Never Fall For The Sad Boy (bxb)

7. Relationship Build

TWs: mentions of parent death

Simon, the poor boy, has been forced to sit at the same table as Grace and her crew. As I have started sitting with Kian, Simon doesn't want to sit with the other "popular" guys in our year, so he followed me when I, at lunch the Wednesday after that Tuesday, went to sit next to Kian together with Grace. His boy apparently goes to another school.

Kian is definitely more open with the girls, at least when it comes to making small talk and joking around. He seems fairly interested to find out about Molly Williams' new boyfriend and everything they have done together (I am completely horrified, Kian looks invested) and he listens patiently when Martha Trevor babbles on about some annoying guy in her life – whether it's her brother or her ex, I haven't understood.

"Is that your mom, Kian?" Molly asks suddenly, her eyes fixed on Kian's phone. The wallpaper is an old photograph of a young woman with a face that resembles Kian's, dark hair the same curly texture as Kian's, and holding a baby with dark hair and soft, blue eyes.

He looks down on it and quickly turns the phone off, turning it upside down on the table.

"Uh, yeah. Uhm."

"That's so sweet! What's her name?"

Kian swallows, his chest rising as he inhales deeply. I'm about to cut in, but Kian smiles at her, shakily.

"Her name is Abigail," my heart drops when I realize that he is sinking into the chair more and more, a sort of guilt clouding his eyes that the others can't see.

"That's so beautiful! What is she like?"

"She's wonderful. A bit... childish, maybe. She likes climbing trees."

There's a distinct bitterness to his voice that I do understand now. He has a self-deprecating smile that can easily be masked as fondness.

"Aw, you're a momma's boy!" Grace says, tone teasing, "Just like Simon!"

Simon glares at her and I stifle a laugh.

"At least I don't have daddy issues," he tells her, and as they start fighting, I get why they broke up.

"Oh fuck off, I do not have daddy issues, though we both know that you do."

"Fuck you, I don't have daddy issues. Ooo, before I forget, how's your boyfriend?"

"How's yours?"

It's clear that she isn't expecting him to answer, from the way she starts to turn back to her lunch.

"He's great," Simon shoots back defensively, and I push back a smile. The table is stunned into silence, me being the only one who isn't surprised. Even Kian is staring at Simon, wide-eyed.

"Excuse me?" Grace is the first to speak, blinking at her ex.

"My boyfriend. He's good, thanks for asking."

Another heartbeat of silence passes before Martha slowly, carefully, laughs, some of the others joining in as well. Grace isn't laughing.

"It's actually really homophobic," Martha starts, "to joke about being gay."

"I'm not joking. I'm bi."

Everyone abruptly stops laughing. After being stared at for a few seconds too long, Simon clicks his tongue and gathers his lunch.

"Well. Since you all are so supportive, I guess I'll go to fourth period now, yeah? Elis, you comin'?"

"Yeah, I'll just... Kian? We share this class."

Kian looks out of his place, glancing around at everyone's stunned faces before scrambling to get his stuff, "Oh, right, yeah, I'm coming."

—

It's Monday. I met Kian two weeks ago, and it already feels like we have been friends forever. We haven't been at each other's houses since Tuesday, and I'm a little scared to ask if he'd like to come to mine. What am I, five?

The more I get to know him, the more lovely he becomes, and the more I want to know about him. I feel like his entire mind is just a large space packed with interesting information and stuff, like grandma's attic; I want to go up there and look at all the old furniture and books – once I found a clock from 1924 that my grandma said she hadn't seen in decades.

Anyway, I want to get to know Kian more. I'm learning how to talk to him without making him uncomfortable, but he is still a very closed off person, he hasn't told me anything more about his life, really. I get to know him through reading his body language, like with the studying. It isn't always easy, but he thinks more about his words than he does his movements.

Usually I'm not this good at reading people, but you learn something new every day I guess. I don't know if Kian is unusually easy to read or if there's something about him that helps me see him.

It's the end of the last period, I'm sitting next to Kian in English class. Simon is in front of me and Grace is behind Kian.

"Can I borrow a pencil?" I ask Kian, picking up my own from the table. He glances at my hand, which is occupied by a pencil.

"You have a pencil," he says flatly, returning to his paper where he is analyzing a text to point out the grammarly incorrect sentences.

"I know," I say, smirk playing on my face, "I just wanted your attention."

He glances back up from his paper, raising his brow in an unimpressed manner.

"What is it?" he asks me, sounding impatient, but I can tell he doesn't mean it that way.

"Just wanted to know if you're up to hanging out with me and Simon after school?" I say nonchalantly, as if that isn't completely abnormal in our fresh friendship. Naturally, Kian looks taken aback, but he looks away from me before I can see his expression change. One of these days I'm going to look around his hair to see what goes on in his face each time he looks away from me like that – he doesn't do it to anybody else.

"Uh... I guess," he says, his voice weirdly high pitched, "Where are we going?"

"We'll take my car and just go somewhere. I'm sure my parents would be happy to make you dinner, too."

"As long as I'm not a burden..." now he sounds a little hesitant but also somewhat excited.

"Trust me, you won't be. You haven't met my parents."

Kian laughs. The sound tugs the corners of my mouth up. I love making him laugh.

"If they're anything like you, then I guess you're right."