you and i

3

It was currently ten minutes before three in the afternoon and Angelo was smoking a cigarette just outside of the school's courtyard. The city that Angelo lived in was quite small and there was only one public high school in the area, the rest was a couple cities over. So, he knew that this was the place to find him.

School had already been led out, but there were still some clubs and extracurricular activities that were still going on. So, he waited patiently as he exhaled long puffs of smoke to escape his system. No longer than five minutes have passed when the boy came out of the side doors of the building. Angelo smirked as he threw his cigarette down and stomped on the ashes before quietly following him.

The curiosity of this boy was making him make impulsive decisions, such as this one. The events that occurred early on in the day made him want to know more about him, although he didn't know exactly how following him home was a good way to do this.

Nonetheless, he decided to go with his instincts. So far, the boy wasn't doing much of anything after leaving the building. Angelo assumed that once he came out of the school he'd be headed straight towards home, but he was sat on the benches near the front entrance writing inside of what appeared to be a journal.

"What the hell are you doing?" Angelo muttered under his breath. But his voice was quiet enough for no one to hear, plus he was standing where he could not be seen. He too had to be cautious that there was no one he knew personally or worse a police officer nearby.

Forty minutes have passed, and he was finally making a move. Most of the students were already gone at this point and Angelo didn't understand why he stayed later than he needed to but shrugged when he assumed that it was irrelevant. He watched as the boy looked all around him almost like he was making sure that he wasn't being followed.

At one point Angelo had to duck in order to not be in his view. This act alone raised suspicion and Angelo wondered if leaving at this time was in fact done on purpose. After he carefully inspected the area, he started speed walking to the next street over. Angelo followed him making sure that he kept a safe distance in between them. As he was walking, he looked around and didn't recognize any of the buildings around him.

He's never been on this side of the city; all he knew was the kind of people who resided here. Soon enough they were back in the cemetery and into a trail just across from it.

The further they walked; the more confused Angelo got. Where were they headed and why was he taking such weird routes?

The boy was walking quite fast, and it was hard to keep up with him, but Angelo managed to get this far, he wasn't going to let anything stop him now. A couple turns later, and the houses got progressively larger. Soon they looked like mansions and Angelo smirked.

This was Clover Street, which was where the wealthy families all gather to live out their days in paradise.

As he was lost in his thoughts the boy turned around and Angelo ran right into him. He gasped knowing that there was no way out of this one. He opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by the boy in front of him. "Any reason why you followed me home?"

"Well, I just wanted to ask you a few questions" Angelo wasn't planning on speaking so he just started saying the first things that came to mind.

"And instead of asking you decided to follow me home...... okay" The boy replied obviously not buying Angelo's claim. "Listen, I have to know something. When I was in the graveyard did you hear everything that I said?"

To Angelo, it didn't matter much whether the boy heard him, or not. He simply didn't know how to ask what he really wanted to, so he was stalling hoping that he can buy some time to think it through.

The boy's blank expression remained as he was asking him this.

"Not all"

"Which part did you hear?"

"I am not here for integration and also I do not feel that it is your place to follow me home. This is private property and I do not want to have to make things any worse than it needs to be, now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to be alone"

As he turned around to leave, Angelo reached for his arm and as he did this, he pulled up his sleeves only to reveal bruises on his writs.

Angelo looked at them with wide eyes. He was not expecting that at all, and it caught him completely off guard.

This also made the boy slap his hand away from him as he hugged himself tightly while his whole body shook in fear.

Angelo noticed the sudden change in behavior after he physically touched him. He made a mental note of that before he remembered that he should probably apologize for what he just did.

"Uhm...look I didn't mean to-"

"LEAVE!"

The boy screamed as he ran into his house without another word.

But when he ran, he dropped his wallet. Angelo knelt down to pick it up and tried to say something to him but knew that he'd get guards or something down here instead of hearing him out.

Even though giving the wallet back and apologizing was what he should've done, he took it with him and decided to give it to him tomorrow after school.

This also gave him another excuse to go to his house again and do some more digging.

There was something about the way he talked that made Angelo feel like he may be the one person that could understand him the way he wanted to be understood. He sighed knowing that he never really got what he came for. Following him home was supposed to clear up some things and allow Angelo to actually understand him like he wanted to.

But instead, he was left with more questions than he had before