Against the Universe

06 • maddie

Oliver, the dark-haired boy who touched my leg, is no longer in our class. He got expelled, leaving a flurry of sexual harassment awareness posters in his wake.

As if being in a wheelchair doesn't invite enough unwanted attention. Now I'm the poor disabled girl who cried about being assaulted.

Fortunately, things simmer down over time. Three weeks later and everyone's moved on.

Also, Grover started sitting next to me again. He consistently gets to class before I do. And the space where I sit is consistently empty. I suspect he's been moving the chair out of the way for me.

He still doesn't speak much, unless the teacher makes us discuss our work. I'm always the first to say hi. Sometimes he'll follow up with small talk, sometimes not.

Today, he does.

"You take French?"

Grover is taking in all the vocabulary sheets I've accidentally scattered all over our desk. I've been too lazy to put everything into binders, like we're supposed to.

"I do," I say, pleased that he's asking me about myself. "My mum's from Saint Lucia, so it's one of her first languages. Well, sort of. They speak a creole over there. But then she and my grandparents moved to Lyon when she was 6, and then..." I trail off, realising I'm rambling. It was a yes or no question. "Anyway, yeah. I learnt it as a kid."

"Ah." Grover's eyes meet mine. Piercing. "So, it's just an easy A for you?"

I'm taken aback by the judgement in his voice. "No, not at all! We have to learn about the culture and history too. Plus, I only learned to speak it. My spelling is horrible."

A smirk tugs at the corner of his lips. "Calm down. I was joking."

"Oh."

I start clearing up my stuff and getting out the materials I actually need.

Grover speaks up again. What a treat. "I'm Haitian, on my dad's side," he tells me, then bites his lip a bit, like he fears he's said too much by revealing his ethnic background. "I don't know any French though."

"Want me to teach you?" I practically leap at the opportunity.

He slowly shakes his head. "I'm good, thanks. After finding out about all the slavery, colonialism and bankrupting the economy by making my ancestors pay for their own freedom, I lost interest in learning their language."

"O...kay." It's certainly not the response I expected. I didn't think he was capable of speaking more than five words at a time, let alone voicing such a strong opinion. "That's fair. Actually, we have to do an independent research project for the end of the year for French. I might do mine on Haiti."

"Cool."

Hm. He's back. "You're a terrible conversationalist," I say without thinking.

His eyes widen, and I worry I've offended him, but then he laughs. It's a loud and genuine laugh; he doesn't just chuckle or exhale through his nose like he normally does. I like the sound of it, bright and musical, like a major chord played on the piano. "Sorry about that," he says, smiling.

My cheeks grow warm. "Don't be sorry."

My phone buzzes in my bag, and I take it out. It's a text from Harper Goldmann. We were best friends in secondary school, despite having very little in common. She's quiet, tomboyish and a Marvel fanatic. I talk too much and love sappy romance films. After we got into different sixth forms colleges, we inevitably started growing apart. But we have plans to meet for lunch at this new Korean café today.