The Silence Between Us ✓

[26] Drop the Guillotine

VIA

The weeks flew by as they always did when there were exams coming up. Suddenly nobody had time to think about their friends or who was dating, with revision taking up every ounce of their brain. I wasn't one of them for the most part, but I did actually do some to be fair. The rest of the time, I watched people decorate posters with highlighters that would never be used again, make revision cards that wouldn't get a second glance and generally try to cram as much as possible.

And then the actual exams happened – but you don't want to hear about that. The minutiae of exam papers and mark schemes and grades aren't interesting to the actual participants, never mind people who didn't even sit them. No, it was the events after them that mattered. Not that I knew that at the time – but isn't it always like that? You think that the things that impact you the most later on will be obvious in the moment, but realistically you can only look back to them in hindsight, with the knowledge that you have now. You only realise how significant they are in the future, never in the present.

Significant Thing No.1: Katie and Dan finally broke up. I always knew it was going to happen of course, what with Katie nearly constantly complaining for a full four weeks about him and how they just never hung out, but it was still a little bit of a shock when she suddenly came around to my house one day to tell me that she'd done.

"I just told him that was the end of it" She told me quickly, "and it hurt that he didn't look that sad about it, but I don't care because that was the end of it."

I'd nodded politely, congratulated her like I was meant to, but in all fairness, I'd never understood their relationship. They'd never been there in front of me, so I couldn't comprehend how they fitted together as a couple. Them breaking up didn't mean anything to me and I felt bad by not feeling any emotion towards it, but that was how it was. It seemed like I was the only one at school – it was the fuel of all rumours in the corridors for a good two weeks afterwards, whispering that was too loud to be ignored. I tried to pretend that the fact that their low voices didn't cause my heart to race as I remembered the canteen. I hadn't been in since and knew that that would never change.

Significant Thing No.2: The date for the football captain try-outs were finally decided. Yes, that's right, Coach finally did something interesting and announced that any member of the football team could go for it, though Noah told me later that nobody other than him and Harrison were going to try. I could tell he was nervous about it, and a small part of me saw that perhaps that was my fault, even though he denied it. I kept telling myself that I hadn't done anything wrong – that at the end of the day it was always Harrison's choice to hit me whenever he felt like it, but it was as it I was standing in the way of Noah and something he valued as important in his life.

Significant thing No.3: I'd finally told my family that I was dating Noah. It was something I'd put off for ages because... well... I didn't know what they would say. With my brother it was a bit easier because I knew he was always going to tease me about it afterwards, but with my mum I had no idea what to expect. Would she be happy for me or think that I was so fragile that I couldn't handle 'the responsibility'? The problem was that I knew it had to be done, which is precisely why I did it two weeks ago.

I'd gathered them in the kitchen, my mum already looking concerned "What do you want to tell us?" She'd asked impatiently "I need to sort this quiche out for dinner!"

I know but, well...

"Oh my god my friends are all on xbox; be quick!" My brother piped up and I rolled my eyes. Why didn't they understand that what I was going to say was important?

Basically, my English partner did like me after all of that and we're dating. I signed it as quick as possible because it was hard to get out slowly.