Tuck Sinn

25

Class ended. They all stood to go to the courtyard for break. Huck looked around, taken out of his dazed note-taking. Smiled back at Tom.

They all walked out of class and outside together, and Huck was alive again-- he was talking and smiling and walking with that big gait of his, and was the center of everyone again.

Tom looked up at the bright sky as they walked. And then his eyes drew back to the ground, back to Huck.

During break, the crowds came to talk to them. People surrounded Amy and Becky and them—they surrounded Huck. Tom reckoned that's what he saw in the corner of his eyes when he was looking for Becky and Amy those days ago. Everyone had been surrounding Huck, and Tom had been too self-involved to notice it.

More and more people showed up, and the talking was one on the other and compounding, and growing, until it was loud all around him and Tom looked around and was surrounded by people. He moved a step or two back, and people stepped to the side and took his spot. It all brought a collateral feeling of stone to his chest. He just wanted to talk to Huck; the more Tom saw him, the more confused he was about who Huck had become. In class, Huck was like a shadow, just working. Out here, he was the center of everything, and Tom couldn't even get close.

The next day was the same.

It made a shadow grow in Tom's chest. Blooming into a heap of ash, and he could only watch. Tom stood by Becky, holding her hand. She grounded him enough to stay. But still, staying meant seeing Huck be so popular, amazing, mysterious, guarded, and Tom wouldn't get to find out what's underneath that smile and those gazes he was always giving to him, because Huck was busy reuniting with the rest of town. Tom felt that pit and that buzzing deepen in him.

The days passed, and it was the same. Tom was jealous.

But no matter how he looked at Huck in class and after school, and no matter how much that feeling in him had swelled, Tom couldn't bring himself to go to the woods. He just couldn't bring himself to go any night, because it would turn to him wanting to go every night, and Aunt Polly would just stay up late for him.and he had homework, and Huck might've started staying with the Widow Douglas, and... and so it was all just too much to worry about to stop his worries and talk.

So Tom just stared and stared. And smiled and felt a weightlessness when Huck finally looked at him, and felt a pressing pounding crushing thing in him when Huck would look away again. Tom just wanted to talk to him, but there was no room to.

"Do you guys want to go to the river after school?" Amy asked one day during break. Tom felt a swirl in himself, and looked at Becky and looked at Huck.

"Yeah?" Tom asked, meeting Becky's eyes. She nodded, and Tom took and squeezed her hand.

"Sure." Huck said in that smooth low familiar voice of his. Everyone else said yes, too.

The bell for break's end went off and so they went to Mr. Dobbins' class. And it was the same as every other day before; Tom talked quietly with Becky and Amy and Joe and Ben, until Mr. Dobbins called on him again, again. And then Tom would feel a redness multiply and flash through him as Huck and everyone looked at him, waiting for a wrong answer. Sometimes he was right, sometimes he wasn't. Half the time he got struck, and Tom would try to just look at the floor at his feet, seeing all the dirt and the scratches on it from years of this. He didn't like Becky and Huck and them having to see this, but this was the usual.

Then the embarrassment would be over and he would go back up to his seat, ignoring the stings of his skin, and try to do his work like Huck always did. But he never could.

Tom waited after each class, seeing for when Huck stood up and regained his self and his brightness. The feeling that made Tom remember how he used to be. And eventually, eventually, the day was over. Tom could feel himself blink slower, and walk with more of a strut, and his steps lighten. Tom and Amy and them walked together to the river, Huck staying behind a moment to talk to the teacher.