Chapter Text
As soon as she walked in, she felt the tension. For Ava Ire, being late to class was not something that happened all the time. However, to say it was necessarily a rare occurrence would be a blatant lie. And somehow, without fail throughout the entire school year so far, it was always English.
She had stormed into the room, fifteen minutes into the period. She nearly ran into another student’s desk as she blurted a far too zealous, “SORRY!” while trying to catch her breath. Somehow, as the gruelling seconds of her peers’ and teacher’s watchful eyes cutting into her expectantly ticked on by, Ava cleared her throat; she eyed her teacher, opening her mouth to maybe speak. She ended up trudging along to her seat, not making any excuses for herself.
She took a bit of comfort in the idea that she didn’t seem to have missed much; the bell work was less than exciting if she was being generous, and most of her classmates were decidedly grouped as working on homework or getting ahead--or catching up--on their reading. Ava decided maybe not having much of a life wasn’t all that bad in some instances; she had already finished the book, and her annotations weren’t all that bad either! The test would probably be a breeze if it was fair. For everyone else’s griping about The Great Gatsby , the quarter had been a bit of a blessing in disguise for her.
Then she looked up at the board.
Blessing: Over.
Group Project - Create a presentation on the symbolism used by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Work with a partner (no more than a group of three). Due Monday.
Ava’s stomach dropped, and she shrunk in her seat. As the teacher got up to explain the assignment further, she busied herself with frantically looking around the room. She didn’t have to ask; by then she knew everyone else probably had a partner, or really had their hopes up for essentially working alone. Maybe, if she was lucky, some unfortunate person would get saddled with her, insist on doing all the work, they could get this over with, and never speak to each other again. That was the hope, at least.
She meekly sat, glancing around the room as she clicked a pen under her desk. The rest of the class started to move around her as she waited; maybe she’d just get shoved into a group of three or something. Maybe they’d take pity on her and she wouldn’t have to do jack squat other than say a few words about things very few of her classmates actually cared about.
There was the sound of scraping against the floor, and Ava quickly looked to her side. She hadn’t… exactly expected to see a guy pushing his desk closer to hers. He looked confident enough in his decision to have her as his partner for this, and as he settled at her side, the amount of pity she took on him was suffocating. He looked tired enough as it was. At least the darkness of his eyes and the bags under them went well together.
He seemed familiar, at least. Ava couldn’t give his name for the life of her, but it wasn’t like she had never noticed him before. He was the kind of guy that was somewhat hard to miss unless he was trying to go unseen. And seeing as everyone else got up out of their seats like a normal people while he dragged his desk gratingly along the floor to get to his apparent partner, he didn’t seem to care about being under the radar.
Abruptly, Ava smacked her pen down on the desk to stop herself from clicking it.
“G-Got a partner?” he asked her after a moment, and she could have kicked him for the hint of condescension lacing his tone. Under other circumstances--and with less desperation--she imagined she could have snarked back.
She simply shook her head, only giving him a small dose of his own medicine back, “You?”
“W-Want to wo-work on this to-to-together?”
She relaxed a bit. At the very least, she guessed he didn’t seem overly annoyed with getting stuck with her. She glanced once more around the room; no one else looked exactly eager to pair up with him, either. Fate was an asshole. Ava let out a breath, tapping her feet a bit, “Yeah! Sure, yes.” All the boy did was nod before leaning back in his seat, taking in the rest of the instructions as the teacher rattled everything off.
Ava let her mind wander in the meantime, the rest of the rubric floating around and settling somewhere in the back of her head. There were so many ways all of this could go, and she did her best to imagine the most ideal of possible outcomes. A decent grade would be nice. Maybe the teacher would show mercy; with two kids--one with almost no hope of not losing all of her shit at once up there, and the other with a stutter of all things--having to present together, surely some lee-way would be in order, right? She could hope. Hope was good. It was all she had.
That, and, a pen to continue clicking at some point without her conscious knowledge.
Her partner glanced down at her as the teacher droned on and on. She caught his eye; he didn’t look too annoyed, but she doubted he was amused. She quickly stopped, chewing on her lip instead as she looked away. It wasn’t long before she felt a soft nudge at her arm. She looked back.
She wasn’t certain exactly what the look was that her classmate was giving her, but it looked just enough like a smile for her to relax. “K-Keep going,” he said, gesturing at her pen. She blinked in surprise but quickly found one of his own hands fiddling with something of his own on a chain around his neck. Ava didn’t ask, instead just sighing, and continuing with her clicking. “Sorry.”
