{Alycia Debnam-Careyxyou} Home Behind the Desktop

18

It was Monday morning which meant back to school for me. This was the first day back to school since the incident last week, and if I'm being honest, I'm kind of nervous. Rumors spread quickly around the school, and I was praying nobody had heard about anything, but there's was a good chance that people knew. I also haven't seen or heard from Gray in a while. Was he going to look at me different? I didn't want anything to change at school for me, especially not my friendship with Gray.

I decided to leave the house early and walk by myself to school. I knew Alycia was probably going to offer me a ride because that was just who she was: kind and generous, but I didn't think it would be a good idea to show up to school in the same car. I wasn't sure what our relationship was between each other. Technically, she's a stranger that I've known for only a few weeks, but our relationship, or whatever we were, moved so quickly that it felt as if I've known her longer.

What are we?

She's discovered areas of my life that nobody has known about, even people that I've been friends with for years. On top of all that mess, we also kissed. Twice. But we haven't talked about it at all. I know she's my teacher and to most, ethically, this shouldn't be happening, but it was. I didn't feel groomed by it or used, to me it was beautiful and innocent. No ill intent was behind the affection she showed, and I liked it. I loved it. But whatever it was that we had, I knew that we had to keep it on the down low. It wasn't something that other people would understand, so if I had to walk to and from school every day in order to protect what we had, I absolutely would.

I made it to school early again and there was hardly anyone there yet, so I decided to go to my usual spot and pull out my box of cigarettes. This habit was becoming too often now, where originally I hardly ever smoked. I internally blamed the stress, but at the end of the day, it was still me that was making the poor decision to go back to it.

Oh well, add that to my long list of disappointments.

"Hey."

I lifted my head from the grass to meet Gray, his head blocking the sunlight from my eyes. "Hey, man," I replied as he took a seat next to me, our backs against the fence. He held out his hand and I gave him the box, pulling out my lighter and flicking it open for him. We sat in silence for a moment, relaxing in each other's company while we smoked. I was pleased with the silence, no uncomfortable questions were asked, no words of pity, it felt normal and my anxieties were put to ease.

"I'm glad you're back." I turned my head to meet his side profile before he turned to me as well giving me a classic Gray smirk. I smirked back, pushing my fist into his shoulder. "Me too, last week was a shit show." He let out a laugh, his widening "damn right, you got fucking shot. That's wild.. did you at least get a cool scar from it?"

I tugged at the collar of my shirt, pulling it down just enough to see it. His jaw dropped at the sight and I laughed shaking my head. "No fair, man. The 'coolest' story I got from one of my scars is that time I ran into the bench in middle school." I lost it, laughing my ass off at the memory of him running and tripping, his face smashing into the metal bench in the gym. It felt so good to laugh like this again, it was the most normal I felt since last week.

Once our laughter died down, we both sighed at the same time and chuckled a bit at that.

"Wait, so who are you staying with now? Your mom?" he asked. I let out a deep breath, not bothered by the question since we were both in a good mood now. "No actually.." He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, shifting his body to face me more. I bit my lip, trying to stop my face from blushing but it was too late. His eyes widened with a confused smile, "what?? Who are you with?" he asked, pushing me to side.