𝘉𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘵-𝘋𝘰𝘶𝘹

Chapter 7 - Nick

Relieved that maths is over, Daisy and I have science next.  I sit next to my science partner, Nick. The teacher is busily scribbling on the whiteboard and seems unfazed by some students talking. I anticipate Nick to talk to me. He always does, and I don't mind, but sometimes I'm not in the mood.

'Hey, Jolene,' he says with a smile. I really do like Nick. Similarly to me, he has a posher accent, though much more posh than mine. He still lives in Wimbledon, so it takes him about 15 minutes to get to school. I'm not sure why he decided to go to this school when he could've gone to one of the fancy schools in Wimbledon. It seems stupid, anyone would've wanted to go there rather than end up here. Well, I did, anyway. His upturned lips smile more, and he tilts his head slightly.

'Hey Nick, how you doing?' I ask cordially, glancing at the teacher to make sure he isn't planning to stop us any time soon. Whilst I speak to Nick, I do the entry activity, which he has already done. 

'I'm happy to be back at school,' He pauses. 'For the most part.'

I know he's talking about Luke, who is often mean to him. I assume Luke has a reason for being nasty to Nick, but I just don't know what that is. Again. Nick is so personable and nice, there's honestly no problem I see. 'I get it. Science is fun, though?'

He beams, realising I acknowledged what he told me last week: 'I would like to be a forensic scientist when I'm older.' This term we're focusing on Chemistry, which should be right up his alley.  

'Yes, it helps distract me. Are you looking forward to Valentine's Day?' He offers.

For a couple of seconds, I blow out my cheeks, considering what to say. I've already answered this question but it seems to be a rapidly changing answer. 'I mean, it's good and all that, but I don't really go in for that stuff.'

His smile falters. 'Oh? But don't you have a boyfriend?'

I smile softly and quietly offer, 'I did, we broke up.'

There's something almost relieved about his expression when he looks at me. 'Oh, I'm sorry. What happened?'

I bite my cheek. 'I'd rather not, sorry.'

'No, don't worry, it's not my business. Shouldn't have asked.'

Nick's a good guy, he knows his boundaries. One of the few in our population, and, unsurprisingly, they are all the rich kids. And he's a boy. He's very open and I often feel like he's quite feminine in his approach to life. Like, for example, asking me what happened between me and my ex. Most boys wouldn't ask, or care. I check the time. 'How was your weekend?'

'It was okay, perhaps a little mundane.' If only my weekends could be more like that. They are definitely the opposite, always tense and frustrated, cooped up in my home with Mum. 'How about you?'

'It was cool, I got to see Hannah,' I inform him, not telling him the reason I did was because I walked out on my mum.  I look at the science room; it's organised and spotless other than the teacher's desk, which is scattered and messy. I study what the teacher has prepared for us, which is what appears to be an experiment involving fire. I've taken a liking to science as I've grown older. I like the idea of making discoveries and challenging the discoveries others have made. 

'That's nice,' Nick says, but there's a hint of something I can't tell in his voice. Is he upset? Jealous? I'm not sure his parents let him out often. Or maybe he's jealous because-

'Right!' The teacher bellows, clapping his hands and jolting me out of my thoughts. 'I hope you've all done the entry activity and haven't just been chatting the whole time!'

As the teacher proceeds to talk about our new focus, chemistry, my eyes drift towards where Daisy sits. Daisy smiles at me sweetly, and I smile back and then look past her, over to the corridor. Despite it being empty, I imagine spotting a robber or something running past. I push the thought out of my head, knowing it's immature and I shouldn't think of such peculiar things. The teacher has stopped talking and seems to be looking in my direction, frowning. 'Jolene?'

'Pardon?' I ask quietly, feeling a burning in my cheeks.

'You're staring out in the corridor, did you see anything?' Sir responds, glancing out of the door. What if he's angry at me?

'No, I was just a bit side tracked, Sir, sorry,' I mumble, feeling many sets of eyes penetrating me with their amused stare. Sir sighs, rolling his eyes slightly. He turns his back on me and I pay attention this time; we're partnering up with anyone we like, as long as we can study purposefully with them. Daisy is the first to come to mind, but I know she might try her luck with Aiden, and besides, we wouldn't study at all, we'd be too easily distracted. But I do know someone who I think would be up for studying with me.

'Alright, find yourselves a partner to do today's test with, and to study with for the next month,' Sir calls, and I realise I've never really 'studied' with someone. Year 10 sure is tiring. I turn to Nick, who's already opened his mouth to say something, and I wait expectantly. He closes his mouth and clenches his jaw, changing his mind. I speak instead.

'Wanna partner?' I offer, shrugging to try and make it sound cool. Nick looks relieved, as he widens his eyes and clasps his hands together. 

Quietly, he chuckles his response, 'Sure! That'd be cool.'

'Also, I didn't listen to anything Sir said, so you're going to have to help me out.' I smirk, and Nick grins softly. He goes to get the equipment after I pull up the work we're doing today on his laptop. Something about alcohol and water, like what we did in Year 7. 

After a handful of minutes of doing our experiment in silence, Nick concentrating hard and me watching closely, Nick starts a conversation. 'We're only doing studying for a week,' he explains, 'then Sir said we'd be redoing parts of our mock exams from last term. I don't know why, I didn't think we'd get the results until later.' He adds, frowning slightly, his chiseled features scrunching. 'I hate physics.' Which was our exam subject last term.

'Something we have in common,' I joke, writing down the steps of the experiment on our spreadsheet. 'Does forensics involve any physics?'

'No doubt,' He says, with a little bit of a dismissive tone. 'I guess you'd need it to work out the angle and force you might have to use to beat someone around the head, blood spatter and all that. And in road accidents, for example, working out how fast a car was going and whether...'

'That's interesting,' I cut him off, giving him a cheeky smile. He takes the hint and chuckles.  I continue tapping away at the keyboard. 

'Are you interested in anything else?' I ask, 'Like, if you ended up not doing forensics for some reason? Not saying you that'll happen,' I add hastily, not wanting to shatter his dreams, but he doesn't seem to care. 

'I might look into calligraphy writing,' He states. 'You know, signing fancy letters and invitations to the King's parties or something.'

I giggle, 'Hmm. How do you go from attending murder scenes to writing fancy invitations?' I ask, genuinely curious, 'is there much money in invitation writing?'

'Hell yeah, all the rich people are always chasing after traditional hand-writing calligraphists to write their snotty letters.' His tone is slightly off, and he's glowering at the experiment. Silently, I decide it's possibly best to not talk about jobs, seeing as it's obviously a sensitive subject. I would imagine he's putting a lot of pressure on himself to succeed. Or maybe his parents are. Like I say, I have no idea why he's here and not at one of the posh schools.

It feels like the rest of the lesson is taking forever to finish, and I glance up at the clock. Ten minutes to go.

'What do you want to do when you're older?' He quizzes, finally stepping back from the project. 

'Honestly, I've never thought about it.' I suddenly register, actually taking the question into consideration. I like art, but it's not something I'd have the motivation to constantly do. I like writing, but again, it's not something I'd want to spend my life doing. 'I guess I like history. Maybe an archaeologist. I like finding out about bones.'

'Fun,' He says, amused. 'There's a job called 'forensic anthropology' where you study bones if there is no forensic evidence. They decipher what murder weapons could have been used if the bones are cut up and stuff.'

'Oh,' I remark. 'That sounds like it could be interesting. I love crime- not like that!' I interject quickly, 'have you heard of the Rodney Alcala case? A.K.A the Dating Game Killer?'

Nick beams at me.