeanne asked.
"His father and their butler were both out of town, we were there alone," Lindsey said.
Ryeanne screamed. Lindsey fell off her seat and lay in the grass.
"You were alone?" Ryeanne screamed. "I can't believe you! I never thought you were the girl to do that."
"Do what?" Lindsey screamed. "Sit in complete silence? Work on drawings? Give someone my number? Ryeanne. Even if it was for this week, being around him has been nice. He's been decent to me, he's been patient. And we haven't even texted anything to each other besides stuff the other needs for our project. It's not a big deal. I'm going to delete his number after we turn in our projects."
Ryeanne stared at Lindsey in shock. In the week she has known Lindsey, she has not raised her voice or gotten defensive. This girl really was different from everyone else at the school.
Everyone at the school was either too quiet, too defensive, or too annoying. Lindsey was quiet, defensive, and cool. Maybe Damian saw that too? Maybe Damian was finally trying to get to know someone? Only God knew.
"Well if that's all that's going on, then I guess you're good. Give me your phone," Ryeanne held her hand out so Lindsey could hand it over to her.
Lindsey got out of the grass and sat back down. She opened her backpack and pulled the phone out and unlocking it. She placed it in Ryeanne's open palm and watched as she began typing into it.
"What are you going?" Lindsey asked nervously. Ryeanne could be doing anything and that terrified Lindsey.
"Putting my number in," Ryeanne said. "I forgot that you don't have my number until you said something. I'll send you everyone else's numbers and add you to our group chats."
"You guys have multiple group chats?" Lindsey asked in disbelief.
"One for everyone, one for the girls, and one for everyone except Abigail," Ryeanne said.
"Why exclude Abigail?" Lindsey asked as Ryeanne handed her phone back to her. Sure Abigail was a little off, but it was rude to not have her be apart of the group chats.
"Abigail has a lot of practices and stuff for her dance stuff. She asked if we don't text her when she's doing dance stuff, which is pretty much when she isn't in school. She tells Blaine when she's free and Blaine texts in the group chat first," Ryeanne explained. "It's complicated, but hey, Abigail is a weird person. She's been a good friend to all of us, so we try not to exclude her as much as possible."
"How long have all of you been friends?" Lindsey asked.
"Noah, Blaine, and I were friends since the second grade," Ryeanne said. "Giovanni was added in the fourth grade. Logan and Juliet were friends before they were added to our friend group in the seventh grade when they both got their scholarships to go to go to our Middle School. Abigail was added Freshman year, when she got her scholarship. And Kelsey last year, when we found her sitting alone at lunch. And this year it was you."
"Noah, Blaine, and you have been friends for so long," Lindsey said in amazement. "Most of my friends from grade school left before Middle School."
"Yeah. Noah and Blaine knew me when I was male," Ryeanne laughed.
Lindsey laughed with her before what she said sunk in. "You're transgender?"
"I started taking the hormones in second grade," Ryeanne said. "Ever since I was little I thought I was a girl. I was born Ryan, just spelt R-Y-A-N. I got it officially changed two years ago. I liked my name, but I wanted it to be more feminine. I hope this doesn't change things between us."
"Whenever we talked about boys, I thought you just talked shit on them because they're boys. But now that I know-"
"You know I say these things because I was once a boy," Ryeanne nodded. "I'm surprised you don't have that many questions."
"What did your parents think?"
"They were upset because they didn't want their eldest son to turn into a girl, but after a while they were okay with it, because they had my little brother," Ryeanne shrugged.
"Do you still have a male part? Or did you get surgery?"
"I got the surgery," Ryeanne nodded. "I got it around the time I legally changed my name."
"Do you have a period?"
"I do not." Ryeanne said. "I had the option. But I decided against it. I remember Blaine getting hers for the first time and she was mad at me because I was a girl, but I couldn't get a period. It was hard to explain to her that I wasn't a real girl."
"How many people know?"
"Family, close friends, some kids who remember me from earlier grade school. Most people don't know. I'm fine with people not knowing. People don't know how to react when they find out, but I'm okay with people ignoring me."
