Sensations

I couldn’t help but laugh as I glimpsed Greg in the hallway. Throughout the day he had been awfully quiet, acting so unlike himself that it was both comical and scary. He was hiding under a black sweat shirt hood that was pulled over a flat peak, shadowing his face so that it wasn’t visible. It was like he was hiding something, possibly a black eye though I wasn’t completely sure until seconds ago. And let me tell you, Evan really did give him a shiner.

It surprises me that no one has had the nerve to walk up to him and rip off his hood and hat, exposing his black eye to all. I really want it to happen, but I don’t want to be the person to do it. It’s just not my style.

I peeked behind me at Evan’s retreating figure to see that his body was shaking with laughter too. It sucks that I don’t have my last two classes of the day with him, but we always meet up afterwards, so it’s all good. Plus, I have the opportunity to end the day with Joshua, which is definitely something that is worth looking forward to.

I grabbed the door to the gymnasium as it swung open to allow the people from the previous physical education class to exit the gym and go to their respected classes. Gym… I don’t know what to think of the subject. Personally, it is definitely far from my favorite, but I can tolerate it. I’m not the most athletic person, but I’m not the worst, and I’m definitely a fast runner, so as long as I participate whenever the teacher is watching, it’s an easy A in my opinion. I just think it’s a pointless class to have to take throughout your entire educational career until you reach college. If you plan on becoming a professional athlete or a gym teacher then you should take gym, but if you plan on doing something in the writing industry, something completely irrelevant to physical education, you shouldn’t have to take it.

My feet carried me in the general direction of where my friends would normally hang out until the bell rang, attendance was taken, and we were told to go to the locker rooms to change into our gym uniforms. That’s another thing that I really, really hate: gym uniforms. Aren’t we supposed to be allowed to express our individuality? Sure, we’re getting changed in gym, but we could still change into clothes that we actually like instead of itchy pants that make you rather tear them off and run around the gym half naked for the entire period.

I smiled and greeted my friends in response to their own greetings, pausing in the middle of my sentence when I saw a familiar head of white hair slinking along the back wall to the gym, going practically unnoticed by everyone else. I watched Joshua as he continued to walk along the wall, using his hand and cane to guide him as he found the corner of the gym and settled himself on the first step of the bleacher, practically completely shrouded by shadows. Interesting… I sent an apologetic glance towards my friends as I quickly hurried towards Mister Beyer, complaining to him about how my stomach felt like it was on fire and I simply had to sit out today. He rolled his eyes at me as if to tell me that he knew that I was feeding him a bullshit excuse, but he waved me off anyway, allowing me to take the day off since I’m generally a nice kid to have in class.

I quickly hurried across the gym as I could hear his booming voice sound throughout the room, names being called in the form of attendance before everyone was dismissed to their respective locker rooms. I stood in front of Joshua and fidgeted, contemplating my next move. Should I just greet him? No, he’d jump out of his skin since it seems that he’s completely oblivious to my presence. He had his back and head leaning against the wall, a headphone that was strung throughout his sweatshirt sleeve tucked away in his ear, barely noticeable. Ah, so that’s how he gets away with it.

I hesitantly reached out to ghost my fingers across his; telling him that someone else was here, but they didn’t mean any harm. “Hey,” I muttered quietly as I threw my legs over his long one’s and sat beside him on the wide bottom step. I mimicked his position as his head slowly swung towards me, my back against the walls and my legs spread out on the bench before me, ankles crossed. A small pout adorned my lips as I realized that my legs, spread out, only come up to the middle of his shins.

“Dayne?” He questioned casually, head staring directly at me now. I looked at him and couldn’t help but smile as I saw that he was wearing sunglasses over his eyes today. The sun must be especially strong. They give him a really special look, as if he’s sexy and mysterious. And the cute way some of his hair falls behind his shades just makes me want to reach out and brush the strands away, though I know that I can’t do that. However, it still makes me missing seeing his pretty blue orbs.

“Yup,” I said around a smile, confirming his suspicions. “I didn’t know that you were in my gym class,” I said as my brows furrowed together.

“Neither did I,” he deadpanned, his lips quirking a bit when a tiny chuckle ripped its way out of my throat. I like his sense of humor.

I mentally scolded myself for not even knowing he shared more than one class with me. I’m so unobservant. Hell, I didn’t even know he went to the same school as me until yesterday. It’s sad that I don’t know everyone in my graduating class, especially such an interesting creature as Joshua.

“What are you listening to?” I questioned him as I subconsciously scooted closer to him.