Eventually, the drone of their teacher melted away into the rest of the class talking around them. “S-So. How are we going to d-d-do this?” her partner asked, shifting in his seat to face her.
She huffed, “I have. No idea. We could… use a power point?” Ava shrugged a little, “I read the stuff. So…”
The boy nodded, gears almost visibly turning in his head behind his eyes, and the dark circles beneath them, why was she staring at his eyes. “W-We could start today?” he offered, brows knit.
Ava forced a nod. “That’s probably a good idea.”
“Y-Yeah. W-We could probably use s-s-some of the notes--” he continued on as Ava dug out a notebook, hastily scribbling “book report stuff” across the top of the page, “You an-an-annotated. Right?”
“Oh!” Ava answered, stooping again to dig around in her backpack, “Yeah. Mostly.” They probably weren’t up to the teacher’s standards, but then again what was? Her book wasn’t empty, and even if they were short and sweet, at least they were legible and coherent.
“S-So did I, so,” the boy shrugged, “th-that’s good!”
Ava smiled a bit, “Sweet.”
He scratched the back of his neck a bit, turning more towards her, “A-Are you doing an-an-anything after school?”
Ava faltered a bit, stalling a bit before answering, “No. Not today.” She could at least pretend she had a life. Why she felt the need to impress him, she didn’t know for the life of her, but…
“C-Cool. I can give you a ride to m-my--my--my place.” Ava’s eyes widened. “A-A-And a r-ride home, too, if you need.”
Oh. Ava stammered a bit, “Uh--Are you sure? I mean, I could probably get a ride. Maybe.”
“I-It’s fine.” he answered her quickly.
And there was that horrendous limbo of not wanting to be an inconvenience. Ava planted her chin atop her hands with her elbows propped on the desk in defeat. Wrenching her eyes shut tight for a second, she hoped and prayed to whatever god was out there that her face didn’t look at warm as it felt. Almost wincing, she nodded, “Alright.”
Saved by the bell.
Ava Ire had possibly never shoved her belongings back in her bag faster than in that moment, hopping up out of her seat. “I’ll… see you later?”
He nodded up at her, “Y-Yeah, um… Yes.”
“Alright!” she nodded back, tucking some hair back behind her ear.
She could have killed him for the once-over he gave her before standing up; as it turned out, he was a good head or so taller than she was, hands stuffed in the pockets of his grey jeans. Or were they some kind of weird blue? Why was she staring at his jeans?!
He lingered there with her for a second longer before grabbing up anything that had been on his desk and heading back to his own bag. He headed out briskly a second later, leaving Ava to silently reel in place.
-
Lunch time. Fun.
At a table close enough to the nearest exit, Ava sat undisturbed with her sandwich, a bag of grapes, applesauce, and a juice box. In a way, it was kind of nice to sit alone; she had every opportunity to de-stress, take as much time as she needed to eat, chill for a while, let her mind really run off on some pleasant adventure through a life she’d never have, before heading off to her last hour of the day. Despite all of that, she imagined that--maybe--she would appreciate this time more if every other class period wasn’t the same; she was surrounded by people, and none of them really paid her much mind.
But today, it seemed, some fate had decided that nothing was going to be the same as normal. Ava nearly jumped out of her skin as someone appeared behind her, plopping into the seat next to her, causing the chair to grate on the tile floor. She stifled a bit of a yelp as she looked up to see the boy from her English class looking almost as startled as she did.
“Hi!” She called a bit too loudly, ultimately failing any attempt to seem nonchalant. “Um-- hi.”
“H-H-Hi,” he stammered in reply as Ava calmed herself down, “Sh-Should I… go?”
“No!” Ava blurted out in a rush. She quieted down a bit as she continued, “You’re okay. Um,” she paused, looking around quickly, “Do you have friends you have to sit with, though?”
He only shook his head.
“Oh. Okay.” She looked back down at the table, pushing her juice box around a bit anxiously.
Her classmate’s eyes flicked from the juice box and back to her in a choppy loop for a moment as he asked, “D-Do you u-u-usually sit all by yourself?”
“Sometimes.” Yes.
He seemed to catch on quick enough. But at least he seemed to be getting comfortable at her side. “Why were you l-l-late to--today?” he asked with a short nod.
Ava bit her lip, stabbing the tiny straw into her juice box. When did this become an interrogation? They had spoken once before and even that was a mess--if she was being generous. She weighed her options; she could bite her tongue, or sit alone. And not for the first time ever, the former seemed much more appealing. “I… had to do something.”
Genius. Yes. Perfect. He suspects nothing, and you don’t seem like a weirdo at all.