"Are your boobs real?"
"Lindsey I am as flat chested as flat chest come. I like my breasts the way they are."
The two of them laughed. And while they were laughing the bell rang for them to go to their next class.
"I think our friendship is going to be beautiful, Ryeanne."
"I know so, Lindsey."
{}~{}~{}~{}~{}
It was Lindsey's final class before the weekend and she could finally have Damian Wayne out of her life. She walked to her art class with a skip in her step and sat in her seat. She knew Damian was already there, but he didn't seem to know that she was.
She waited until Miss Blakeman told everyone to go sit with their partners and finish their drawings.
Lindsey grabbed her things and plopped into her seat next to Damian. She took out her sketchbook and started touching up her drawing of Damian's family.
"You seem happy," Damian noted looking at his drawings looking for anything he had to fix.
"I do?" Lindsey asked.
"You were humming," Damian said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"I was?" Lindsey asked. "I didn't notice. Was it bothering you?"
"A bit," Damian said. "If it bothered me too much, I would have told you to knock it off."
"I'm sorry, Damian," Lindsey said. "I'll try to be more considerate. I'm just happy for the weekend to be here."
"Are you doing anything special?" Damian asked. Lindsey was shocked he would actually ask and he seemed interested.
"No, I'm just happy that I'll be away from school and I'll get -" she almost said, 'get away from you.' Luckily she caught herself before she did. "I'll get to have all day to myself."
"I don't think that's what you were going to say," Damian said.
"It was," Lindsey insisted.
Silence fell between the two of them once again. The two of them were quiet until there were ten minutes left in class.
"Lindsey, do you think I can look at your drawings?" Damian asked.
Lindsey was surprised he would ask to see them. But she still said, "Sure."
Lindsey pushed her sketchbook closer to Damian and turned her body with it. The sketchbook was open to her drawing of Tibet, it was of a mountain with a temple in the side. The two of them looked online for good pictures and Lindsey made it her own.
She then turned to the picture of Damian's family. Damian sent a picture of the last time they were all together and Lindsey worked with that to make it look better than the picture actually was. In the picture they all looked like none of them wanted to be there and actually wanted to rip each other's throats out.
The third picture of the sword. Damian's lips turned upward at that one. And finally the last one was of Damian himself. He leaned back in his seat after looking at the drawings and nodded.
"They're really good, Lindsey. I'm impressed," Damian said.
"I can't tell if you're lying or being polite," Lindsey said looking at Damian confused.
"I'm being completely sincere, Lindsey. They are really good," Damian said. He didn't have a comforting look on his face to back-up his statement.
"Can I see your drawings?" Lindsey asked.
"Sure." Damian shoved the sketchbook towards Lindsey. She flipped through the pictures. She looked through the picture of New York and her parents slowly, making sure everything she remembered was as accurate as possible. She flipped to her parents rings and smiled at how realistic they looked. She turned to her portrait and stopped.
"Why did you draw me like that?" Lindsey asked Damian.
"Draw you like what?" Damian asked looking at the portrait.
"Why did you draw me like I was beautiful?" Lindsey asked.
Damian looked at Lindsey like she had grown another head and a horn.
"What do you mean beautiful?" Damian asked. "Lindsey this is how you look. I drew you as how I saw you. I'm not good at drawing things that don't exist. This is how you look."
"I look nothing like that Damian," Lindsey said. "I get that you want a good grade but you could have drawn me like I am."
"Lindsey, how can you not see this when you look in a mirror?" Damian asked. "I look between you and this picture and I see no difference."
"Damian, stop," Lindsey said sternly. "This is not how I look. Go ahead and turn it in. I don't care, it's your grade."
Damian sat in disbelief as Lindsey stood up and walked up to Miss Blakeman with her sketchbook and her backpack on her shoulder. Damian watched as Lindsey gave Miss Blakeman the sketchbook and walked out of the classroom.
