The Unlikely Lover

Chapter:3

3 days later

Finally going home, I'm a free man again. As my dad starts to pull away from the hospital one of my favorite songs came on, House of Gold by Twenty One Pilots. I turn the radio way up and stick my head out the window feeling the wind on my face. You take moments like these for granted until you get locked up in a hospital for 2 weeks, 3 days, and 12 hours, you can't enjoy the little things, or rather you get a new kind of little things. Like the little things in the hospital was things like occasionally getting food that doesn't taste like cardboard.

When we get to my house the first thing I do is get a soda from the fridge and chug it all. Oh how I missed the taste of sweet things that are horrible for me. The thought that I haven't touched my phone in over 2 weeks crossed my mind so I ran upstairs and grabbed it, and to my surprise it's not dead. My phone is full of notifications, lots of texts from people asking how I was and why I wasn't at school. A lot of the numbers I have no idea who they belong too. But of course the person who texted me the most was my best friend Victoria, or Vicki for short. From the looks of it she texted me at least once every hour and called me 34 times. I'm honestly surprised my parents didn't call her or her parents and tell them what happened.

Scrolling through all the texts one stood out to me, it was a number I didn't know, the message read "When you get out of the hospital text me, we need to talk." But how could anyone know where I was, my teachers weren't even supposed to tell anyone what happened to me. Then it hit me, Austin was really the only person who could know I was in the hospital, but why would he want to talk to me? I pondered these questions for hours and decided not to respond, I'll wait and see if whoever they are text me again tomorrow sense I will be back in school.

I wake up and quickly get back in the normal grind, I threw my phone across the room because the alarm annoyed me, then I got up and finally turned it off. I see the time 8:45am, "school starts in 30 minutes!" I say to myself and yell "Shit!" really loud, luckily both my parents are at work. I rush to get ready and run out the door towards school, the school isn't that far from my house but if I didn't run I would be late. When I finally got there I was out of breath and about to pass out but I manage to pull myself together before showing my face. I walk in and head upstairs to my first period class. I walk in and my English teacher, Mrs. Farris, looks at me in surprise and says "Nice of you to join us Mr. Booth, is your extended vacation finally over?" I smiled and nodded because I knew she knew where I was. All my teachers knew but they weren't allowed to tell anyone.

I sit in my seat in the front, all the kids were staring at me in surprise and whispering, all except for one. Austin, he wasn't staring at me with surprise, no he was staring at me the way I stare at hot guys, and yes admittedly sometimes him. No that couldn't be, but it was and I'm sure of it. But why the hell would the guy who beat me nearly to death be staring at me like he wanted to take to bed. He saw that I noticed his staring and he quickly stopped and shouted from the back of the room "Stop staring at me fag!". My teacher looked up at him with a dirty look, saw that he was talking to me and grabbed her ruler. She marched to the back of the class and everyone went silent. She gave him a stern look, "Would you like to repeat for me what you just called Mr. Booth?" Austin grinned and proudly exclaimed "I called the faggot that was staring at me a fag." The teacher took her ruler and smacked it against the desk with great force, it made a noise so loud the dean walking down the hall way walked in and asked if everything was okay. She turned around to him "Actually no, Mr. Mcarthy here called Mr. Booth some choice words and I believe in school suspension is in order." I turned around to see that it was dean Jefferson and quickly came to the conclusion nothing was going to happen to him. He would get taken to the dean's office and he would sit there for the rest of class, then they would let him go and just that happened. Of the 4 deans in our school only one would have done something, and out of the around 50 some teachers the only one I know of that doesn't let kids say things like that is Mrs. Farris. So yeah we have a fucked up education system.

I went to my locker at the end of the day to put my books away, when I opened it a note fell out. It read "I am going to text you tonight, you don't have my number but reply ~A" A had to be Austin, it just had to be, but what the fuck would he want to talk to me about? He hates my guts, he proved that by nearly killing me. Right when I got home, like he was sitting outside watching for me to step in the door, I get a text "We need to meet up somewhere and talk sometime ~A" I decide not to respond because I really don't have anything to say to him at this point. Then my friend Vicki texts me asking to go out with her tonight, I really need to get out of the house and do something so I say yes not even asking where we were going.