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BROOKE HUGGED NED ONCE SHE GOT TO SCHOOL. It caught the boy off guard and caused a few glances in their direction as she dropped all her weight against him, too tired to keep going, wanting nothing more than to just disappear into the floor and take a break, to keep time from moving to just let her rest.
"What happened?" he asked, once she pulled away, and she shrugged, shaking her head as she simply watched him get books from his locker, the boy still waiting for a response.
"I just don't want to talk about it," she croaked, and he gave her a confused look, but said nothing, instead reaching into his bag and pulling out a small box.
It was small and almost rectangular, except for the multisided top and bottom, with a panda on the front with the words, 'HELLO PANDA,' written in large font, depicting small, panda head-shaped cookies with chocolate filling on the inside. He handed it to her, pulling out one of his own, before taking her hand and walking with her to their first period class.
They had a few classes together, and she had been shocked to find that he had been the boy she had drawn the Darth Vader helmet for. She hoped it hadn't come off as strange, and he assured her that it didn't, that he really liked it but hadn't known what to do with it, but she had clearly seen it hanging up in his locker one of the days she waited for him to walk to their next class.
"My mom gets these at the Filipino store she goes to sometimes. I saw you had used your transmitter yesterday, so I brought these just in case," he said, and she sighed, hating how predictable it was that she would be upset, but unable to truly care too much, because he hadn't made it for her because things seemed to be going well, and the fact that he thought of her was sweet enough.
She pressed the perforated edge that opened the lid of the box, pulling out the packet with the cookies, ripping it open and pulling one out, examining the image of the panda playing tennis. Her lips tried to twist into a smile as she popped it into her mouth, happy with the chocolate and graham taste.
Ned was simply looking at her, not waiting for her to speak or to tell him anything; he was simply looking. She tried to understand why, but the only thing she could think of was her conversation with Liz, which made her blush and stare at her hands.
Liz had said she liked Ned, and she hadn't exactly told her she didn't. But at the same time, she wasn't sure if she did. She tried not to think about it as she continued to eat her cookies, glancing over to the boy who was eating his own, checking his phone.
"Is Peter coming to school, I heard he had skipped out on the Decathlon thing, isn't he gonna be in huge trouble?" she asked, and Ned nodded, putting his phone down.
"I told him to text me when he finally gets to school, because we really need to talk. I think we'll see each other during break, probably. It's gonna be all over the school, it's insane. What-what happened with Spider-Man saving us, I mean," Ned said, and his delivery at the end had her raising her eyebrows, but she chalked it up to nerves of some sort; she tried not to think of them as nerves because of her, because she was too tired to think about it.
