NATHAN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - "HER"

OCTOBER 22ND, MONDAY

THE TABLE WAS quiet.

I mean, how could we not be?

I picked at the meal that was in front of me with the tip of my fork, pushing and gathering the food to one side of the blue tray before moving it to the other. I watched as the pasta covered by the yellow cheese fell from the fork.

The memory of the funeral was fresh in my mind, and the body inside the coffin as well.

I was minutes from breaking down.

His pale, blonde hair that shimmered as the light reflected off of it, his baby blue eyes that were shielded off from the rest of the world, and his thin and fragile frame that I would never get to embrace again.

The optimism and cheerfulness that Alex usually radiated no longer persisted in the air. His head was lowered, with dark circles under his red, bloodshot eyes. Spencer, who sat next to him, was in a slightly better state, but lassitude was still reflected in his eyes. His left arm was around his best friend's trembling shoulders.

Ro was probably in the best state out of all of us, but her eyes were still lined with a light shade of pink, and her fingers were tapping that familiar, quick and anxious rhythm on the flat surface of the table.

Her eyes darted from each of us on the table, layered with concern and worry as she took in the sight of a bunch of exhausted and damaged teenagers. Matching my gaze, she mustered up a smile, in efforts to comfort, to which I forced a similar smile and nodded, biting down on my bottom lip.

I tore my gaze from the three across the table and looked at the raven-haired boy to the left of me. He took a bite out of the sandwich that was in his hands, seemingly unbothered and untroubled by anything, like always.

He was always the friend who you'd go to, to cry about a sad movie that you watched, to rant about how your favourite sports team lost a game, to be the pillar that you could lean on in the darkest of times.

It was mechanical, and if it wasn't for the fainting and the other events that happened at the hospital, I would begin to question if he even felt grief at all.

We continued to sit in the deafening, but familiar silence.

"So, um," Ro started, causing all of us to look up from our separate trays and towards her. Her tone was cheerful, but also cautious and careful as she attempted to distract us from Saturday. She shot us a hopeful smile. "Did any of you guys see that new show that's on? I think it was called like, bitter cold, something?"

Silence.

"No? Well, uh, it wasn't that good anyway." She forced another smile, fidgeting with her fingers. She paused, thinking about something to say as the rest of us remained in silence. "What about, uh, the new game that came out the other day?"

No one made attempts to answer.

Ro struggled to find more subjects, still trying to distract us from the obvious fact and truth. She murmured multiple topics before asking, "Oh, uh, have I told you guys about the concert?"

When again. none of us replied, she looked around nervously, but still continued, "It's in December, if you guys want to come." She paused, her words getting quieter and quieter as her tone got dimmer and dimmer. "But if you don't, that's also fine, you guys don't have to come, or anything, of course."

Ro looked down as she dug her spoon into the pile of vegetables in front of her. "I don't wanna force any of you into coming, just, you know."

The smile disappeared as she murmured a quiet, "Sorry."

A moment of silence passed, none of us speaking or displaying anything that acknowledged the fact that the girl ever spoke. Looking at her defeated figure, a wave of guilt passed through my chest, adding on to the ache.

"I'll come."

Ro froze and looked up, her eyes widened in shock, to which I smiled at her gently. Her cheeks were dusted with a light layer of pink as she nodded, pushing a strand of her black hair behind her ear.

I looked around at the others.

"Count me in,"  Alex said, gathering a smile. He looked at Spencer, tugging on the sleeve of his white button-up that contrasted with his dark skin, still wrapped around Alex's shoulder. He tugged again, murmuring, "Spence."

Spencer scratched the back of his neck, pulling his arm away and sighing. "I'll have to see if the student council needs anything done on the day-" The corners of his lips raised slightly. "-but I swear I'll try my best to catch it."

Ro nodded, and we all looked towards Myles. He stayed silent for a while before he raised his gaze, looking around the table, seemingly bewildered by our stares.

"What?" He asked, crossing his arms as he looked around. "I thought it was just automatically decided that I'm going to everything that Nate's going to." He placed his hand on top of my head. "Someone has to control this gremlin."

I laughed,  and watched as the mood began to disperse and the chatter ensued. Ro smiled to herself, most likely glad that she was able to take our minds off of the heavy matter.

