THIRTY ONE 🌸

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"Has Janet signed off her approval yet for you to attend the retreat?"  Cam asked as he offloaded books into his locker

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"Has Janet signed off her approval yet for you to attend the retreat?" Cam asked as he offloaded books into his locker.

There was a hesitation before I answered him.

"Uh, yeah I think so."

My eyes latched onto his in the school hallway. He was here. He noticed me and gave a small two fingered salute. He was standing at his own locker talking to abbey-mae and looking completely normal, no trace of the last few weeks visible anywhere on him.

"Good! I thought it was gonna be hard to get the permissions because your dad is still in the picture."

"Yeah. Uh... what?" I answered politely, not taking my eyes off Arlo or paying attention to Cameron's ramblings. Abbey-mae walked off flicking her long brown hair behind her. "I'll catch you later Cam."

I wanted to run to him but that would be insane so I walked, really, really quickly. Okay, maybe it was more like a light jog, he watched every step I made.

"You look... showered." He banged his forehead against the metal of his locker and groaned.

"Don't Blossom, I'm already embarrassed enough." He turned his head to face me, still resting his forehead against the locker. "I must've smelt really bad." I started laughing and then so did he.

"I was going to come to your house again after school." He opened up his locker and started offloading his books.

"Thanks, you know... for everything. It really ... helped." I smiled and nodded. "But that doesn't mean I'm gonna be nice to you now." He smirked at me and closed his locker. Together we started walking down the corridor.

"I figured as much, you wouldn't know how to be nice." He chucked lowly and I beamed.

"About... what happened... can we just keep it between us?"

"Of course." I replied without skipping a beat.

"Arlo are you coming in here?" His teacher said with an attitude. Arlo looked at him blankly.

"You mean I get the choice?" He asked sarcastically.

"Get in here." He waved a piece of paper at him and Arlo disappeared inside the classroom and the door got closed. I stood up on my tiptoes and peered in at the window. Arlo sat down and a posse of people circled around him, all engrossed in conversation.

He was popular and people craved his attention. He wore his smirk and spoke back, annoying the teacher more. His demeanour was so confident and carefree, no trace of the mental struggles he faced beneath the surface.

He lifted his top showing the girls around him his nipples and they prodded at his chest tattoo with their fingers. I dropped down on my flat feet and continued walking to my own class.

•••

A loud shriek of the coaches whistle interrupted the game of dodgeball for the billionth time because the girls played with too much venom. I rolled my eyes and swiftly bounced to the left in order to avoid Hannah's attack.

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