Encounters

8. English

For once, I was looking forward to english. Which was not weird because I was sitting next to my friend, Greyson. People like talking to their friends, that's normal. What I'm feeling is normal. Because he's my friend.

As he walked into the classroom, I looked up and smiled at him. Yes, this is perfectly normal. When our eyes meet for a moment, I feel my breath leave me and suddenly I forget how to make my lungs work.

"Hey, Fern," he greets casually, sitting down.

"Hey," I exhale, my voice quite as my body needs time to bring itself back to normal. I stare at my book, waiting for Blue to come. We usually spend our breaks together but she had to do something else so I had no idea when she would return.
The teacher hadn't arrived yet and we had all taken our books and pencil cases (if you had one) out. Mr Maroon always took 5 minutes to get here.

"So, how are you?" I look at him again, not at his eyes but just his face in general. I wasn't expecting him to carry on talking to me. I should stop being surprised, I always talk to Blue and Amber, why should it be any different with my friend Grayson?
Yet, with him my lungs seem to deflate and my chest only got tighter. There was this anchor in my stomach, paralysing me to my spot.

"I'm fine." My lungs expand and deflate, pushing the words that seem to be stuck in my throat through. I should ask how he is now, I should try not to be so mute around him.
"You?"

That was all I could get through my narrow throat but he didn't seemed to mind. He just gave me an easy smile and said he was fine as well. Why does his smile squeeze my heart?

Blue then walked in, sitting down rather grumpily. Blue was a soft person who knew more than you expected, and was not easily disgruntled.

"What's wrong?" Greyson asked immediately, swivelling in his seat to look at Blue.

"I had to show a couple of Year Sevens around the Maths block and one of them thought it would be funny to run into classes and scream Bah Humbag. Do you know what's worse? I was the one blamed at first, not those sticky little idiots!"

"Wait, you were blamed? So does that mean you have detention or something?" He asked with confusion.

"No, no, I managed to convince them not to do that and instead now I never have to do that again because 'it seems that you are a quite unreliable guide' but that Year 7 I was telling you about, he got detention," she snickered at the end and Greyson followed suit. I smiled at both of them. I liked Greyson's laugh.

"I thought I was late today, hasn't sir arrived yet?" Blue asked.

Greys on shook his head and I answered a simple, "No, he hasn't." She gave a tut and got her stuff out.

"Shit, Fern, do you have a spare pen?" She asked me. Taking out one the spare pens she gave me, I was about to hand it to her but Greyson beat me to it.

"Here you go, m'lady" he said with an easy smile that made my heart stutter.

"Thank you, m'lord," she replied and they laughed together. That must have been an inside joke, I thought, they would make a cute couple. Something in my chest tugged at that thought. I wanted them to be a couple, didn't I?

Mr Maroon finally came in and apologised for being late. The class begun with a lecture, as always and I tried to pay attention. When he set us our task, Greyson quickly faced me with a smile.

"What do we have to do?" He asked, his body already beginning to turn away from me. Why does he keep doing this?

"I don't know. Ask Blue." He nodded and then I saw his back. It seemed someone had tied a chain to my heart and it was getting tighter and tighter and all I could do was just stare.

They talked for the rest of the lesson and I continued doing my work. I was stuck on the last bit but I didn't want to interrupt so I just pretended I never got to it. But that was fine, I know that Blue loves talking to him and what kind of friend would I be if I interrupted that all because I couldn't listen to my teacher.