Alex began cracking jokes, Spencer sighed and shook his head at the aforementioned jokes, but still smiled and chuckled at some of time, and Myles listened, finally some other emotion other than neutral appearing on his face.

I tried to smile, and to also add into the conversations when needed, but at the very bottom of my stomach, in the dark, endless pit, there still lingered a thought.

The seat to my right was still empty.

At the start of the month, calling Ubers to my house from school every Monday and Friday had proven to be the easiest solution with the matching football and baseball practice schedules, but as it went on, sitting in the house that was too big for me for two hours, was too much.

And now, waiting for Elliot while I roamed the different parts of, and streets near the school was a usual routine.

"Thank you, come again!"

I walked out of the familiar store, grasping the handles of the white, plastic bag that was in my hand. My mind was a blur, and the journey from the school to the sushi shop was completely erased from my head.

I didn't even remember why I had gone to the shop, since the last time he dragged me to indulge in his unhealthy habit of eating raw fish had been months ago, before he was stuck in that hospital room, and before I had to watch his figure get thinner and thinner by the day.

Maybe, it was just me, desperately trying to gather what little that remained of him.

I no longer had the option to dial a sequence of numbers and have his voice accompany me, I no longer had the choice to scroll to his contacts and type in whatever I needed to tell him, and I no longer had the privilege to take his presence for granted.

Everything about him had already been burned into my brain, and was seemingly impossible to eliminate from the rest of the information that made up who I was - His full name was Lucas William Middleton, his favourite colour was blue, his favourite flowers were gerberas, his favourite sushi was California roll, his favourite book was The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, his favourite Broadway play was Dear Evan Hansen, and I could repeat his phone number off by heart backwards.

Past tense hurts.

There were so much more that I could go off about him, but, those were all stored inside my head, and the physical things that I had of him were incredibly limited.

They ranged from a limited number of pictures and videos, as Lucas never liked to be photographed, to the cold dog tag that hung around my neck that he had given to me when we were thirteen, and to the letter that he had addressed to me.

I had carefully kept the letter in a separate drawer in my room, unwilling to tear open the envelope, not to mention to read the words, afraid that one of the little traces of evidence that proved our friendship would be gone.

And now, without baseball practice to distract myself from the ache that settled in my chest, it got worse by the day.

I shook my head slightly to rid myself of the thoughts, ignoring the dreadful pit that had built up in the bottom of my stomach. I wondered where I should head for the next hour and a half, before settling on the one place that he loved - The library.

The idea hurt, but it was one of the only places that reminded me of him, and it was better than strolling around in silence. 

I cried a bit more on the sidewalk before finally standing up and walking.

When I arrived at the library, it was fairly empty. The librarian that was usually sitting by the table had gone off somewhere, and there were a mere two or three students scattered in different areas of the large room.

I smiled to myself as I remembered how he'd always sit by a wall and on the red, carpeted floor, instead of one of the provided couches or chairs. I had almost forgotten how this place looked, since he wasn't there to accompany me, I found no reasons to go here anymore.

And as I turned my head to find the spot that he always sat in, I saw her.

Isabella.

She had grey headphones on, her feet repetitively tapping on the carpeted floor as she flipped through what seemed like a photo album on her lap.

She reached into the bag next to her, pulling out a phone and taking an image of whatever that was displayed in the photo album.

And for a moment, I saw him, sitting against the wall as his eyes scanned the pages of the book that he had in his hands.

Thump.

I remembered how he'd reach over and pull the blue water bottle that I had given to him for his twelfth birthday from his bag, take a sip from it and resume reading, never breaking his gaze from the page.

I'd sit next to him, talking about my day non-stop as he continued to read, and when I'd pause because I felt like I was bothering him, he'd turn to me and frown, asking why I stopped talking. So I'd continue, a newfound and unfamiliar warmth in my chest.

Sometimes, I'd lay my head in his lap, and he'd point out different minor points about my features that no one else noticed.

And we'd sit there, for as long as the lunch break allowed us, and we'd do it again the next day.

I forced the memory out of my head and walked up to her, holding up a bottle of blue Gatorade against her flushed cheek, smiling as she jumped at the sudden contact of the cold surface.

