Prepsworth Academy

Chapter 33 - "Break my heart."

I was worried about Harry. It was an odd feeling, worry, and I didn'tlike the anxiety that came with casting doubt in my decisions. Harry had taken to crutches, and he was due to return them a couple of weeks after being let out of hospital, but I could still sense his hatred of the crutches, and the pain that sometimes shot through his body if he fell or moved too abruptly, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. As a response to the pain he threw himself into his extracurricular and socialising, hoping that returning to the way he was before would make things seem more normal. He was like me in that regard, having that desperate desire to continue on and usual, despite whatever had happened. Harry and I were similar than I had previously thought, and I felt like I changed when I saw around him, I could be less cold and detached and more normal, at least, however normal I could be. Thoughts such as these were running through my mind as I talked with Harry, laying lazily on the grass in the forest and staring up at the glimpses of blue sky through the treetops.

"Thank you." I said suddenly, and Harry looked to the side, his mouth quirked to the side in a confused smile.
"For what?" Harry asked, rolling to his side to face me. I sighed and rolled to my side.

"You change me." I answered slowly, before rolling back onto my back.

"What do you mean?" I studied the sky, pausing before I answered.

"When I'm with you, I'm more normal. I'm less weird Emma Winter and more normal teenage girl." Harry laughed slightly.

"No one's normal, we just all want to be. Besides, you're not weird Emma. You're you, you're smart and special and maybe even more funny that me." Harry said honestly. I frowned and rolled to the side.

"You really mean that?" I asked. Harry smiled slightly, and he met my eyes

"Every. Single. Word." He said. I laughed.

"You can't use my own words against me!" I exclaimed light-heartedly.

"You want examples? Fine. You already know that you're smart. You top every single class, or tie with Elle, and you're the head of like, ten clubs. You got early acceptance to Yale last year and turned it down because you thought you could do better. You're funny when you insult people, especially those who desperately try to tear you down. Do you remember when we were watching that guy from Derrington Prep debate and you told me that he "needed a new wardrobe and a drastically new haircut if anyone was even going to look at him without laughing."Harry said, smiling at the memory before pausing, and an expression of something like awe crossing his face as he looked at me.

"You're special because... you're Emma Winter. You somehow manage to be smart and cold and ruthless and you're going to run the biggest law firm in Australia, yet you're also Emma, who makes jokes about people's haircuts and breaks the rules to break people out of hospital and lies besides me in the grass talking about our dreams." For a heartbeat, I couldn't breathe, I just stared in wonder at Harry. He seemed so earnest, so charming, smiling at me in a way that made me smile to. Slowly, I reached out my hand, leaving it on the grass between us. Harry stretched out his hand, meeting mine and I gripped his hand as I rolled onto my back, staring out at the sky. I didn't need to look over to the side to know that Harry had done the same thing. As I lay in the grass, a burst of serene euphoria flowed through me, and, as I felt Harry's hand in mine, I felt like we would take on the world, change it, make it ours.

Lukas

After watching and reading multiple instruction videos and articles on boxing, Rose and I faced each other in the boxing room in Prepsworth, which was a room branched off from the main gym. We both had boxing gloves strapped on and were standing next to a punching bag. Rose had her hair tied up in a ponytail and she flipped it over her shoulder as she faced the punching bag. She glanced over at me, her gaze questioning, before looking back to the punching bag.