When he got to English later that day, he threw the book down in front of Isaac and glared at him suspiciously.
“Okay, mate, the game’s up. Why the fuck are you being so nice?”
Isaac looked up from his notebook, where he’d been scribbling down notes from the last class. What a nerd, thought Jared fondly. Wait, no. Not fondly. Er. Contemptuously.
Isaac just shrugged unhelpfully.
“Guess it just comes natural to me,” he said in an airy voice, and Jared slammed his hand down on the table. A couple of other boys turned to glance at them, saw Jared glaring, and looked hastily away again.
“Um…” Isaac was staring at him like a startled baby deer. Like Bambi. Fuck. No. Why would you think of Bambi when you’re trying to be intimidating?!
“Whoever it is that’s put you up to this…” he growled, in what he hoped was more the tone of someone who was planning to fucking beat you up if you didn’t tell the truth right now, rather than someone who’d just mentally compared you to a cute and fluffy Disney character. “I mean, come on Hanly. I just got to the end of that book, and there was a fucking Harry Potter bookmark three pages from the end. I mean, the Harry Potter bit didn’t surprise me- of course you’d be a massive Potter fan, that’s so you-” He shook himself. Don’t get fucking side tracked, Jared! “No. It wasn’t the Harry Potter. It was where the bookmark was, Hanly, three pages away from the end. Three. Fucking. Pages.”
Isaac’s nose wrinkled in confusion. Shit, the guy was a good actor.
“Wha-” he began, but Jared cut him off.
“No, come on. I’m not stupid. You’re a book-loving nerd, Hanly, I highly doubt you’d willingly give some rude dickhead your book when you were three pages from the end.”
A tense silence ensued. Well, it was tense from Jared’s end- Isaac looked like he wasn’t sure what all of the fuss was about.
“That’s what friends do,” offered Isaac in the end, throwing him a bright smile. Oh God. Jared just stared at him. Because he knew, then, for certain, that nobody had put Isaac up to it. This wasn’t all some sort of joke. This was just- Isaac. Nobody could fake how genuine that smile was.
And so Jared (panicking, because really, just, nobody was ever that nice to him without also looking shit-scared and / or having ulterior motives) said the only thing that came to mind at that moment.
He said, in a choked voice:
“Fuck off, Isaac.”
And Isaac just grinned.
YOU ARE READING
Invincible
Teen Fiction"I didn't know you had friends like Isaac," Willa said in greeting. "I don't," muttered Jared. Isaac rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you don't. You have //one// friend like Isaac." His voice turned into this stupid mock whisper and he leaned towards Jared c...
