Fell In Love In Stages // a matty healy fanfic

A Bite Of My Heart

The next day in english class, I apologised to Mr. Morad for walking out the previous day and he decides to let me off the hook, provided I help him with his after-school creative writing club to which I agree to graciously.
He went on to teach the class about Troilus and Criseyde, the rich and ornate poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer. It is long and difficult, and we've spent half the semester working through it. Today, Mr. Morad talks about the passionate secret affair between these two lovers and the girls in my class sigh fondly. They sigh as if the lovers weren't doomed from the start. Chaucer himself tells his readers in the first stanza the ending of the story: that Troilus will win Criseyde, but that she will forsake him.
But I guess knowing the ending doesn't affect our pleasure in this text. And so we read on, absorbed by Chaucer's capacity to conjure the lives of others as they balance distress with hope, and external disaster with private joy, allowing myself to be seduced by the pleasures of reading, despite already knowing the outcome. 40 minutes fly by and the lunch bell rings.

Once out of the classroom, I feel out of place without Charlie to help me navigate the school halls. I duck in the closest girls toilet and for a moment, I consider eating my sandwich where I sat, discarding the idea as soon as I thought it. I wasn't going to allow myself to be one of those people who ate where others do god-knows only what, for a meager escape. I seal the ziploc bag around the sandwich and toss it into my backpack and vow I wasn't taking a bite until I'd found my place in this school. With this newfound determination, I made my way back to the corridors. My strides were confident and calculated. I was a woman on a mission.
But before I even enter the cafeteria, I decide this was not the place for me, because through the thickening mass of humanity crowding the entrance, all I could hear was this intangible noise emanating from within that could only be described as something you'd hear at the gates of hell.
I cut across the lawn and make my way to the library in desperate need to overcorrect my misstep.
This wing of the campus was my favourite. The library sat nestled between the faculty room and the art hall. A thick growth of trees only a few metres away. It was much quieter here. The air was cooler and the water from the water fountains tasted sweeter. This was definitely my spot. However, my hopes come crashing down when I see the "no food allowed" sign on the door. I saunter off to one of the stone slabs and rest my head on the ledge, exasperated. It was starting to sink in that I may never get to eat that damn sandwich.
Just then, I hear someone whistle and my head darts in that direction. I see Matty peeking from behind the bend, one hand in the air, motioning for me to come to him.
"What're you doing here?" I ask as I approach him.
"I'm always here. I should be the one asking you that. Don't the cool kids hang out in the senior parking lot?" he taunts.
"Well, now that Lee-", I clear my throat and try again, a new sense of awkwardness washing over me. "You remember my friend Charlie right?" I ramble, "So he got expelled yesterday and I usually spend my time outside of classes with him, so" my words coming out faster and skittish now.
"Oh, you can hang out with us if you want", he courteously interrupts.
We walk around the back of the building and find a group of kids lounging on the wide stone staircase.
"Guys, this is T. T, this is guys" he motions back and forth from me to the group.
"T!" Lacy squeals and runs over to hug me. "Hey, Lace! Been a while", I say.
Lacy had been the only person in our former group that I could tolerate. But once she and the tall blonde boy, George, started hanging out, I'd been seeing less of her. And good for her, really. She seemed happier.
"I know who you are", George said without skipping a beat, "Sorry about your bloke," he said, feigning sympathy.
He didn't say that with any malice, and I knew he was only joking, but that didn't stop me from feeling a slight pang of sadness.
"Ohmygod shut up talking, George" matty says, rolling his eyes.
"What? It's not like he's here to get offended. Probably in a different continent altogether, him" and the group starts laughing.
Matty tosses a lighter towards George with surprising force and it lands flat on his face.
"That. Was. So scummy sir, I have to say", George exclaims exaggeratedly, "but thank you, I was looking for this" he says and promptly lights a cigarette.
The act of perpetrating illegal activities on school grounds had long stopped concerning me.
Charlie had ripped a bong in the school parking lot one time. Yes, it was after school hours when it happened, but still.
"Ignore him", says a tall, lanky brunette. "George can be such a muppet sometimes" he says with a kind smile. "I'm Adam" he says, extending his right arm and we shake.
"This is Ross" he says, nodding towards another equally tall, equally lanky fellow on his right. "He likes penguins" he continues, with no context. Ross just smiles and waves in my general direction, not fully making eye contact. I recognised the three as Matty's band mates from his MySpace, but thought it best to leave that part out. Don't need them knowing just how invested I was in their friend at this point.
"And this is my girlfriend, Sophie"
"Hi Sophie", I say to a girl with a long, straight nose and brown eyes the size of some lesser planets. She had the widest smile.
"You're the girl that's been stealing Matty away every other day, I reckon?"
I laughed awkwardly, "uh, am I?" I play it dumb.
"Word on the street is, you are", both her and Lacy bursting out in giggles. I love when girls did that. Giggle. I think I lacked a certain level of Liberty to ever just giggle when I pleased. But I digress, as I often do so, to avoid the matter at hand.
"What you on about?" Matty questions Sophie
"Oh, pish. You know very well what I'm on about, Healy. Don't act coy"
"Whatever, I'm starving. Hand me your tiffin" he says matter-of-factly. Just then I remembered my own hunger and took out the crumpled sandwich from my bag. Sophie takes out a second lunchbox and says, "mum's packed extra for your arse when she found out you've been stealing my meals"
"That woman is Godsent. Tell Petunia I will be coming over tonight to thank her in ways unimaginable" he says cheekily.
"You're sick" she screams half laughing, and smacks him playfully on the shoulder.
I feel a sense of belonging here and I don't usually jump the gun in any social situation, but I allow myself to bask in it while taking my first bite of the sandwich.