Page 18 of The Story Of Us

“No, it got cancelled today, so you get to enjoy the pleasure of my company.”

I roll my eyes at him as he sits up and crosses his legs.

“You can’t borrow any more of my clothes. You still haven’t given back the stuff you took on the weekend.”

“Okay, wow, rude. I thought that was a gift, but I guess not.”

“Why would I give-” He starts pouting, and I can’t stand the sight of it. “Okay, whatever, keep it. Just stop making that face.”

“Thanks, you’re the best. Also, I need your iPad.” He grins at me as I take a seat at my desk. The urge to fight him has never been so strong.

“Where’s yours?”

“Jinhee has it.”

“Okay, so go get it from her.”

“They’re having room inspections today. I can’t risk going over there.”

It truly amazes me how this boy has an answer for everything. If it was any other day, I’d probably entertain it for longer, but I’m too drained from my interaction with Violet to speak to him anymore.

“Just take it.” I unplug it from where it’s charging on my desk and hand it over to him. He says a quick ‘thanks’ before lying back down. “Also, can you stop breaking into my room?”

“I didn’t break in. Your door wasn’t locked. So, actually, you’re lucky I was even here. Someone else could have got in and stolen your stuff. You’re so welcome.”

“My saviour,” I say, and Luke ignores my sarcasm and continues playing his game.

I lift my bag onto the desk and pull out my sketchbook, opening it to the most recent page I was working on. The past few minutes with Luke helped me to momentarily forget what happened during club, but when I see the sketches of her, I start spiralling again.

I quickly flip forward to an empty page, knowing that I need to shift my focus to ideas for the project. Violet may not want to talk to me, but I know she’s dedicated enough to want to at least try and work together on the project. The best thing I can do is have some ideas ready, even though I’ll agree to whatever she suggests.

I spend about fifteen minutes staring blankly at the page in front of me, not a single idea coming to mind. I know it’ll help if I can show her some options, but I can’t think of anything except how it felt to be so close to her again.

I know I shouldn’t have touched her, shouldn’t have held her wrist, shouldn’t have pressed my knee against hers, shouldn’t have made her say she wants to work with me. But in that moment, all I could think about was how much I missed her. All my senses felt heightened, like there was a dial on them that had been turned up to a hundred, and she was overpowering every single one of them.

But I pushed her too much, and when she left, the dial turned down to zero, leaving me feeling numb. It feels like everything I do to try and reach her is wrong, and I don’t know how to make it right.

Luke’s foot hits my back, and I whip around to face him.

“Hellooo, I asked if you wanted to go out for dinner like five times,” he says, holding up his phone to show me that he’s talking to Jinhee. He has her name saved in Hangul with heart emojis on either side. I would think it’s disgusting if I didn’t have Violet’s number saved in a similar way. “Jinhee said there’s a new restaurant in town that she wants to try.”

“So why don’t you two just go?” The thought of third-wheeling them while I’m still this stressed out about how to fix things with Violet does not seem like a fun way to spend my Friday night.

“Olivia is coming too, idiot. Come on, it’s the weekend.” He pokes me with his foot again, and I shove it away, making him fall back on the bed.

“Fine, but I’m not driving.”

I spent all summer learning how to drive, and my parents gifted me a car, but now that I have it, I hate driving. I think of the promises I made to Violet, telling her that once I got my license, I would take her out on a real date, and we could drive to wherever she wanted to go. It’ll never happen now and so driving has lost all its appeal.

“Whatever, I’ll drive.” He relays what I’ve said to Jinhee and hangs up. “I’m going to get changed, and then I’ll come back here, and we can meet up with the girls.”

I nod, closing my sketchbook and standing up at the same time he does. I follow Luke to the door, locking it behind him as she leaves, and let out a huge sigh. I need to figure out how to fix things with Violet, but for now, I’m going to try and enjoy the weekend with my friends.

I don’t say much at dinner, but my friends have gotten used to this by now. I’ve grown quieter over the years, more reserved, but they don’t treat me any differently. I’m sat next to Olivia, with Luke and Jinhee opposite us, as they all talk. The conversation turns to university applications, something I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about as much as possible. We agreed not to mention them at all during summer. All of them were well aware that I was stressed about studying for the LNAT, but now that we’re back at school, there’s no avoiding the topic. They don’t know why else I’m stressed about taking the exam, the added pressure that’s there now that I’m certain that I don’t want to do law.

It’s only the first week back, and university applications have already been mentioned nearly every day by every teacher I’ve interacted with. My friends are all pretty much decided on where they want to apply and for what subject, and I guess, technically, my choices are decided, too. I’m supposed to use all five options to apply for Law, focusing mainly on Oxford. That’s the goal I’ve been working towards since I was ten, and I’ve done everything right up until this point to make it a real possibility. But over the years, as I started drawing and putting more effort into developing my skills, it became something I wanted to pursue further.

Nearly all of my free time is spent watching animated movies and shows, studying them to work out how each frame is broken down, whether the background is static or moving, and how each character’s expressions are drawn. Then I try to replicate my favourite frames, drawing and redrawing until it matches as closely as possible to the original. It takes a lot of time but the outcome is always worth it.

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