Mr. Jones continues with his lesson. The new kid pulls out a sketch book and a pencil and looks over at me. I pretend that I don't notice him as I try to focus on the lesson. There is going to be a test soon and I'm not going to fail because of the new kid. This continues for the rest of my morning classes because guess what. We have every single class together. Looks like I have two shadows now.
This carried on till lunch. He would stare at me, pencil in hand as he sketched me. It made me mad. Why dose he feel the need to draw me like I’m some new species in the wild. “Hey…” My stalker brings me out of my thought. “What do you want.” I say with no emotion in my voice. He rubs the back of his neck. “Umm.. I was wondering if I could eat lunch with-
“LAYLA!” The three girls that I talked about before come rushing up to him. They crowd around him and look at me with “bravery”. “Don’t you dare touch him you monster! I can’t believe they made him sit by you in all his classes.” The one with the red hair spits at me. I rolled my eyes at her but she just ignored me and put all her attention on the new kid.
“You poor thing, don’t worry we won’t let him hurt you. It must be awful having to sit by such a monster right?” New kid looks at me than back a the red head. He rubs his neck. It's kinda cute. “Umm… I..” He looks back to me and I stare into his eyes trying to read him. It doesn’t work though.
He blushes than looks back at the girls. They are still patting his back in comfort. “I don’t think he is scary.” The three little demons gasp. My eyes go wide. You’ve got to be kidding me. My little shadow doesn’t think I’m scary, not that I ever thought he thought that. I think he wants to use me for character designs or something. Maybe that’s why he keeps sketching me.
“What!! Look at him! He’s a monster!” The black hair one says. She never talks so either I really do look like a monster or she just really wants my little shadow as a friend. I’m thinking both at the moment. "No he's not he's just a little different." The little demons look at him with disappointment. "Fine, if you think he's such an amazing person go be a looser with him." New kid just continues to stand infront of them looking as if he is about to cry.
I turned to walk away not wanting to deal with this right now. It’s too exhausting living like this. If only I had someone to talk to. Anyway, off the topic of my loneliness, new kid grabs my arm. I turn back around to face him as he let’s go to rubs his neck. I smirked. “Come, little shadow. You can eat with me.” He nods his head still rumbling his neck.
I shake my head and start to walk to the back of the building. I’ve learned eating in the cafeteria is not safe when your a monster. You end up with a lot of extra food and it is not on your plate.
Once we get to my favorite tree I climb on to a branch and get comfortable. Than I realize that new kid probably can’t climb so I offer him a had but he declined. “No need I’d rather stay down here.” He sits down a few feet away from the tree. “Hey what are you doing!” I ask. He rubs his neck. “I’m drawing you..”
I jump down from the tree. I’m tiered of him using me for his again, whatever it is. He might as well be as bad as everyone else. I walk over to him and pull him up by his backpack. “Why are you drawing me. Do I look like some god damn animal to you is that it.”
I stand there in front of him as he rubs his neck. “Get on with it.” He looks up at me with his chocolate eyes and immediately starts to cry. Tear after tear runs down his face as he stands there. “I…” I trail off not knowing what to say. Did I scare him that bad? “I-I’m sorry.. p-please d-don’t be m-mad.” He starts to hiccup.
“Don’t cry. I’m not mad.” He shakes his head as if to tell me no or that he doesn’t believe me. “R-really I’m not mad at all, see.” I smile at him and look desperately into his eyes. I’ve never had to comfort anyone. Am I doing this right? Maybe I should hug him, that’s what people do right. Uhh, I need more contact with humans.
My focus goes back on him when he starts to speak again. “I..I…” He is crying so hard he can’t get the words out. “It’s ok.” I pull him into my arms and hold him tight but not to tight. I wouldn’t want to break him. He is really stiff at first, but he slowly leans into me. “Take deep breaths ok. Can you do that?” I say in the softest voice I can muster. He nods his head and starts to take slow deep breaths.
Soon he stops crying and pushes me away slightly. I back up from him missing the feeling of a hugging him. He rubs his neck. “I… I just… I don’t know. I guess I just think that it’s cool.” He looks down at his feet. “Cool? My scars you mean?” He nods his head. “Yeah. There cool and y-you seem lonely like me.”
I smile. “Yeah maybe I am a little lonely…” I shake my head and laugh. “I pull out my phone. “Hey you wanna listen to some music?” New kid nods his head and I place a earbud in his ear as we sit next to the tree.
I play the song that came to mine when he mentioned we where both lonely. “I like that you’re broken, broken like me, maybe that makes me a fool.” A smile comes across my shadow’s face. “I like that your lonely, lonely like me, I could be lonely with you.”
“I like this song.” New kid looks up at me. “I know you would.” I grab his sketchbook out of his hands and scan through it. It is old and warned. Pages are falling out, there are stains from water and god knows what. But what was most shocking was the fact that you couldn’t really tell what he was drawing because he was drawing them over other things. There where sketches of faces plants and buildings from what i could see.
There was only one more space that was kinda clear and it was filled with me. “How long have you have this?” I ask. “Ummm.. I think since I was 12 years old. It’s been a long time.” “You could say that again.” He giggles and I give it back to him. We continue to listen to my play list the rest of our lunch break.
————
We are walking to our last class of the day we don’t have this one together though. “Ok so you are going to go down to the left and it will be the first door on the right. Got it?” I point to where he is supposed to go. “Yeah I-I got it. Thx.” He starts walking away from me but as I’m about to turn from him he asked me a question. “Hey. Ummm.. what’s your name?” No one’s ever asked me that.
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