Hard To See (Gawsten)

eleven

Wednesday morning is hopeful. Jawn wakes up with Otto at the foot of the bed- the curly-haired boy tends to move around in his sleep a lot- and both boys get ready for school, intending to talk to Awsten as soon as they see him.

Geoff- arriving from his own house to walk to school with the other two- is less hopeful, but still wants to believe that Jawn is right. Maybe Awsten just had a bad day yesterday, and is better today. The blond boy does seem like the type to isolate himself when he's upset. Geoff, like his two friends, intends to talk to Awsten as soon as he sees him.

The three seem to underestimate exactly how good the blond boy is at being invisible. Awsten's logic is if they don't see him, they can't talk or interact with him.

So, they won't see him. He'll make sure of it.

***

After the first few class periods have passed, the blond boy is tired. He's been going out of his way to avoid the three others all day. He's ducked into classrooms, hidden behind locker doors, and dove into crowds of people during every single class change. Hell, he's even nearly army crawled into the bathroom once or twice.

The way the school is set up doesn't offer him many options for alternate routes to his classes, as everything he's a part of is located on the same couple of hallways except the lunchroom and gym. None of the boys have gym for this semester, so the four of them stay in the same two hallways essentially all day. It makes Awsten's mission harder, but Otto, Jawn, and Geoff's easier.

Awsten has never skipped before, and doesn't really intend to, but it's still an idea. He figures hiding outside the school during lunch with the not-so-friendly crowd is enough rule breaking for the time being, though.

The bell rings, breaking him out of his thoughts. Lunch time. This will be the hardest time to avoid the boys. If they really really want to find him, all they have to do is wait in the stairwell. He has to come down it to go anywhere besides classrooms or the library- classrooms are locked and they'll definitely check the library.

The classroom empties fast, and Awsten has to make a snap decision- does he hurry and hide in plain sight, hoping to be ahead of the three other boys? Or does he lag behind and risk them being in the stairwell? Anything can happen with such a large crowd moving so quickly.

Having basically grown up in a household that hosts parties every week, the blond boy knows how to navigate a crowd. He knows how to blend in, and he also knows how to make the crowd split like Moses parting the sea. He decides he'll be safest in the crowd, so he sets off with the rest of his peers, letting them sweep him into their current.

He pulls the hood of his black jacket up, and lets the five or six students surrounding him swallow him up until he's just a faceless figure following the masses.

The trick is to avoid eye contact and look natural, so when Geoff walks past him, trying to locate his friends, Awsten keeps his face forward and his eyes on the back of someone's head. The person in front of him has bright red hair, and that's what he stays focused on until he gets downstairs successfully unnoticed. He slips past Jawn, keeping his eyes cast downward.

Carefully departing from the blanketing stream of teenagers- who have no idea they've just been used as a human shield of sorts- and casually making his way into a bathroom, Awsten decides to wait in a dimly lit stall for the hallway to clear. He'll make his escape out back once everyone is definitely in the lunchroom.

***

Geoff spots Otto's curly hair just ahead of him in the torrential sea of high schoolers, and struggles his way toward the boy. He passes several people he knows, including Gerard, before he makes it to the person he wants to talk to.