-Zane's P.O.V. -
Good, she's here today I'll give her the text book and get mine then go. I'm kind of nervous, she is pretty. I get kind of nervous around girls.
"Here." I say as I hand her the text book her eyes lit up as she looked up at me. She took the text book into her hands, looking it over before setting it on her desk.
"Thank you! Here let me...." She started speaking, leaning over and opening her book bag, pulling a matching science book out and handing it to me. "There. Back in order." She flashed a smile and looked away before her eyes met back with mine. "I took photo's of the notes you had in there, I hope you don't mind. You have nice hand writing by the way." She complimented casually.
"That's fine, thanks I guess." I felt a blush creep over my face, I turned and started to walk away when she spoke up again.
"Hey wait." I hesitate before I turn to face her.
"What?" I asked, not wanting to continue talking. She seemed startled by my standoffish reaction.
"What's your name?" she asked her tone soft but her voice was almost enchanting, I feel like she's messing with me, why does she even want to talk to me? I furrowed my brows and stepped towards her.
"Why do you care?" I asked, anger seeping into my voice.
"So I don't have to refer to you as angry emo boy." She said holding up finger quotes, her voice dropped the shyness, sounding almost put up with my attitude.
"It's Zane" I said, she gave a triumphant smile, like she unlocked a secret that was only known to me, I rolled my eyes but couldn't find a want to leave this conversation. "You are...?" I motioned for her to continue, rolling my hand, palm up in front of me. It's not like I hadn't already seen her name written on her class schedule but I didn't want to seem like a creep.
"Oh (y/n) my name's ...(y/n)" she replied, the higher pitch returning to her voice, seeming glad that I had bothered to ask her name. "My friends call me (n/n)... Either or is fine. What class do you have first?" She asked, a nervousness in her tone as she fidgeted with a ring on her first finger. Why is she nervous, she had no problem standing up to Gene or demanding my name.
"Art." I waited for her to say something, I already knew she had the same class.
"Really?" she sat up straighter. "Me too...could I walk with you?" (Y/n) tilted her head and I nodded and rolled my eyes after turning away from her and began to walk towards the door. She picked up her things and jogged up to talk with me as we went to class.
I didn't really know what to say but thankfully the art room was just down at the end of the hallway so conversation was only short lived. The door was propped open as we walked in, the smell of dried paint and clay filled the air as we stepped in.
"Where do I sit?" She looked around the room, still following me to the back of the room where my normal seat was waiting for me.
"In a chair duh." I rolled my eyes. She let out a small giggle, looking at me with a smirk on her face.
"Aw damn I wanted to sit on the floor." she retorted with sarcasm dripping from her lips. "No, but really where can I sit?" She said in a serious tone with a small smile.
I thought for a moment, would she even sit next to me? I pulled out a chair next to the one I was going to sit in, "No assigned seats." I said as she didn't hesitate sitting down next to me.
"Thanks." (Y/n) said as the teacher walked in with bell giving its final ring, signaling the beginning of class.
"Okay class, unfortunately the kiln was not working last class so we are still waiting on your pottery projects so today is going to have to be a free day, paints, markers, pencils, crayons are all in the normal spots, remember be creative and have fun and most importantly, clean up after yourselves I am not your mother!" Mr. Morre said, taking a seat at his desk.
(Y/n) raised her hand, catching Mr. Morre's attention, he nodded upwards before speaking.
"Ah yes miss...?" Mr. Morre had his hand out and pointed towards her waiting for her to fill in her name.
"(Y/n), um are we allowed to listen to music?" She spoke up over the quiet murmurs of the class tensing up before Mr. Morre nods.
She pulled out her phone and a pair of black ear buds and puts in the left one and holds out the right one, waiting for me to take it. I hesitantly took it and put it in my ear, she handed me her phone with her playlists open on it. I scroll through and stop at My Chemical Romance, pressing on the song, music filling my ear.
"That is a great choice." She smiled approvingly and grabbed a sheet of paper from the table, beginning to sketch. I grabbed a paper and did the same, my drawing was definitely more on the abstract side but I felt like it fit for how I was feeling.
I could see (Y/n) out of the corner of my eye, she was hunched over her drawing, a piece of (h/c) hair falling in front of her face, concentrating intensely. Curiosity got the better of me as I leaned down a bit to see what she was drawing.
(Y/n) was drawing what looked to be a self portrait, a three-quarter angle of an adult version of herself, with flowing hair and piercings but that version of her looked almost lost.
"Wow, That's amazing!" I spoke quietly, more so to myself than to her but she blushed, indicating that she did in fact hear me.
