Stay With Me

I didn’t see Oli for the rest of the week. I knew I shouldn’t let my paranoia take control and persuade me that something was wrong since he was probably just sick or something. I had thrown the razor blade in the trash bin as soon as I came home, wanting to forget I ever found it in the first place. I couldn’t exactly ask him about it since he hasn’t been in school. Even if he was in school and sat next to me during math I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to ask him about the blade, I didn’t want him to get mad at me.

I didn’t see Oli until Tuesday next week.

I was standing by my locker, taking the books I needed for my next class when I saw him.

He was walking with his head down, bag hanging loosely over his right shoulder. Even though I couldn’t see his facial expressions he looked sad. It’s sad that no one seemed to care, he didn’t seem like a bad guy.

I watched him as he walked to his locker and opened it up.

I decided to walk up to him and at least try to talk to him. I haven’t seen him talk to anyone else, maybe he didn’t have any friends.

As I started to walk closer I noticed something I hadn’t noticed from the distance. There were a large bruise running down his pretty face and he had a black eye and it looked pretty fresh too, like it had been done recently.

“Hello Oli” I said when I was close enough for him to hear me.

He quickly turned his head to me in shock before turning it to his locker again.

“Hello” he mumbled quietly.

He fumbled around in his locker before he found the books he needed. English.

I looked down at the books in my hands. We had the same class!

“Um can we walk together?” I asked and mentally slapped myself right after it came out. Good one Josh, not creepy at all. He would probably say no, give me weird looks and walk away. I pressed my lips into a firm line as I watched him shut his locker and turn to me. He let his brown eyes dig into me for a few moments as if he was making sure I was being serious before he nodded his head.

“Sure” he said.

I smiled in triumph as we began walking down the school corridor in silence. Maybe I should say something?

“So… do you have any friends?” is what came out of me. Nice one, Josh. Now he would probably never talk to me again. Couldn’t I just have asked him something normal? I turned my head to him and looked at his face to see if he was angry. He seemed calm but maybe a bit offended.

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?” He said, the last part coming out as a whisper.

Fuck, I felt like a bitch assuming he didn’t have friends. He probably had lots of friends outside of school.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean t-“ I started but he interrupted me

“It’s alright”

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled kindly at me. How could anyone possibly hurt him he was so sweet.

As we walked into the classroom I sat down next to Oli instead of next to that annoying James guy.

“Are you going to ditch your friend for me?” I heard Oli ask.

“He’s not my friend” I said “and you’ve the only one I’ve met so far that hasn’t been a total pain in the ass”