Chapter Text
Waking up on a school day is bad. But waking up to your drunk father screaming at you is considerably worse. Trust me, I know.
Not that its anything out of the ordinary for me. That fucking dickhead seems to wake me up with a chorus of "you're pathetic"'s and "you're worthless"''s most mornings. School is shitty, but at least it's an escape. And I have my own secret hideaway, just behind the shed where they keep all the sports equipment. It's where everyone goes to smoke, and the smell of cigarettes just seems to linger in the air.
I head there as soon as I get to school. There's a few paving stones right behind the shed, and I sink down onto one and take out my notebook. It's half full now, but most of the stuff in it is just shit I wrote down when I was angry and needed to vent. I hover my pen above my paper, unsure of what to write, what emotions to spill-
"Ryan?"
"Fuck, Spencer! Stop creeping up on me like that!" I say jumpily. Spencer is standing a few steps away from me, blocking out the only light that was filtering into this enclosed space. I love Spencer, I really do. But he can be extremely irritating sometimes- like right now.
"Ry, I wouldn't need to creep up on you if you didn't feel the need to hang out in this shithole," Spencer says matter-of-factly. I roll my eyes, but stretch a little and get back on my feet, shoving my notebook in my pocket.
"It's not a shithole, it's my creative space," I say, half-sarcastic.
Spence looks at me with a face of stone. He hates me hanging out behind the shed because he's convinced he saw Darren Gates shooting up here once and now he's paranoid I'm gonna accidentally fall on a needle and catch HIV or something. I mean, it's sweet that he cares really, but I'm pretty sure the worse people do behind here is make out and smoke "herbal" cigarettes.
"Let's just go." I tell Spencer, rolling my eyes as if i'm doing him a favour.
***********************************************
My school is way too small for the people it lets in. It's overpopulated, and trying to walk through the corridors is a fucking challenge to say the least. As I shuffle through the crammed space, I feel someone quickly push past me, bumping my left shoulder and making me everything I was carrying all over the floor. The boy who had bumped me stops himself, realising he'd made me drop everything. He hurries over to help, dropping to the floor to gather up my paper. I'm doing the same, trying to grab all of the pieces before someone trods on them. He hands me the papers he's gathered. "I'm so sorry, man!" He apologises and looks up at me. I blink a couple of times.
I've never seen this boy before but it feels as if I should know him. His eyes hold my gaze. They're brown, dark and deep. His lips are full and his hair is effortlessly messy. I stare at him a second too long.
I swallow. "Yeah...yeah, don't worry about it." I tell him, shaking my head and breaking our eye contact. He flashes me a grin before hurrying off again, a bit more carefully this time.