Love at First Sight? - Walker Scobell

Chapter 11

Walker's POV

The school was closed for one week for repairs. The damage wasn't severe; mostly the room that the laptop was in and the hallway by the bathroom were damaged. The smoke was the biggest problem from that fire.

There were no other injuries besides Aaliyah and I. Her parents thanked me whenever they had the chance. I was a hero to them.

After the week of repairs was over, I went back to school on Monday. I was still on crutches but was excited to get out of the house after lying around all week tending to my leg. I was also excited to give Aaliyah the biggest hug when I saw her again.

As I hobbled into the school on my crutches, I heard rumors about how I injured my leg had already started.

"I heard his whole leg fell off, and he has a prosthetic leg."

"Nothing happened. He's faking it."

"He saved that one girl. What's her name? Aaliyah?"

"I heard that the burn was so bad you could see the bone."

I ignored the comments about me and went as fast as I could on crutches to the Algebra room. I really wanted to see Aaliyah.

I got my stuff out, but I didn't see Aaliyah's things by her locker. She probably just wasn't here yet.

Eva walked in. "Walker," she said to get my attention. "Aaliyah said to tell you that she's not gonna be here today. She's taking an off day. She was going to text you, but she thought you would be at school already."

My heart dropped. "Okay, thanks," I replied, trying to seem unfazed. I wasn't. I'd never needed a hug from her more. Today was going to be an awful day.

The day inched by as slow as it could possibly go. Everyone I knew was asking me random questions about my leg, but I brushed them off. The only thing I could think about was Aaliyah.

During literature, I decided to sneak my phone into the bathroom to try to call her. I shut the door to one of the stalls and dialed her number, praying that she would pick up.

She did right away, and I was so grateful to hear her voice.

"Aren't you at school?" She asked.

"Yes," I replied. "I snuck my phone into the bathroom so I could call you."

"You little rebel," she teased.

"Why weren't you at school today?" I asked. "I mean, Eva told me you were taking a rest day, but why?"

"I didn't really want to go back into that school right away," she admitted.

"Oh yeah, that's fair," I replied. "I miss you, though."

"I miss you too." I practically melted at those words. "I'll probably be there tomorrow."

"Okay, good."

"Anything important happen?"

"Nah, nothing really. We haven't taken many notes. All the teachers are going over fire drills again."

"Those drills are dumb. No one's gonna get into a single file line and walk out one by one," she grumbled. "If I had tried to go slow, I would've been in the flames."

"Thank you for not listening to the fire drills," I said in a joking way.

"Ha, you're welcome. Also, I know I've told you this about a million times, but thank you for coming to get me."

"And I told you a million times, I would do it over and over again if I had to."

"You're the best."