We were loud, but we were excited. Since we were already nearing the end of our final term, our senior year was coming at us hard and at full swing. Mr. Hardy, bless his heart, tried numerous times to quieten us, but the bell hadn't rung yet. He was early, we were early, and ten minutes to spare was fair game. He gave in, as usual, receding to his desk and pulling out a book to pass the next ten minutes before class started. So here we all were, standing or sitting at ours or somebody else's desk, chatting and bustling with excitement.
"Oi, Rascal," Goose said, and I felt a crumpled piece of paper hit the back of my head. I shot around to glare at him before swinging my chair around, so we were sitting face to face.
"What?" I asked as I leaned forward, resting my elbow on his desk.
I looked at him with keen interest, knowing this kind of attention made him get all weird. He was a bigger guy, the awkward type. One who liked gaming and eating and yet somehow had a super attractive girlfriend. He was the only one out of our friend group to have a girlfriend. Ben was trying though.
Goose looked uncomfortable under my stare, turning away as a bright, blotchy red blush spread across his cheeks. He stammered, "D-did you think of a way we can help Ben with his girl troubles yet?"
Ben destroyed any chance with his crush, Ikeisha, since the moment he first laid eyes on her. Not the brightest of cookies, he'd lost favour from her brother from the very beginning. Trey Hansen was from the popular crowd and didn't take kindly to Ben at all. But that was all on Ben; he'd nipped himself in the bud back then, and there really was no coming back from that.
Really, the poor sod had no hope.
Note to self: Racist humor was reprehensively, deplorably destructive towards any person of affection. Calling your half African-American, half Korean crush Blacky Chan didn't score you any favors. Sadly, Ben learned the hard way.
"You think there's any helping that miserable sod?" I asked with a scoff.
Another crumpled piece of paper hit me, at the side of my head this time. I turned to Ben, who sat glaring at me. "Coming from you," he said.
"Exactly!" I replied, twisting in my seat a little to face him. "Don't you think it makes it all the sadder if you hear it from me?"
Ben grumbled and, with a roll of his eyes, turned back to face the teacher.
He masked himself pretty well at school, especially since the Ikeisha incident, but he was pretty autistic. Crappy social skills, taking jokes way too literally, not understanding social cues, and couldn't even swallow fruit pieces in yoghurt! He really was a special sort, but he was my best friend. And maybe he was my best friend because I could be point-blank with him without getting offended at everything. A lot of these traits might've come from his dad who was like him, but times one-hundred. It just sucked that neither of them would get diagnosed.
"He's right you know," Jude said.
I turned back to see him leaning over my desk, grinning past me at Goose. His shaggy brown curls draped down his shoulders, a strange contrast to his tiny, petite size. His lashes were unusually dark and long, making it look like he wore eyeliner or mascara or something. The girls in our class often joked and called him a bottom, and while I never spoke up or said anything, looking at him next to Liam all the time made me inclined to agree.
"Hold on," I said, turning to look back at Goose, then at Jude again with disbelief. "You should be calling me a dickhead or something. Why are you agreeing? Are you egging me on?"
Jude shrugged when Liam appeared, leaning over the desk beside him. His green eyes goaded me with unparalleled intensity, making me want to flick his fat forehead.
"Is he wrong?" Liam asked, quirking a brow at me. "Ben doesn't stand a chance. Not even you could do anything about it. Right... Charlie?"
"Man, shut up," Ben said, reaching past Jude to hit Liam's shoulder.
I shot back around to face Goose again. "They're having me on, aren't they?"
"Some challenges are too much even for our esteemed Charlie Rascal," Liam said with a dramatic sigh. I turned back to glare at him. All this back and forth was going to give me whiplash and I knew exactly what they were trying to do, but I was still playing right into their hands.
"You're full of shite," I said, trying to dismiss this before I got caught in something fruitless.
"It's a sad truth," Jude said with a sigh, turning my attention to him again. "You've held a strong reputation for this long, we're still proud of you no matter what. This is something you could never achieve anyway––"
"Can so!" I snapped, slamming my palms on the table. One thing I hated was being told I couldn't do something. "It's just too much when we're about to have our end of year exams––"
"No, no," Liam said, clutching his chest with both hands for dramatic effect. "It's impossible for the likes of Ben, whose shitty reputation with girls precedes him. It's okay, we all experience failure at least once in our lives. Especially Ben."
"Excuse me," Ben said, clearly offended. "I can hear everything, you know?"
Ignoring his protest, I picked myself up from my seat and turned to face them both head-on. I leaned my hands on my desk, towering over them both as they looked up at me. "I don't 'fail' any challenges, thank you very much. I could do this if I wanted to."
"I bet you can't," Liam chided, eyebrow raised as he directly challenged me.
Oh, no he didn't.
"Challenge accepted," I said, sticking my finger against the tip of his nose. "Ben is going to get the girl of his dreams in time for prom and he's gonna have the night of his damn life. You'll see."
Liam's expression turned smug as he stuck his hand out for a high-five and clasped my hand. "Atta boy."
Seemingly satisfied, they stood and made their way back to their seats. Liam slowed in front of Ben, gripping his shoulder with an affirmative shake. What a smug asshole. He seemed to forget my reputation didn't just materialize out of thin air. I worked hard to win any bet, and I'd see this one through, too.
