Chapter Three

Tamworth's high school was a multipurpose school building. It also housed the middle schoolers, as well as the kids in grade school and kindergarten. It was an old mall building that had been renovated to what was now the school. It still felt like a mall in many ways, mostly because of all the open space between classrooms.

In one of the rundown classrooms in the local high school's section of the building, most of the desks were vandalized and wobbly, and most seats had to be sat on carefully so that they wouldn't fall apart. It was the break before the last class period, and Quinn was sitting at the right of the classroom with some of his friends.

Karl was sitting on one of the desks. He looked out into the room for a bit and groaned, catching the attention of his friends. "Seems like she's heading towards us," he simply said. Everyone knew who 'she' was, so they groaned too, sighing amongst themselves.

Quinn looked up from the Rubix cube he was playing with, before looking out into the classroom to see what the fuss was about, and just like Karl said, 'she' was heading their way.

Lindsey.

"Not her again," Quinn mumbled under his breath, making his friends laugh at his discomfort.

Lindsey was a special case. She had a crush on Quinn and found a way to pester him all day, and the break period was, unfortunately, a very good period for her to do that.

The girl soon stopped in front of Quinn's desk. There was a smile on her face like she hadn't realized all the commotion at the corner was about her arrival.

"Hello!" she said, with a toothy grin, climbing onto the desk Quinn was sitting by. Quinn felt the bile rise in his throat. She smelled like fruit and flowers. He didn't like the way girls in his class smelled. He didn't like it at all.

"Hey." Quinn managed to return the greeting as his shoulders slumped. He didn't want to do this push-pull ordeal with Lindsey during the break period.

"So, what are you up to?" the girl asked, crossing her legs and twisting one of her many colorful braids she had adorned in beads between her fingers. The class was noisy, but Lindsey was too close for Quinn to pretend like he didn't hear her.

Quinn was now playing with his Rubric cube again. "Nothing really," he muttered, making Lindsey laugh awkwardly before looking away from him.

"But you're playing with a Rubix cube. That's something." Linsey pointed out, leaning so close to Quinn that he shuddered.

Quinn sighed under his breath. "I guess it is."

Time passed by, and Quinn continues to answer Lindsey's questions with dry short sentences. Most people would have left after they'd figured out that they were not wanted, but Lindsey stayed. Her crush on the bronze-skinned boy with bright brown eyes made her perch around like an unwanted hummingbird.

"The break is over, bring out the essay assignment I gave to you last week. I don't want to hear an excuse as to why you don't have them, so if any of you were planning to talk to me, forget it and accept your zero." The break ended with the history teacher bursting through the doors, making most of the kids in class grumble as they got of desks and seats before heading to their rightful positions in class.

Lindsey left too, but not without a little hesitance. She tried to get Karl to swap seats with her, but when that didn't work, she accepted her fate and hopped off Quinn's desk before heading to her seat.

"Finally," Karl said, settling down beside Quinn. Quinn smiled, chuckling a bit. His good mood was back.

The class was boring as usual. The teacher was a grey-haired man that was in his early fifties to mid-fifties. Quinn spent most of the class time doodling in his notebook, and Karl exchanged texts with someone by hiding his phone under the desk. The class ended at three in the afternoon, marking the end of the school day.

"Wait up!"

Quinn turned at the sound of Lindsey calling out to him. She grinned, slipping past the crowd of students making it to the door, before stopping in front of him.

"What do you want?" Quinn asked, frowning a bit. Most of the students were gone, and now it was just him. He knew at least Karl would wait for him at the school's main exit, but he didn't want to be here alone with Lindsey.

"I want to tell you something," Lindsey said, clamping her hands together in front of her. She was wearing a loose-fitting yellow top over a fitted midi-skirt that was just above her knees.

"Okay, go ahead," Quinn said, being as cold to her as usual.

That didn't faze Lindsey. She was used to it. "I like you," she said after looking around to find that the class was empty. "I really like you," she emphasized, not wanting to give Quinn the opportunity to pretend as if he didn't understand her.