"You think so?" she didn't look away from her drawing, but I could see a smile creep across her face.
"Yeah, she kind of looks like you." I returned my eyes to my own paper, scribbling small lines and details, but I could see (Y/n) look over at me. I didn't turn to meet her gaze.
"She kind of is me, in a way I guess. I mean not to be pretentious. This is sort of how I feel about myself." She spoke quietly, making quick strokes of her pencil adding hairs that don't sit perfectly with the rest.
"Lost?" I looked up at her, her eyes quickly met mine before she looked away. She didn't say anything after that, just continued to draw with a smile across her face.
The end of class arrived much too soon, we grabbed our stuff and dropped our drawing off at Mr. Morre's desk.
(Y/n) and I split, continuing on our days.
-(Y/n)'s P.O.V.-
Finally, as the bell of the day rang. I gathered my things and made my way out of the building, going down the street and walking back home.
Once I got home and threw my book bag down on the floor, my little sister found her way wrapped around my legs. She looked up at me with wide eyes, I knew she was about to ask for something.
"Sissy, will you please take me to the park" Kaddy said while making a pouting face. I took a deep breath in and nodded.
"Ugh fine, go get dressed and put on your shoes. Wear sneakers not sandals please." I spoke with an unenthusiastic tone as she ran off to her room.
"Yay! You get dressed too okay?!" Her army of squirrels for a voice rang out in the echoed hallway.
"Trust me, I will." I muttered to myself, knowing that she wouldn't care either way what I had said. I made my way to my room, throwing off my uniform onto the carpeted floor. I dug through my dresser drawers until I pulled out my favorite band-tee and a pair of black jeans with rips all the way down the pant legs. I threw on some chunky rubber bracelets and grabbed my favorite converse.
Finally ready to go when I realized I should probably pick up my clothes and throw a load into the washer. Gathering my clothes in my arms I had to use my knee to push down my door handle to escape the room.
"Okay I'm ready!" Kaddy yelled from the front door just as I managed to stuff my clothes into the washing machine.
"Yeah I'll be right there." I shouted back, tossing a laundry pod and shutting the door. Making sure to turn it on before leaving the room. I grabbed my phone and keys from my bag and we made our way to the park.
As soon as we approached the park I saw him, Zane was sitting alone on a bench, scoffing at a couple guys out in the field playing with a football.
"Go play." I whispered to Kaddy, nudging her towards the play ground where a few rowdy kids were laughing and playing some sort of tag like game.
I quietly walked up to bench, swinging my leg over and sitting on the back support part of the metal.
"Ugh, go away! Can't you see I don't want to sit with anyone!" Zane complained without looking up at me, I rolled my eyes and slid down the back, taking a proper seat. Zane looked at my legs and seemed intrigued by the goth style of my pants.
"It didn't seem like that at art class." I spoke nonchalantly. Zane sat up straight as he finally turned around to look at who had sat next to him.
"Oh, hi... Sorry (Y/n). I didn't realize it was you." Zane forced his shoulders to relax but I could tell he still felt tense about me sitting here.
"It's cool, whatcha doin' here? You don't really seem like a sun bather to me." I asked, pulling a knee to my chest and relaxing my arms around it.
"My stupid brother and his stupid friend wanted to play football and my mother made me come with." Zane pointed to the two boys throwing the ball back and forth, trying to up-one each other by seeing who could throw and catch from the furthest distances.
"Which one is your brother?" I asked looking at the two boys, it's not really obvious, Zane doesn't exactly look like either of them.
"The blond one. That's Garroth." Zane pointed at the guy on the right side of the field. I don't know which one would have shocked me more. I almost wondered if Zane was naturally blond but dyed his hair really frequently.
"Is he your boyfriend?" My little sister's voice came from behind, both Zane and I jumped back and away from each other.
"Kaddy!" I felt a little embarrassed. Like she had practically ratted me out to Zane that I had a crush on him. My face warmed as an unwanted blush creeped over it.
"No I'm not, I'm just her friend." Zane explained, with the mask covering his face I couldn't read his expression. It was nice that he called himself my friend but was he embarrassed by the thought of being my boyfriend?
"What do you need?" I tried my best not to sound annoyed looked back at her.
"Nothing, I just saw you talking to a boy." Kaddy shrugged casually. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
"Go. Play. Please." I smiled, pointing at the play ground, it looked like a couple of the kids were waiting for her to return to the game.
"Do you want to go sit somewhere else?" Zane asked, peering over his shoulder at his brother and his friend now huddled together and gawking at us.
