Jake Addams March 30th, 20XX

I dreaded the end of our lunch break, but time neglected my wish to slow down. Not that I thought the two-hour break was too short, but it certainly felt like it today.

My next class was one I shared with Finn.

I didn’t know if we could call each other friends, especially after what had happened yesterday, but I somehow felt guilty about the Text Alice had sent out.

Well, technically it had been Vanessa and her other lackeys that had spread the news, but Alice had known that would happen.

My main issue wasn’t that Finn was getting ignored. In fact, I figured that’s what he had been angling for when he’d escalated the situation yesterday. No, my problem was how confident he’d looked while picking a fight with everyone.

As a fellow scholarship student, I knew that there were certain people that we just couldn’t cross. I was fine because I’d worked hard and made myself valuable to the school. But for someone like Finn, who had remained under the radar for the past three years; it made no sense that he was as calm as he had been.

After all, if Alice took it seriously, then she could have asked the teachers to mess with him somehow, or even get him expelled on false charges. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.

My thoughts had run a thousand miles per minute as I’d thought about why the usually calm guy had suddenly blown up like that, but it looked like I was the only one.

I didn’t know why I was so cautious around him, but I had a feeling that I should be and those feelings of mine were rarely wrong.

I took my time getting to class and walked in apprehensively, but I tried not to show it. We’d already become partners for the project so it wasn’t like I could completely ignore him, but even if we weren’t partners, I wouldn’t have.

Not because I was angry at Alice, or because I was so scared of him. No, It was mainly because I didn’t have to.

After all, we’d never held a substantial conversation outside of class content with each other. Even when we partnered up in class, our interactions were just me asking questions and him answering them.

The teacher, who didn’t want to be there, half-heartedly taught the lesson for fifteen minutes and gave the rest of the hour to the project. That was exactly what I’d feared.

Still, Finn was uncharacteristically late. I thought to take the chance to find a new partner, but by the time I got up, everyone else already found partners. Alice had been in this class as well, but she had suddenly transferred out. It was a bit too late in the semester to be switching classes but she’d looked just as shocked as I was.

I looked around one more time before sitting back down and working on what I could on my own.

As I struggled with the content that usually passed by quickly when I worked with Finn, I suddenly felt ashamed. I knew I relied on him a lot for these projects, but I hadn’t thought it was this bad.

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The door swung open, and a pair of unfamiliar shoes stepped through the frame.

Only one person was missing, so I put together who they were pretty quick.

He looked very different.

Someone had cut his hair and freed it from the obnoxious gelled back style he’d previously kept it in. Although it looked shorter than before, it was still pretty long and had been half pulled up into a ponytail. They left the bottom half loose and swung around his ears.

It would have been a cute hairstyle if he didn’t have such a wretched expression on his face.

He tried to school his expression into his usually passive look, but his eyebrows continuously twitched and every so often his lips would tilt downwards into a grimace.

Even his glasses had suffered from the sudden transformation and had transformed from the blocky black-framed monstrosity he’d previously worn into a pair with slightly thinner frames and an odd colour that sometimes looked blue and other times looked black.

He ignored the stares from the class and walked to the teacher to excuse his absence. The teacher, who was popular for ignoring scholarship students and sucking up to the wealthier kids, near leaped out of his seat and plastered a painfully bright smile on his face.

“Ah, Hall. Late? no, no, you’re still fine. How is Mr-”

Finn’s eyes narrowed into a nasty glare and he quickly cut him off before he could say any more.

“Are we working on the project? Mr. Medley?”

Medley caught himself and visibly calmed himself down, but it was too late. By now the entire class was staring at the two, desperate for answers, but neither of them was forthcoming.

“You need a partner, right? Ah, let’s see.”

Medley scanned the room, but Finn quickly stopped him.

“Don’t bother yourself. I think I already have one.”

He made quick eye contact with me and sent a tentative nod in my direction. I ignored the questioning stares from my classmates and nodded back.

I’d try to pull my weight this time around, but there was no way I was pulling anything higher than a C plus if I tried to do this on my own.

His face lit up once I nodded, and he made his way toward me after greeting the teacher one more time.

“Sorry again for being late. I’ll work hard for the rest of the period.”

Medley nodded enthusiastically and returned to his desk, but instead of going back to sleep, he sifted through papers. At a point, he even got up and walked around the class, asking if anyone needed help.

This threw everyone off, including me, but I was too preoccupied with my new partner.

“Did Medley teach at the beginning of class?”

“Yeah, I can send you a copy of my notes.”

He grinned happily and nodded animatedly enough for the loose strands of hair to dance around his neck. Something had changed about him, but I wondered what it could have been.

Was it Alice’s instructions for everyone to ‘ignore him’?

But that made little sense. If he was going to change because of that, wouldn’t he have become more reserved?

I suddenly felt the urge to apologize, even though I didn’t particularly have the right to do so on her behalf.

“Yeah. Sorry about Alice, by the way. She went too far.”

The smile on his face wilted, like the mere mention of her name, put him in a foul mood. He completely turned to face me and slightly tilted his head sideways, like I’d confused him.

“I don’t care what she does, but why are you apologizing? Did you tell her to do anything? Or make her do anything?”

His questions were hard to answer and heavy, but his insistent tone made it clear that he expected an answer.

“I didn’t tell her to do anything! But I should have stopped her before she did anything.”

An unsuitably crass snort exploded from him, and his shoulders danced up and down in an amused chuckle.

“You’re a real nice guy, aren’t ya? What do her actions have to do with you?”

Well, she was my girlfriend. For good or otherwise, people would think of her name when they heard mine, and contrariwise. But well, as long as he didn’t blame me for anything.

We dived into the work and Finn got serious about fixing all of my mistakes and putting in the correct answers. We still received a lot of curious and sometimes hostile glares, but I ignored them.

Stupid orders aside, he was a brilliant partner and seemed like a good enough person as well.

At first, I’d thought that he didn’t notice the stares, but when his name floated up in a conversation close to us I spotted a self-satisfied smile hiding beneath his serious demeanour.

I ignored it. After all, if he wanted to put on an act then who was I to uncover it?