Ava glanced up at him. He was just sitting there, staring at her expectantly. Thick, dark brows were cocked in suspicion, silently pressing her to perhaps elaborate. She huffed, narrowing her eyes at him, her own brows beginning to knit. “I had to clean some stuff up. Broke a pencil sharpener a little bit.”
“Alright,” he responded finally, blinking slowly. Ava realized she hadn’t eaten any of her lunch yet, and went about unwrapping her sandwich quickly. All the while, her partner sat by quietly; she just barely caught him eyeing her sandwich before quickly looking away.
Chewing on her cheek a moment, Ava questioned, “Do you have lunch?”
“I eat in math.”
She blinked a bit at how quickly his answer came. Regardless, she recovered, shrugging it off and getting on with eating her own lunch, “Oh. Okay.”
As Ava nibbled away at her PB&J, she watched out of the corner of her eye as her partner pulled out a little black sketchbook and a pencil, beginning to doodle in it. He quickly became engrossed in his work, the pencil scratching away at the page. Ava kept glancing over, letting her curiosity get the better of her, and trying to see what he was drawing.
She tried not to take too much offence when he clearly noticed her trying to sneak a peak, and covered the page with his arm. She had managed to catch a quick glimpse of a round-ish face, with hair, shaded and dark, falling with a gentle flow around it, parted somewhere towards the center. She couldn’t be sure. And she definitely wasn’t. But… whatever, or whoever, he was drawing--the way the features lined up, how the face was framed--looked a little bit like her.
She sat quietlyt for a moment before piping up, “Whatcha drawin’?”
“J-Just a l-l-little s-s-sketch.” he answered, not glancing up from the page for long.
“Of what?”
He hesitated. “P… P-Practicing features.” he finally shrugged.
She cocked a brow. “Lemme see!”
He stopped drawing, instead holding the book just a bit closer to his chest. He set his pencil down, closing the book up and keeping a tight hold on it. “M-Maybe later.”
“When you’re finished?” Ava pressed, still glancing at the little book.
After a moment of thought, he nodded in reluctant agreement, “S-Sure.”
“Deal.” She tore back into her sandwich.
Eventually, to her slight dismay, the book was returned to it’s rightful place in the boy’s bag.
He shifted towards her, propping his elbow up on the table, “S-So. Y-You sh-sh-should probably know my house is k-kinda…” He stopped to sigh as she just looked at him. “Th-There might be… a lot of people. N-N-Not like, a lot , a-a lot, but--”
“Ah,” Ava stopped him short, “Family?”
He seemed to relax a bit more, and he nodded, “Y-Yeah. Three li--little sisters. A-A-And then there's my brother,” He paused, looking up as if thinking. Eventually he continued with a small, dismissive flick of his hand, “S-Some other people, b-but they'll pr-probably do their own thing.”
Ava took a moment to compare his quick spiel to the life she was used to at her own home; she raised a brow. “Jeez! That is kinda a lot…”
“Yeah,” he shrugged, “I-It takes some getting used to.”
“I didn’t know you had a bunch of siblings.”
“Two o-of my sisters are s-s-still in middle school,” Her english partner shifted a bit, glancing at the clock. “My brother's b-been graduated.”
Ava made a small sound of fondness at the news; she was rewarded with the awkward beginnings of a smile. For a brief minute, it all felt too surreal. It was strange to not sit alone--there was a small part of her that wondered if she preferred the solitude or just craved the familiarity of loneliness. She set her sandwich down with finality, pushing it all away. “That sounds really cool. I wish I had siblings sometimes. It seems kind of fun.”
He didn’t answer directly. “A-Any time you n-need to be h-h-ho-home by?” he asked instead.
Ava shrugged, “Whenever. Probably just, like… before dark, you know?”
He nodded. “G-Got it.”
“Do you… have a car?”
There was a slight pause. “Y-Yeah…?”
“Oh.” No, duh, stupid, practically everyone else in this hell hole has a car. “Cool!”
“S-So, uh,” he stammered, “Just m-meet me by the b-bleachers or s-so-some--something.”
Upon their agreement, Ava’s attention was pulled to the bell. She glowered at the clock on the wall for a second before eventually gathering up her things, shoving them back where they belonged. “Welp!” she huffed, slinging her bag over her shoulder, “I gotta book it to math.”
Her partner followed suit, once again catching her off guard with his height. “Have f-ff… fun.” he remarked, as collected as possible.
An awkward moment of silence as the world shuffled to chaotic life around them ensued; there was untimely blinking, shuffling, gripping straps of their bags until--finally--the boy broke the trance, leaving Ava behind with one more almost pained ghost of a grin.