"Yeah, we can sit over there." I pointed at a bench that was a bit closer to the play ground. I sat on the back of the bench again, my feet on the seat as I leaned slightly onto my knees. Zane copied my position as he sat next me, right next to me. I'd say there's only a hands worth of space between the two of us. I looked up at him, but his gaze was set on the pink clouds above us, the sun was now starting to fall slowly.
"Zane..." My voice barely above a whisper, his eye looked over before his head had turned to face me. When he didn't say anything I continued, "Can I ask..." My eyes flicked down to his mask and back up to his eyes. "Why do you wear that mask?" I looked away towards the playground, making sure my little sister was there still.
Zane took a breath, looking like he had a long explanation but instead he sighed and turned his gaze away. "It's stupid." Was all he said, resting his chin in the palm of his hand.
"So? What isn't stupid? Everything is pointless and meaningless and we'll all die at the end of it. If it's so stupid then what's the point of it being secret?" I shrugged, why I am so curious, I couldn't say, but the desire to know is eating at me.
"Fine... I have freckles, and I think they look stupid on me so I just don't let anyone see them." Zane explained, taking his hand out from under his chin and fidgeting with his hands.
I couldn't help the repressed chuckle that escaped my lips, I turned my head away and covered my mouth but the giggles kept coming. "I'm sorry!" I couldn't stop laughing.
"What is so funny to you!?" Zane asked but he didn't sound annoyed. I took a deep breath trying to subdue my laughing fit. I was fanning the tears gathering in my eyes.
"I'm sorry, I was expecting like... something dark or tragic but it's just freckles. The least emo thing I can picture is freckles." I finally looked over at him, covering my mouth with my hand, a failing attempt at muffling my amusement.
"They look stupid. I can't help it." Zane was chuckling along with me, realizing just how ridiculous that was. As our laughing subsided, I looked back over at him. I could tell he was smiling by how his eye was crinkled at the corner.
"Can I see..." I asked, hesitantly. "Or is it like a no one has ever seen my true face and lived situation?" I continued after a couple beats of silence. This caused Zane to roll his eyes with a chuckle.
"I guess, but you can't tell anyone what you saw." Zane pointed his finger at me before lifting his hands slowly to his face. He hesitated before pulling down the black mask.
"Wow..." I whispered, he was wrong about his freckles being stupid. A blush seeped into his cheeks as I stared, he cleared his throat as he pulled his mask back up.
"Happy?" Zane turned away to face the playground again. I shrugged with a triumphant smile.
"Yeah, I wouldn't mind being able to look again though." I spoke honestly, realizing only a second later how flirtatious that might sound. "Hey, not to be weird or anything but do you wanna come over for dinner?" I didn't look at him while I waited for him to answer.
"Sure, let me make sure it's cool with my mom." Zane pulled out his phone and typed quickly, sending off a short text asking to go to his new friend's house. The reply was almost instant, all caps and way too many emojis. "She said it's cool." Zane quickly turned off his phone and shoved it in his pocket. "I'm gonna let my brother know, I'll be right back." I nodded as Zane hopped down from the bench seat and walked back towards the open field.
"Kaddy! Time to go!" I shouted out towards the playground. The kids playing with her groaned out, sad that they weren't going to be able to finish their game.
"Five more minutes?" She pleaded, clasping her hands under her chin. I looked back at Zane seeing him engulfed by a seemingly unwanted hug from his brother. I turned back around to Kaddy and nodded, she and her small friends cheered as they raced around.
I looked back at Zane and saw that he was finally starting to trek back over to me. Kaddy pulled on the hem of my tee-shirt to get my attention, face red with exertion. "Okay, I'm ready!" She cheered, out of breath from running around so much. Zane approached and stood next to me.
"Zane's gonna have dinner with us, don't be weird." I pulled her gently by the shoulder to turn her around and start walking.
When we finally approached the house, I pulled out my keys and allowed Zane and Kaddy inside, shutting the door behind us and throwing my keys onto the entryway table.
"Upstairs, first door on the left is my room. I'm gonna go say hi to my dad." I pointed the directions to Zane before walking to my dad's office, knocking on door waiting for him to say I could enter.
"Hey, how was school?" Dad asked as he pulled the door open, stepping aside to let me walk into the room, his latest sewing project littering his desk.
"It was good, Kaddy and I went to the park I ran into my new friend, is it cool if he comes for dinner?" I asked nonchalantly, my hands clasped behind my back as I rocked back and forth on my toes.
"Sure." My dad probably saw the look of relief on my face when he continued, "He's already here, isn't he?" I gave a guilty smile and nodded. With exasperation in his chuckle he nodded. "Alright well. We will have two guests at dinner then." He smiled at my confused face.
