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Murphy should be used to sitting alone. He should be fucking used to it, after three years of middle school and most of his freshman year spent eating holed up in the library, glaring at anyone who passed, daring them to judge him. That had been his life, until he met Mbege, and he should be fine doing it one more time.
But he can’t help the way his stomach twists when he doesn’t see Mbege in homeroom, misses him again in Algebra, and by lunch Murphy wants to disappear because he knows what comes next. His heart sinks. He should be used to sitting alone, damn it, but he’s not, and it’s going to be the same fucking thing all over again. He clenches his fists as he walks into the cafeteria, scanning the sea of students for one familiar face. He spots a table in the back of the cafeteria and steels himself to sit down.
Nobody’s going to look at you, he tells himself. Nobody’s going to judge you. Nobody’s going to care.
Murphy scans the cafeteria again, and he can feel everyone looking at him, judging him, and he cares.
Murphy digs his phone out of his pocket and texts Mbege.
- where r u?????????
• got the flu.
- im at lunch!!!!
alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• im sorry murph… make new friends?
- fuck u!!!
im dying!!!!!
• …ok murph im actually dying here
- well hurry the fuck up and get better!!!
“Hey,” comes a voice, and Murphy nearly jumps out of his skin. The kid holds out a steadying hand like Murphy’s some sort of scared animal and says, gentle, “Mind if I sit here?”
Murphy opens his mouth to say no, get the hell away from me, but the kid’s already sitting down across the table. Murphy finally looks up at the his face and feels his face go immediately hot.
Bellamy Blake, the fucking school golden boy, soccer star and the definition of Hot Nerd, is sitting with him. With. Him.
Murphy swallows hard. “Uh.”
“I’m Bellamy,” he says, as if everyone in their tiny high school doesn’t know his name, his face, and his legacy.
Murphy swallows his I know and says, “Murphy.”
“Yeah,” Bellamy says, and digs into his lunch like this is a normal thing that they’ve done a million times before. “We’re in the same English class.”
They are in the same English class, but Murphy hadn’t expected Bellamy to notice. Bellamy sits in the front, where he can engage in deep philosophical conversations with their teacher that leave the majority of the rest of the class completely confused; Murphy sits in the last row, where he can completely-unintentionally-stare at the back of Bellamy Blake’s neck. “I know,” Murphy manages. “Don’t you, um. Have other friends to sit with?”
Bellamy laughs and Murphy feels himself go redder because fuck if that isn’t the cutest laugh he’s ever heard. “Yeah, but they’re all caught up in their drama right now.” Bellamy pauses from eating his apple to look Murphy in the eye. “Besides,” he says, “you were sitting alone.”
“Maybe I wanted to sit alone,” Murphy mumbles.
“Did you?”
Murphy shrugs.
“I’ll leave, if you want me to.”
“No,” Murphy says immediately, and his face must be the epitome of red now. “You could. I mean, you could stay.”
Bellamy grins at him. “I guess I could.”
Murphy, in spite of everything, smiles back.