"Seems like someone is overheating," I said, taking a seat on the floor next to as she murmured a quiet thank, opening the bottle and sipping on it. I grabbed my own bottle of red cola, twisting the lid open and taking a drink from it.

After convincing Isabella that we wouldn't get caught or spotted by anyone, I gestured for her to take a piece of sushi off of the plate out of a variety of them. Ranging from ones that he loved but I despised, like the ones with raw tuna, to the ones that I could bear to stomach, like the salmon ones.

She reached for the California roll first.

Thump.

My heart stopped, and I stared at the empty spot for a few seconds before acknowledging that she took the piece.

"Here," I said as I handed her the plastic lid of the box, attempting to distract myself from the familiar preference that made my heart clench. "You can use this as a plate instead."

"Thanks." She took the lid from me.

As I took a bite out of the piece of salmon sushi, I felt her lingering gaze on me, and I turned to face her, confused by her stare. I quickly wiped my mouth before smiling, tilting my head slightly to the side. "Is there something on my face?"

"Oh, no, it's not that." She shook her head, her eyes drifting downwards. "I just didn't realise that you've got a freckle on the corner of your lips."

"Did you know that you've got a freckle right here?"

I froze at the sentence, looking at her with disbelief as her pale, brown hair shimmered as the light reflected off of it. Her brown eyes glimmered, and the grey sweater that hung from her thin frame began to make my breath hitch.

Thump.

"Uh, I didn't mean that to be weird or anything, I just didn't notice when I was talking to you before this."

I blinked, forcing myself to overcome the emotions that physically ached as they rushed through. They burned through my torso, making my chest ache and throb with a painful, but not unfamiliar sensation.

It hurt.

I ran my fingers through my hair in an attempt to soften the pain in my chest, brushing away a strand away from my face as I let out breathless chuckles at the panicked expression that she always seemed to have on.

So why?

"It's fine, I don't think you're creepy or anything." I smiled, glancing down to my lap momentarily before raising my gaze to meet Isabella's again. I fidgeted with the baseball badge on my yellow letterman jacket. "It's just, no one really notices these things about me."

Why?

I tried to distract myself from the raging fire that her words had set to me, my knuckles turning a ghostly white as I gripped onto the bottle of red cola in my hand.

Is it her?

I looked over at Isabella. She smiled at me.

It must be.

I just managed to smile back.

"Did you know that you've got a freckle right here?"

I tilted my head to the side, watching as he placed the book that he had previously been reading on the ground next to him, the blue bookmark slipped in between the pages.

Lucas' eyes scanned over my face as he leaned down, the silver around his neck rattling against itself. He pressed the left corner of my mouth with his index finger, causing me to giggle and smile under the soft contact.

"Do I?" I asked, putting my fingers next to my mouth. He nodded, and reached out to put a lock of brown hair away from my face, his fingertips barely brushing with my skin.

I felt aflame, my skin fluttering and flushing underneath his gentle touches.

My heart suddenly sped up the pace of its thrumming, the burning sensation blazing through my skin from his touch. An unfamiliar warmth began to spread in the bottom of my stomach as I stared up into his blue eyes, the strange fluttering getting more intense by the second.

And as the bell rang, signalling the end of our lunch break, I sat up.

He grabbed the book from the ground, standing up and placing it and his water bottle into his backpack. Lucas pulled both straps over his shoulders, the blackened material contrasting against the sky blue of his sweatshirt.

The soft, but piercing blue.

He turned his head to face me, who had just been standing there, lips parted in confusion as I questioned what the warmth that rose in my chest was.

"What are you doing?" He asked, chuckling softly as I glanced around the room frantically, perplexed. He walked closer to me, his slender fingers enclosing themselves around my wrist, once again, setting my skin ablaze.

He tugged, the smile still lingering on his lips. "Come on, or we'll be late for class."

I carelessly held my bag with my other hand, unable to rip my gaze away from the part where our skin made contact, allowing him to pull me gently along by the arm as the contact sent shivers down my spine, and caused goosebumps all over my body.

It spread immediately, from his fingertips to my wrist, up my forearm, and travelling all the way to the very centre of my chest.

There it was again.

The warmth.

That weird, weird warmth.