"Who?" I asked quickly. My dad only laughed.
"You'll meet him when he gets here." Was all my dad had to say before sitting back at his desk and starting up his sewing machine. I shrugged and made my way out of the room and up the stairs.
When I opened the door to my room I saw Zane crouched down by my little horsies collection. I didn't think about him possibly seeing those. I kinda wish I moved them.
"Who's your favorite horsey?" He asked excitement in his voice, I gave a timid smile.
"Pinky Cake..." I answered, taking a seat on the edge of my bed, "You?" I asked in return.
"Pinky Cake is my favorite too." Zane smiled up at me as he continued to ogle my collection of figurines.
"Hey, can I ask another question?" I kicked off my shoes onto the floor and pulled my legs up to sit crisscrossed. He turned around and copied my position on the floor.
"You might as well." Zane placed his head into his palms and propped himself against his knees.
"Why do you hide your eye?" I ask carefully, to be sure I didn't offend him. Zane sat thoughtfully for a moment before speaking..
"My older brother, Garroth threw an ice ball at me when we were kids, he wasn't thinking and it messed up my eye pretty good so I just keep it covered because it's discolored and I can't really see out of it." Zane said softly. "You ask a lot of questions." Zane chuckled.
"Well that blows, stupid siblings." I laughed and slid off the bed onto the floor to sit parallel to Zane.
"Yeah, he'll never live it down. I have permanent blackmail on that guy." Zane laughed and so did I. "Now you know two of my secrets, so either you're going to have to share something or well I'll have to ya know." Zane drew a line with his finger across his throat. I giggled and rolled my eyes at him.
"Fine, uh... I don't know, I don't feel like I'm that interesting." I shrugged, smiling shyly. Pushing a strand of my hair back from my face.
"Well you came here in the middle of the school year, that's kind of odd." Zane mentioned, giving me a prompting start with my back story.
"Well, my dad recently got custody of my sister and I. We used to live with our mom who didn't do her best to take care of us." I shrugged, "It's kind of a boring story, really. A bunch of court and packing and all this other junk, but my dad is really cool. We don't have to ask to get food or get yelled at for walking too loud. So that's really neat." I smiled as I scraped my nails together, feeling awkward and not really wanting to be pitied. Zane didn't say anything.
A knock echoed at the wooden door of my room, "Kids, dinner!" My dad's voice made its way thought the door.
"Okay!" I yelled back, saved by the dinner bell. I stood up first and offered my hand to Zane, he slipped his palm into mine and leveraged himself up off the floor. Our hands still holding a moment too long to not be noticed. I pulled my hand away first, quickly making my way to the door and leading Zane to the kitchen.
Kaddy and my dad's guest were sitting at the table while my dad was humming away in the kitchen, Kaddy and the stranger were playing with a small tea set, pouring imaginary tea and offering toy cookies to each other.
"Hello, I'm (Y/n). This is my friend Zane." The man stood up and extended his hand to both of us, we each took our turn shaking his hand with a proper introduction.
"Tim, nice to meet you both. I've heard good things." Tim was polite as he smiled at us.
"Well I'm going to see if my dad needs any help, feel free to pick a chair." I motioned at the table, turning around to go to the kitchen.
"Did you meet Tim?" My dad asked when he saw me enter the space.
"I did... is he?" I raised my eyebrows up and down fast. My dad rolled his eyes at me.
"Yes, Tim is my boyfriend, we've been together for 7 months." My dad said almost boasting about it, I sat there with a gawking expression.
"Why is this the first time I'm hearing this??" I whispered my dismay, grabbing plates from the cupboard.
"I didn't want to introduce him too soon. What if we broke up after you guys met him, what if he was a weirdo? I had to be sure." My dad reasoned.
"Yeah for Kaddy, but dad I'm 15 I can handle knowing you have a boy toy without meeting him for a while. I just wanna know man." I explained my point of view. My dad sighed and nodded.
"Okay, I will keep you somewhat in the loop." My dad compromised and I nodded. "Now go set out the plates please." My dad ushered me out of the kitchen with the stack of plates.
I went around the table setting out the plates and taking a seat next to Zane and my sister. My dad came out with the pasta and meatballs, setting them into the center of the table. The five of us each took our turn taking our portions, making small talk and laughing around the table.
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(2019)Jesus I honestly can't imagine how many people could possibly have read this. Everything was spelled like I'm truly illiterate.
(2024) Hello, again.
I have finished editing this chapter and can I just say. This whole chapter felt so juvenile, which to be fair I was... I was a kid. Whatever I changed some of the details so if you're curious please give a re-read and let me know what you think.
Stay safe kids!