Now You Know ✅

Chapter 21: Lucio's Maths Tutor

Despite the number of times Lucio kept saying that he was doing all right, Pelham still insisted that he go to the school clinic to have a brief medical check on his eye - to which Lucio eventually had no other choice but to accede, simply to stop Pelham from chivvying him further.  Even when Lucio had gone inside, Pelham found himself loitering around the hallway, humming to himself whilst observing student-made posters plastered over the walls, the recent ones displaying choir auditions that was going to be held the next couple of weeks. That was when he heard a familiar voice call out his name.

April and a friend of hers had stopped short in their tracks just a few feet away at the sight of Pelham - apparently alone - in the hallway. Her friend - looking relatively out of place, explicitly with her seemingly newly-dyed garnet hair - whispered something to April about meeting her in their next class before proceeding down the hallway. April began to approach Pelham, who was studying her tentatively, as soon as her friend had disappeared around the corner.

"Hey," she said slowly, her eyes darting everywhere but him, as though she was expecting someone else.

"H'llo,"

The silence passed between them in two beats, before April said, "I thought your favourite part about school is eating during lunch hour in the cafeteria,"

"True,"

"So what changed?"

"It'll never change," he said, earning a small laugh from his ex-girlfriend.

"Fine. What has brought you here, may I ask?"

"I met Lucio outside," he began to explain, "and apparently he was hit by a tennis ball."

"We have tennis?"

"I know, right?"

April merely smiled, swinging her hands back and forth in alternate motions by her sides."So what happened after that?"

"Nothing. I just urged him to have his eye checked,"

"Very considerate, aren't you?

"You just noticed?"

April rolled her eyes. "How are you doing, Pel?" she asked earnestly.

The question wasn't something that sounded as though she was referring to the weather. And, judging by the look she was giving him, he knew she was beyond solicitous about his mental well-being.

"I'm ... doing okay," he said, nodding at his own words. "For the moment, at least."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm more worried about Luc's eye,"

April gave a small chuckle. "All right," she said.

"Hey, April?"

"Hmm?"

"Thanks," he said, suddenly feeling edgy, "for not turning your back on me. I honestly appreciate that. You're a really great person, you know that?" He sighed. "I spent nights picturing your reactions, and they were never good. But reality turned out to be better. So-"

"Shut up, Pel," said April, closing the distance between them in two strides before embracing him, her face already a shade of crimson. "I'm not bigoted, that's all. You'd be damned if I were. And I'd have to kill myself if I were."

Pelham grinned into her hair, inhaling the familiar vanilla scent. Just then, the door opened and April released Pelham instantly, as though she had been caught doing something unjust. "Oh - hello, Luc!"

Lucio, like April's friend earlier, suddenly looked fairly unsure of where he stood. Not to mention that he seemed oddly out of place, especially since the person that he had never spoken to had just acknowledged him - and with his nickname. He was pressing a square cloth on one eye, while his other eye darted from Pelham to April and back.