Well, that went way better than I was anticipating, I thought before the bell rang a few minutes later. Gathering my stuff, I moved slowly, waiting for the crowd to filter out of the room before following. Even amongst the crowd of a few thousand students, I felt isolated, like this barrier separated me from the lighthearted students who seemed unburdened by anything other than what class they had next or what was for lunch.
As I walked the busy halls, my eyes scanned the other students. Their faces were bright, bits of their laughter echoing through the hallway. They wandered from class to class, not plagued by reality. They could lose themselves in today’s gossip... or at least make it appear that way. The train of thought had my mind stuttering. Jesse had blended in with the others while still hiding his horrible secret. How many others are holding back some kind of dark, terrible moment in their lives? I wondered in a startling moment of clarity.
My stomach squeezed in a fit of nausea. How many of us are facing unknown challenges… pain from something that we don’t let anyone see? In that horrid realization, I no longer felt alone. Despite that sensation though, I didn’t feel any better.
The warning bell rang, rousing me from my dour thoughts. Shuffling faster through the quickly dwindling crowd, I hurried to Civics. Like all the other classes so far this morning, it flew by in a wash of note-taking and rambling facts, and before I knew it, I was on my way to lunch.
Kingston was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, his grin easing the dissonance that had been building throughout the day. Feeling lighter than I had in what felt like days, my own smile grew to match his. Instead of putting his hand on my lower back like I anticipated he would, Kingston wrapped me in his arms and kissed me gently. The sweet gesture made my toes curl and my heart flutter as I leaned into him more.
“I figured you could use one of those,” he murmured, his lips brushing gently against mine.
“Thank you,” I whispered, pulling away and grabbing hold of his hand so we could make our way through the line.
I had been able to ignore most of the other students’ stares between classes; zoning out had helped keep my mind blissfully ignorant, but now, being in the center of the student body, awareness returned with shocking quickness. My skin tingled as I felt eyes on me once again, the hair on the back of my neck standing up even though I knew none of them were Brad.
“Way to take forever,” Jesse teased when we finally reached the table. Sticking my tongue out playfully, I tried my best not to let the other students, or the fact that Reid wasn’t here, get to me.
“You hear back from the shelter yet?” Kingston asked as he started to dig in to his lunch.
“Yes, thankfully. I’m good to start tomorrow morning and can do it every day, so that’s a huge chunk of those community services hours,” Jesse explained, relief thick within his tone.
“Goal still to have it done by the last day of school?” I questioned after taking a drink of water. Jesse nodded, holding up a finger as he finished chewing.
“Yeah, though with just serving breakfast at the shelter it’ll take ages, so I plan on spending spring break knocking out another huge number of hours. Even then, I’ll need about thirty-six hours if everything works out, so I’m not sure where I could do that and not get burnt out.”
“You know you could help out at the law office, filing papers or recording information in the system. Do it a couple hours one night a week so it doesn’t interfere with any tutoring. I can talk to my dad,” Kingston offered.
“I mean… if that’d be okay.” Jesse stumbled over his words with a shrug. “I’m already living in your house and eating your food, don’t want you all to get sick of me.”
“It’s your house and your food too, Jesse.” Kingston’s gaze hardened slightly, his way of conveying that there was no use arguing. Jesse sighed and nodded, knowing all too well what that expression meant. “I’ll call him now.” It didn’t take more than a few moments of talking to get the details sorted out, and Jesse’s shoulders finally relaxed with the knowledge that he could start that afternoon.