In Our Heads

Chapter 6

*****

Cassian let out a breath of air that he could see as soon as it left his mouth and smiled. It was getting colder, but he was excited about the oncoming winter. He was at school particularly early when the sky had not yet been brightened up by the sun, mostly because he had had another sleepless night and felt like running around for a bit would set him at ease while making sure he was tired enough to fall asleep when he arrived home in the evening after school.

He made his way through the empty hallways, his footsteps the only thing making a sound until he reached the back of the school and dropped his sports bag beside the field. He was not yet dressed in his uniform as knew he would have to take a shower and change after running around. He dropped the ball from his hands and kicked it further out onto the grass before he began stretching to warm up.

He liked soccer much more than tennis and would have preferred focusing solely it, but his parents refused to let him join the team unless he took up polo or tennis. He figured he was less likely to get injured in tennis in a way that would affect his soccer, so he chose tennis. It was fun too, and he had met different people by joining more than one club which had helped when he was running for student council president.

Cassian spent the next forty-five minutes running around the field and kicking the ball around while the sky brightened above him until he was breathless and could hear the school beginning to buzz with voices and cars from the front. He was leaning with his hands on his knees to catch his breath when someone called out.

"Cassian?" He turned to see Kian and immediately kicked the ball over to him. Kian chuckled stopping it under his foot. "What are you doing? We don't have practice today," he said kicking the ball back to Cassian as he walked closer.

"Just kicking the ball around." He returned it to Kian.

"How long have you been here?"

"Not long." For some reason, saying that he basically came to school an hour and a half early sounded like a weird thing to admit.

"'Not long'?" Kian smirked, "You do way too much." He had heard that a lot from Kian in the past. "Can't say I don't like this look on you though. Always love seeing you sweat, your hair wet, honestly most of the reason I joined the soccer team." Cassian chuckled when Kian motioned to him.

"Shut up. I need to clean up." He picked up the ball to throw it at Kian who laughed as he caught it.

With that, Cassian grabbed his gym bag and headed towards the locker room but just as he unlocked the door, he noticed movement from the corner of his eye causing his head to turn to see what it was. He raised his brows seeing Theodore laying on the rooftop ledge.

If a teacher saw that they would understandably lose their minds and the doors to the roof would be locked forever. It looked incredibly dangerous, if he rolled slightly he would fall three stories, landing on the paving just outside of the back of the school. What was he doing?

Theodore was not moving and appeared to just be staring at the sky. Cassian frowned about to head towards the school building instead of washing up but when the bell rang he saw Theodore sit up on the ledge before safely getting back on the roof and then disappearing further onto it. He had to be crazy, wasn't he afraid of slipping?

Cassian shook his head heading into the locker room. He texted Kian asking him to tell their homeroom teacher that he was taking a shower before he started getting cleaned up.

When he headed back to class, everyone was in the midst of walking to the first period so he began to head to his Science lesson but stopped as he saw Theodore through the crowd.