Damian wondered what in the world had just happened. Lindsey had no idea how beautiful she was. Sure Damian had drawn a little extra, but for the most part, what he drew was how he saw Lindsey. It was in that moment Damian knew, he would have to befriend this girl. His reputation was about to go down the drain just so he can make sure this girl knew how special she was.
{}~{}~{}~{}~{}
The weekend had ended and school was back in session. The first half of the day was boring and long. But the bell for lunch had just rang and Lindsey was glad to hang out with her friends.
Blaine, Ryeanne, Noah, and Lindsey were all walked to the cafeteria together. Everyone else was already sitting at the table. Juliet and Logan were sitting on one side next to each other. Giovanni, Kelsey, and Abigail were on the other side. Giovanni sat across from Logan.
"Hey, guys!" Kelsey called out.
"Did you guys hear what Naomi and Frederick did?" Blaine asked as she sat down.
"What did they do now?" Juliet asked as she rolled her eyes.
"Well the rumor is that they did it in the boy's locker room after their practices," Blaine said as she took out a sandwich from her lunch bag.
"Gross," Lindsey said more to herself.
"What? Is it that they had sex, or they had sex in a dirty locker room?" Juliet asked.
"It's gross that they thought the best place to do it was in a public place," Lindsey said. "If they wanted to do it, they could have at least done it somewhere less public. Deciding to do it shouldn't be an 'I'm horny so let's do it,' thing, but it should be special and full of love."
They all stared at Lindsey like she had turned blue.
"You've never thought about having sex, Lindsey?" Ryeanne asked.
"No! Well I've thought about doing it with someone I love, but not like – well, you know," Lindsey said.
"Good, so you are a normal human being," Noah said as he stuffed a fork of green beans in his mouth.
"Okay, let me ask a question," Lindsey said turning down the table to get a better look at everyone. "How many of you have done it."
Abigail, Logan, Ryeanne, Giovanni, and Blaine all raised their hands.
"Really?" Kelsey asked. "Abigail, Blaine, I'm not surprised. But Giovanni? Logan? Ryeanne?"
"I've said I've done it before," Ryeanne said.
"None of us believed you!" Juliet said.
"Hey, guys," Logan said.
"What, man-whore?" Kelsey snapped.
"Is it just me or is Damian Wayne staring at us?" Logan asked as he looked at Damian.
Everyone turned their eyes to the boy in question. Sure enough he had his whole body turned to the group of friends. Lindsey had to admit he looked hot. He had his right arm on the back of his seat. His body was twisted so you could see his body pressed against his shirt with his jacket open. His left leg ankle rested on his right knee. His left arm hung loosely over his body.
"Damn, can he be anymore attractive?" Abigail wondered out loud.
Damian saw the group looking at him and his eyes shifted to Lindsey. Across the busy cafeteria they made eye contact. He moved his head in a come here motion. Lindsey turned to her friends in shock. The girls had their mouths hanging open. The boy's eyes narrowed at the boy.
"What do I do?" Lindsey whispered to her friends hurriedly.
Everyone turned to her with a look that screamed, It's obvious. Lindsey continued looking at them as if she didn't know what they were trying to say.
"You march your perky butt over there," Blaine spoke up, "sit it down, and you-"
"Jump his bones!" Abigail jumped in, pushing herself across the table.
"No, don't do that," Giovanni said as he pointed at Abigail.
"You have a conversation that ends with you saying that you two shouldn't be doing stuff like this," Kelsey said.
"So many of the Elite girls think that he's theirs," Juliet said. "So, unless you want to get jumped in the near future, stop while you're both ahead."
"Or maybe he wants to talk about your project you two did?" Noah said.
Lindsey turned back around to look at Damian. He was still looking at her expectantly.
"We'll be watching from over here, just in case you need us to come save you," Ryeanne said.
"And if you do need us to save you," Logan said, "take your jacket off."
"Okay," Lindsey said as she stood up. "I can do this. Everything is going to be okay."
"You got this, girl," Juliet said in encouragement.
Lindsey stood up grabbing her things. She looked at her friends with one more desperate look before walking over to Damian's table.