The class was still lively when the door burst open in its typically dramatic fashion. Everyone fell silent, turning to see our school's group of misfits and miscreants enter in time for the first bell. A rare occasion, I might add.
Ikeisha came in first, looking as fabulous as usual. She wore a sparkly silver top that showed itself around the collar of her school shirt. Her nails were long and polished, and she looked every bit as fierce as her attitude suggested. The very object of Ben's desire, in the flesh.
I glanced at Ben, seeing his jaw just about hit the floor. His response to the sight of her was always the same. I almost had to feel sorry for him.
Ikeisha slumped her bag down beneath her window seat and leaned back into her chair, crossing her arms and legs. Trey came in behind her, slumping into his chair but leaving his bag on his lap. Legs spread apart in that manly way some guys do, tapping his feet with an immediate impatience. So... virile.
Aubrey came in as well, dragging his feet noisily across the floor. He was tall but walked with bad posture and wore an expression like he hated the world. Zero grace, whatsoever, and yet was still so damn attractive. He dumped his bag behind his chair, and I noted his dismissive nod towards Mr. Hardy. No sooner did he lean forward over his desk and bury his face in his arms.
This was a classic Aubrey start to the morning.
Aubrey's story is a pretty sad one. He was involved a lethal car crash sometime around Year six, before he finally joined us again later in Year seven. After losing a family member, he apparently spent months in rehabilitation. I don't know what he was rehabilitating, but it wasn't his upstanding personality. Now he was a depressed mop.
As anyone would be. But compared to the happy, cheery, carefree white-haired kid I grew up seeing since primary school, he really was a miserable sight.
Year six was cursed.
Now we were heading to the end of Year eleven; the first time I've been graced by both his and Trey Hansen's presence in the same class. Since they were deskmates, it was heaven seeing them both in one spot. Heaven not just for me, but every girl who stared while tiny naked angels blew trumpets around them both.
Aubrey lifted his head and caught me staring, his dark grey eyes rooted deeply in mine. He slicked back his blonde, shoulder-length hair with his fingers, looking at me with languorous, drooping lids. His top lip formed a slight overhang, resulting in an eternally impassive pout. It was undeniably sexy.
It might've been in my best interest to break eye contact, but when one found themselves locking eyes with the likes of Aubrey Keats, one did not simply look away. I let out a dreamy sigh. While we had no actual relationship of any kind, I generally got the impression that we were conscious of each other in some way or another. Not that I ever knew what it meant, but it was like we shared a closely guarded secret, one that remained unspoken even between us.
Either that, or he thought I was a creep and just never called me up on it.
The bell went off, so I turned back to the front and broke our brief stalemate while everybody took their seats. No word of a lie, I wanted to turn back and keep staring at him all period long. I liked those little moments of imperturbable, secretive eye contact that nobody else knew about.
Like it made me special in some way, different from the others. Of course, it wasn't true. And I had no idea why it went on, but it did.
It didn't make sense because he and I, well, our worlds didn't mix. Aubrey was part of the cool kid's clan. They were the rebels, the delinquents. The ones who ditched class whenever they pleased, and I'd never seen them get in trouble for it. Well, Aubrey might be the worst for it.
Our teacher, the ever-perfect Mr. Hardy, closed his book and stood up in front of the class. He held two stacks of paper in his hands before placing one back down on his desk.
"Alright, everyone, you've heard the bell," he said, voice sounding every bit as incredible as he looked. "Here I have your results for last week's homework."
He walked around the room, handing us back our tests. Each person he handed their results to, he'd offer them a quiet, personally catered comment like, Well done, you've improved, and let's see if we can top this score next time. He gave a deep sigh when he stopped in front of my desk, tight-lipped, holding my paper out in front of me. "You never disappoint me, Charlie."
I reached for my paper, noticing my score scribbled in red across the top, and broke into a smile before it even touched my hands. Ninety-seven percent.
"Thank you, Mr. Hardy," I said, looking up at him with a useless grin.
Soon, he stood in front of Aubrey's desk, but there were no papers left in his hand. Neither one of them spoke, but Mr. Hardy smiled in a way I couldn't quite interpret. Aubrey looked less than pleased at his presence. Somehow, I got the impression that he didn't do his English homework. Like he never did.
Mr. Hardy wordlessly returned to the front of the room, retrieving the second pile of papers. He straightened them on the desk, and I could make out the similar construction of the homework. Same as last week, but probably a different poem for us to dissect and analyse.
Some classmates shared their scores and compared results while others went completely off-topic. He allowed us a few minutes of chatter before clearing his throat, demanding our attention again.
"Alright," he said, holding the next lot of papers up for us to see. "For this week's homework, we'll be studying the poetry of John K––"
A chair scraped at the back of the room. Our heads all turned to the back as Mr. Hardy went quiet, and we watched Aubrey stand and pick up his bag. The sound of his footsteps resonated across the room, and we sat in silence until he disappeared out the door.
Well, no surprises there.
It seemed like Aubrey never liked taking home any homework that involved poetry. Not that he put a lot of effort into anything remotely English related, but poetry was an exceptional aversion. This semester would be focused entirely on it, so I wasn't sure how he planned to pass the rest of the year. Would he even graduate like this?
Well, that was none of my business.