Mellifluous - Tronnor

eleven

C O N N O R

For the rest of lunch, Troye was silent. He went to sit next to me, ever so often wiping a tear from his cheeks or getting irritated because of questions we asked him. We decided to let him be for that moment. Surely this was something bad, and if he didn't want to talk about it, we should respect that.

When lunch ended, I practically dragged him along to chemistry. The other guys didn't have the same class as we did, except for Kian, but he had called in sick today, so it was just me and Troye. Honestly, I was really happy he moved here. It meant I didn't have any classes without real friends. Sure, I had always had people to sit next to, to chat with, to laugh with, but I couldn't really call them my friends. And I felt like, in those 1.5 weeks I had gotten to know him, I could call the Australian boy my friend. Maybe even more if you take feeling into account. Maybe.

"Troye, are you sure you're okay enough to follow class?" I silently whispered as the boy was staring straight ahead, probably not hearing a word the teacher was saying.

"Mr Franta. There'll be no talking in my class when I'm lecturing. Understood?" Mr Miller was annoyed, as usual.

"I'm sorry sir. I was just asking Troye if he's feeling well a-"

"I don't care, Franta. No talking in my class." I flinched back and muttered an okay. The man walked towards my table and stood still in front of me and Troye.

"And. There. Will. Be. No. Exceptions." With each word he said a drop of spit landed on my table.

"And if mister Mellet isn't feeling well, he should go to the school nurse, not turn to you." He raised his eyebrows at the boy next to me, who didn't look up at him at all. The boy just kept on staring ahead, eyes hollow.

"Franta. Take the boy home. It doesn't look like he has the ability to pay attention this hour. And since you're talking, I want you removed from the class also. " He turned with that, and I slowly wiped the spit from my table and packed my stuff.

"Troye. Come on, get your stuff." I whispered to the boy who was still staring ahead. I shook my head and decided to pack his stuff and stood up. The chairs made a high scraping sound- and everyone turned around to look as I dragged Troye by his arm and outside the classroom.

"Troye, come on. Snap out of it!" I hissed when we walked towards the lockers. He looked dazed but finally seemed to focus on one thing.

"Sorry," he muttered, casting his eyes down again. I swear I could see anger beneath the layer of sadness, but I didn't want to bother him too much.

We got our stuff from our lockers, and walked out into the cold. Troye seemed reluctant to walk outside, and I only understood why when- after walking for not even two minutes- a couple of crying, hysterical girl ran up to Troye, asking him to please take a picture with them because they drove two hours to get here. He shoved them off with a 'no' and kept on walking. It was entirely different from the encounter last week and to be frank, it confused me.

I decide to keep close to him and steer him to my home. The fact that there were people following us made this quite hard though, so I decided to call my mom to pick us up.

"Hi mom, how are you?"

"I'm good Con. Are you calling in class?"

"No, I'm walking Troye home because he wasn't feeling to good but there's people following us and could you please pick us up? We're in Ricky's street."

It was silent on the other half of the phone and I realised I hadn't told her about Troye and that she was probably really confused right now. For which I, to be honest, couldn't really blame her.