However, Quinn did it anyway. "I think you're cool too," he said, looking past her shoulders in an attempt not to stare into her eyes. She was making him uncomfortable, but he wasn't one to push someone away.

"No, I like you. As in, romantically. I want us to hang out. I want us to date," Lindsey said as her lips quiver. Quinn was trying to push her aside, but she wasn't going to let him do it without a fight. There. She had said it plainly. He couldn't pretend to be oblivious to her feelings now.

"Oh," Quinn let out, feeling uncomfortable. He rubbed the back of his neck before looking out at the window. He spotted Hozier's tall figure and he felt a bit better. If Hozier was waiting for him, so was Karl. The other boy wasn't just tall enough to be spotted through the window.

"Is that all you have to say?" Irritation was clear in Lindsey's tone. "Oh?"

"Yeah, I guess," Quinn said, looking down at his mud-stained sneakers. They had done some track during P.E. today, and the tracks were just leveled ground with chalk used to draw in the separation lines.

A sigh left Lindsey's lips as her shoulder's slumped.?"Think about it," she said before sucking in her lip. "I'll talk to you tomorrow," she added, touching Quinn's shoulder before walking past him and out the classroom door.

Quinn didn't turn his back until the door to the classroom shut, telling him that Lindsey had left. He leet out a sigh, biting his thumbnail as he made his way out of the classroom as well. There was something about girls that jarred him and made him uncomfortable when they expressed interest in him. Usually, they stopped bugging him when he didn't show any interest back, but Lindsey had a lot of perseverance.

"What was she going on about?" Hozier asked when Quinn met them at the classroom's window.

"Stuff," Quinn said, not wanting to talk about it. Hozier rose a brow at him, and Karl just chuckled, shaking his head. The two knew Quinn was the socially awkward one when it came to girls. He dodged them like they were?bullets, and they had no doubt that Quinn would do the same to Lindsey.

"Why do they keep asking you out? Why doesn't a girl like Lindsey talk to me?" Hozier sighed as the group started to make their way out of the school compound.

"Well, maybe because Quinn's the best looking, and good looking girls like good looking guys, it's not science." Karl offered. The three were heading to the basketball court. It was a fifteen-minute walk, give or take.

"Well, that's shallow," Hozier groaned. There was no argument over if Quinn was the best looking. He was. Well, at least based on what was popular with the girls at their school. Living in a small impoverished town meant that people opted to watch Latin and Spanish dramas since you could rent them from Bobby at the thrift store. Quinn was one of the few boys in town that matched the descriptions of the 'Gaels' and 'Pablos' on television.

Karl rolled his eyes. "You're shallow too. You only want Linsey to ask you out because she's hot."

"Fair," Hozier said with a grin that exposed his buck teeth. All three of the boys were already loose pants and loose-fitting tops since they'd had a gym session earlier in the school day.

"Can we talk about something else?" Quinn asked, making his friends pause their bickering. It didn't last, though.

"With the way you avoid girls I'd think you were hiding something from us," Hozier said, ignoring Quinn's request. "Are you gay, lad?" he asked with a chuckle, and Kar laughed too, moving to grab Quinn's shoulder before pulling him into a side hug.

"It wouldn't matter if you were. Ignore him," Karl said, and Quinn stayed quiet, unamused.

Although Quinn was brooding like he did when Hozier made jabs like that, there was something different about this time.?Usually, when his friends made the 'gay' joke he'd just be slightly annoyed, but now his mind was just filled with images of Cody. The lean boy with pale skin and husky voice that clashed with his frame.

Quinn sucked on his teeth, jogging his thoughts for an explanation as to why he was feeling the way he did. It's been this way for the past few days. Cody still sat by the gates during Quinn's games with his friends and it made Quinn self-conscious. Quinn didn't know Cody very well. He had talked to him once, and Quinn wouldn't call what had transpired a proper conversation pe say.

Odd, Quinn thought to himself. The voices of his friends turned into a light background buzz as he tuned them out and focused on the images of Cody in his head. He hoped he would be at the court already.?