The Colours of Us

Chapter 13

Monday 5th of November 2023

I had just given my first presentation of the year, and we were in November. I had always managed to get out of it by making the entire presentation, but with Sloan, it was hard to have him do the presentation alone, because he had worked about as hard as I had, if not harder. The girls were the only ones whom hadn't done anything. We had taken them out of the presentation, just out of spite. Or maybe I had taken them out of the presentation out of spite and Sloan had discovered it at the last moment, when it was already too late.

I had seen Martha's face go from pride of being apart of our group to horror as she discovered that her name was not on the last slide. Juliette would have probably had the same reaction if it hadn't been for her new boyfriend keeping her busy.

It was hard to pretend like nothing was going on with Sloan. Hard to not hold his hand or grab his waist to show that he was mine. We hadn't been able to see each other in private since we had slept together and I desperately wanted to have him only for myself. It was harder to pretend I didn't want him then to pretend I was not scared shitless of my brother and Ugo. Though I was less and less scared of them as time passed. Perhaps it was the Sloan effect.

He was the light of my day. He was the only person I was looking forward to seeing enter the coffee shop I worked at, the only one I wanted so desperately to see everywhere I went.

"We nailed it," Sloan whispered as we stepped down from the stage of the amphitheatre.

The teacher did look surprised to have seen something other than a classic. I was happy to have listened to Sloan. I was sure he was right.

It was the end of the class, as we were the last ones to do our presentation today, and we were about to get our things and get out of the amphitheatre when a wild Martha appeared, accompanied by Juliette and her boyfriend.

"What the fuck?" she started, "why did you take us out of the presentation? We clearly gave our all!"

"Right," I mumbled, "you gave your all to finding excuses to not come, you mean."

Her eyes widened and she scoffed, "how can you even dare?"

"That doesn't make any sense," I answered, tilting my head to the side. "You clearly didn't care about the presentation, so we just took you out of it. It's easier this way."

"You jerk!" she yapped. "You should have told us you needed help if you wanted us to participate!"

"Well we obviously didn't need your help since we nailed it without you both."

"Look, we did all the work, we won't be giving you any credit for it," Sloan interjected with a frown. "You shouldn't even be asking for it."

She mumbled something and turned around, pulling Juliette and her boyfriend behind her. "That's not nice," Juliette frowned. "I thought you were nice, Sloan."

Sloan was about to say something but I interrupted him, "Piss off, bitch."

Some people turned around to look at me but I couldn't manage to care.