HIDING FROM THE TRUTH ✔️

CHAPTER 6: EVEN

6.
A few hours passed and everyone except Gavin went home since they all had early curfews. Luke was sitting on his desk as he scanned through Gavin's English homework. They'd pulled up another chair so that Gavin was right next to him, shamelessly staring at Luke who didn't even notice.

"So you just have to read the text and analyze it to answer these ten questions, then write an essay explaining the meaning behind it," Luke said, reading the page. "This should be pretty easy. Have you read it yet?"

Luke glanced at Gavin, waiting for his response. He blushed when he realized how intensely the older boy was looking at him. "Uh, Gavin? A-are you listening?"

"What?" he snapped out of his trance, still slightly distracted by the pink color flooding his cheeks.

"Have you um, have you read this yet?" Luke pointed down at the book, silently begging himself to stop blushing. He was hoping Gavin would be too oblivious to notice how he always got so bashful around him.

"Yeah," Gavin answered, still barely paying attention. "Well I tried to but it's boring."

"It's Romeo and Juliet," he laughed.

"Exactly. Boring."

Luke smiled to himself, shaking his head slightly as he began to answer the questions on his own since he'd already read the book before. Gavin's attitude quickly changed when he realized Luke was only doing his work for him. He didn't want that.

He casually slid the paper away from Luke and set it in front of himself instead. Luke watched him, confused but also surprised as Gavin took the pencil and started doing the work himself.

"I thought you didn't pay attention in class," Luke said as he peeked over Gavin's shoulder to see what he was writing.

"I didn't," he grumbled. In all honesty, he was spewing half-assed bullshit that barely made sense. His teachers would most likely be surprised he did it at all and give him credit anyway.

Luke's brows scrunched together as he read what Gavin was writing. "You know they both die at the end, right?"

"Shit," he swore before erasing his answer to the first question. "How did they die?"

"Romeo and Juliet's families had a feud that forbids them from being together. The whole story is about forbidden love and the impact it can have," he explained while Gavin actually listened this time, "but at the end, basically they both committed suicide to be together."

"What?" Gavin spluttered. "They killed themselves over some stupid crush they had that their families didn't approve of? That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard."

Luke frowned. "It wasn't just about some measly crush. They were in love. The kind of love that's worth dying for."

"They'd move on eventually," Gavin shrugged. "They shouldn't have just killed themselves because it was hard."

Luke hummed, pulling his legs onto his chair as he hugged his knees to his chest. "I agree that suicide wasn't the most viable solution, but I get how they felt."

"You do?"

"Yeah," he nodded before resting his chin on top of his knees. The position he was in made him look even smaller and Gavin's heart clenched at the sight. "If I were them; I don't think I would've killed myself over it, but all of Shakespeare's work is dramatized for emphasis. He was pretty much trying to portray how love can do crazy things to people. Especially when people try to prevent it."

Luke's eyes darted toward Gavin's plump lips for a split second. He wished he was brave enough to kiss him. The moment would've been so perfect. But he wasn't, so he looked back up with another one of his signature blushes.