Tweetie

15

Ryan wasn't fond of crowds. He never had been. When his dad was around, a crowd had been in his home every other day. Though, they weren't the worst. Sure, they were criminals and were making shady deals and taking questionable drugs, but, they were usually kind towards him. They asked him how school was, bantered with him, regular things by irregular people. He just needed to be careful of when he was around and when he wasn't. He thought that would have gotten him used to crowds. But it hadn't.

Sitting in the cafe, knowing that crowds of students would come by at least three times a day put him on edge, as most things did. Once, he lived a lonely life in a peaceful place. His best life, if he had to pick any. But that passed and now he suffered this one, pestered every day by people he didn't know nor care for, taunted by his past and unfortunately his present.

He sat, listening to his friends talk while he held his coffee and tried his best to ignore the classmates who passed him, stared at him, tried to get his attention by walking a little too close. Some grazed his arms, forcing his eyebrows to knit closer together and his hands to shake from the unexpected contact. It pissed him off.

He kept himself distracted as best as he could by watching the things around him that didn't piss him off, not as much as the people who wanted him for his popularity did. Joel doodled on his textbook, stopping every so often to send Oscar a gummy smile and a pen lid that bounced from Oscar's forehead. Leo leaned back, glancing at Ryan every so often to make sure he didn't get too wound up, Fox rocked back in his chair like he always did, letting his cap keep him distanced from everyone else who couldn't see through the shadow it cast, making it hard to tell if he was asleep or not. Even Oscar seemed distracted, taking his time to tap a tune against the table and shy away from the girls who walked too close to his seat.

Robin passed them every so often which wasn't so bad. Ryan knew her enough to not get quite so bothered by her presence. She cleaned tables, moving in repetitive motions which were almost hypnotic if not for the fact that every so often, she would stop, scrunch her nose at her hands and then continue. The more time that passed, the more pained she became until eventually, Stewart stopped her and got her to make their coffee.

Which she did, and Ryan was quite certain that it was the first time she had made coffee for them. All the other times, Stewart made them or she was so hurried to make it in an attempt to make up for spilt coffee, she didn't actually think to make it properly. So this, knowing that it wouldn't be Stewart's coffee and that she wasn't panicked, made Ryan's stomach drop.

He liked his a particular way. Stewart knew to put the sugars in for him to save face and help him hide the fact that unless he had three sugars, he wouldn't be able to drink his coffee. It wasn't so much a problem that he cared that it was unhealthy, but he knew that people watched him put sugars in because they always watched him. It made it difficult to keep things private. Sure, there were some things he could hide, but hiding his love for sweet things wasn't easy when he spent all of his time in a cafe where food and drink were everywhere.

His day was made even worse when a student approached and blocked his view of Robin, stopping him from seeing whether she would know while Stewart went into the kitchen, making it impossible for him to have told her.

"Hi, Ryan."

"Hm?" He looked up, noticing the girl in front of him while her friends watched from a table in the corner of the room. She bounced anxiously, fumbling with her fingers. He assumed she was in his year group, but even then, he had kids from year eight come up to him with chocolates and badly spoken flirts, so he never could tell. "What?"

"I was uhm-" she stopped, noticing how Oscar visibly moved his chair away, getting distance between them both, "I was wondering if I could buy you lunch today...."