His head tilted towards mine, his body slightly curving towards me without him realizing it, but I was definitely aware of everything he was doing. He traced the wire of his ear buds from his ears until he found the other bud. He pulled it out of his sweatshirt and held it out in my general direction, waiting for me to take it and stuff it in my ear. I did my best to ignore the slightly sparks that flew up my fingertips when my skin brushed his as I took the ear bud and put it in my ear, furrowing my brows at the sound coming through.

“Bring Me The Horizon?” I questioned him, not really pegging him for the type of person who would like screaming.

“I don’t like them,” he muttered, “but they block out sound well.” He explained. I started nodding my head in agreement, surprised that I do the same thing, before I realized that he would be able to see me. I mentally slapped myself. How much stupider can I get?

“So,” Joshua mumbled, catching my attention. I poked him to show that I was listening since I didn’t really know what else to do. “What do you think of the first journalism project?” He questioned me, brow raised in curiosity.

“To be perfectly honest,” I muttered. “I think it’s just an easy project to get to know your partners.” I mumbled as I thought back to everything I was told about the course. We were told to just do a one page paper on what we hope to learn and achieve by the end of this course. Well, for us, it’s two pages, but that’s still pretty easy since it’s a page a piece.

“How so?” He questioned, his body turning more towards mine. I smiled because of it, knowing that he found me intriguing or interesting enough to actually engage in conversation when he seems to harbor a big grudge against most people.

“Well, I was told the course is hard and it’s such an easy project. The only problem is that it’s supposed to take three periods so we can write it out and revise, but she only assigned two, which means that if we really want to do well on it, we’d have to take it home.” I explained, not entirely sure if my reasoning was true. Then again, it was just my personal opinion.

Joshua was quiet for a moment, mulling what I said over before he turned towards me again. “You’re probably right,” he muttered after a bit.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled. “We’ll see how far we get at the end of class since it’s due tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he muttered before we lapsed into a period of silence. It wasn’t one of those awkward moments where no one knows what to say. It was more like companionable silence, not awkward at all. We stared off into space as we both subconsciously bobbed our heads to the beat of whatever song was blaring from Joshua’s iPod, our thoughts running wild. I zoned out, my eyes watching the game of dodge ball that was taking place on the basketball court as I saw Joshua in my peripheral vision. He really is something nice to look at.

I snapped out of it when I saw some random red object hurtling towards us. I realized it was a dodge ball and I instinctively leaned towards it, blocking it with my arms from hitting either of us, realizing that it was being thrown directly at Joshua’s head. In my attempts to stop the ball from hiding him, our heads banged against each other’s, but the ball was successfully block.Why the fuck do I have to fuck everything up somehow?

“What the hell?” Joshua whisper-yelled, his head turning in my general direction again.

“There was a ball and I tried to get it,” I explained, babbling as my hand came up to hold the spot on my head that banged against his, his hand already cradling his temple.

He turned towards me. “It’s whatever. They hit me all the time,” he mumbled as he pouted, rubbing the spot that would probably form a bump sometime soon. I saw his free hand absentmindedly search the wood of the bleachers, probably trying to find the iPod bud that got knocked out of his ear when our head’s made contact. I took my own hand away from the bump on my head and reached for his iPod. I wrapped the ear phones around it and hesitantly reached out for his hand, cradling it for a second before I placed the iPod in it and broke all contact between us.

“That’s not okay,” I scolded him. That just isn’t fair. If he could see the balls coming and have the ability to block them, fine, but he can’t! The ball was clearly purposely thrown at his head by a person who obviously knew that he’s blind since it seems that Greg, of all people, is the one hunched over as he pointed at us and laughed his ass off. I made a mental note to tell Evan to get a hold of him again. Maybe a broken limb would teach him a lesson. “It’s unjust and classless.”

Joshua just sighed, leaning down and running his hands along the wood until he found his backpack strap. He stood up and threw it over his shoulder, explaining to me that he always leaves class early for journalism. He unfolded his cane and left me sitting there a bit dumbfounded, watching his retreating figure as I did my best not to focus on the sway of his hips.

How could he take something that was just so horrible so easily? This is probably why he hate’s everyone in the world. It’s as if all he sees is the bad side, but the good always balances out the evil, though I don’t think he’s willing to accept or believe that. Joshua is just so complicated!

I leaned against the wall, holding my head as I glared at Greg for his stupidity. People like him are truly disgusting and he definitely had no right to do what he did. I’d have to apologize to Joshua about it in the beginning of journalism.

I looked at the clock and immediately groaned. Damn, this is going to be the longest ten minutes of my life.