The evening passed, and the next day arrived. I parked and locked my bike on the schoolyard, away from all the others, in solitude. When I looked at the front door, I saw Chris and Maddie walk into the school building, together with a girl with black hair. A slight sting of pain went through my chest, and I swallowed the thoughts going through my brain up, not to think about it too much.
"Hey."
"Ah! You scared me."
"You should've seen me coming, I was cycling right towards you."
Autumn suddenly appeared behind me, and I didn't see him pass me at all. He parked his bike next to mine and only locked it on the wheel.
"You sure that's safe?"
"What is?"
"Your lock."
"Oh, well, it's an old bike. If it gets stolen I'll have an excuse to buy a new one. Come on, we don't want to be late again."
He walked away, so I sped up to walk beside him. Despite how I disliked Chris and Maddie always walking away before me, I didn't mind with Autumn.
"Maybe you're right..."
I whispered to myself, but he didn't notice. We went inside and to classroom 3-5, for Chemistry. When we were walking through the hallways, I noticed people were looking at us. We were walking right next to each other, so it shouldn't have been that big of a deal, but even people from other classes and years were staring us down. It felt odd, but not too bad.
We entered the classroom and went to sit down in the back. Because Chris and Maddie weren't talking to me, I had no one to turn to, so I just followed Autumn.
"'Sup."
"Hey, Simon."
Simon was Autumn's friend and his only friend from what I know. They always sit next to each other, do projects together, P.E. exercises, et cetera. It was odd not seeing Simon here yesterday, on the first day of school even.
"Where were you yesterday?"
"Oh, I had to go to the doct-"
I sat down next to Autumn, with Simon being on the other side of him. The tables in the Chemistry classroom are long and made for three people, with electricity and gas pipes overhead and a water faucet in the center.
"Autumn."
"Hmm?"
"W-w-who's the girl?"
Simon was extremely laid back when he addressed Autumn, but the moment he saw me he locked up completely. His face turned red and he evaded his eyes when he asked Autumn. Autumn moved to the side and faced me.
"Oh, uhm, I'm Larissa! You're Simon, right?"
"T-t-that's c-correct."
Autumn leaned towards me and whispered in my ear.
"He's got trouble talking to girls, he warms up to you if you talk to him often enough, though that has only happened with one other girl."
"Oh, I see."
"Well, I met her yesterday and we had a dispute, but made up after."
Before I was able to say anything, Autumn turned his eyes to me and gave a sharp glance. It told me not to say anything, so I didn't. It might have been a way to explain away what happened that day. However, Simon said something unexpected.
"Oh, that makes sense then."
His embarrassment was still audible in his voice, but it was way more stable than before. Maybe, he knew something that I didn't.
Chemistry class, first break and Dutch class passed, and we arrived at the second break, which takes a long forty-five minutes. I packed my bag and went to the door of the classroom, where Autumn and Simon were waiting for me. When I looked at Simon, he evaded his eyes again and looked at the ground.
"Let's have lunch outside."
Autumn's statement had two meanings to it. First, that we would literally have lunch outside, and second, that it would be in a place where no one else was. We exited the building through an obscure exit, one that leads to the back of the schoolyard. I followed Autumn and Simon around a corner, where no one could see us. There was a bench here, in the sun, so I settled down.
"This place is hard to find. Together with that other place, this is where I most often swap clothes."
I almost choked on my water from the surprise and started coughing.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine, one sec."
"Simon knows about it if that's what you're wondering. That's why we're here, so I could let you know."
"Is it really fine to l-let her know? Won't the boss-"
"Nah, it'll be fine. I trust her."
Once I stopped coughing, I responded. I also shortly wondered who their boss could be, as I didn't see Thundergirl working for someone else.
"You do?"
"Of course, otherwise I wouldn't have shown you. You felt trustworthy from the moment we met, which is why I just undressed in front of you."
"Y-y-y-you-"
"Calm down Simon, I didn't mean it in a weird way."
A moment of silence fell upon us, while we all silently ate our lunch. I was hesitant to break the silence, as I didn't know what to ask. But, I did have a lot of questions.
"Anyway, we'll talk more later."
Autumn stood up as he said that. The break wasn't even half over yet. Autumn picked up his bag and went around the corner, to the more populated side of the schoolyard. Simon followed him and I did the same shortly after.
"Where are we going?"
"Hmm? I'm going to the grass field, outside the gates. It would be odd if someone noticed we were back there for the entire break."
He had a point. If we stayed there and came out as the buzzer went off, it would be way more suspicious.
"N-now people will just think we were d-discussing something. If we stayed there longer, p-people would've thought we were doing m-m-malicious things."
"Hey! You know I wouldn't do anything like that! I have respect for women."
"So he says, after following me for an entire morning."
"That's-"
We chatted while walking to the field, a sort of small talk I had never had before in my life. The talks I had with Chris and Maddie were always full of negativity, about the school, their bodies, other people, me, and a bunch more things I don't want to remember. Right now, I was having fun.
We settled down in the shadow of a bountiful oak tree, as it was way too hot to sit in the sun at the end of August. Autumn continued on his lunch here, but Simon and I had already finished. There were a lot of people around, all sitting beneath different trees.
"Autumn."
Simon addressed him.
"Do you really want to sit beneath this tree?"
Simon didn't stutter. I looked around to see if there was anything unnatural about this tree, but it looked the same as all the others. Even Autumn didn't seem to know what he was talking about. Simon wasn't facing Autumn like usual, but he was looking out onto the field.
"What do you mean?"
"Two years ago, near this tree. You haven't forgotten, right?"
I tried to come up with a possibility of what happened, but nothing came to mind. I did not know enough about Autumn yet.
"Ah, of course not, but, you have to get over things, you know? Don't worry, I didn't forget when I went here."
"Ah, okay."
I looked up and stared at the sky, just like Simon and now Autumn too. I did not ask them about it, as I felt that it was something between the two of them.
Five minutes before the buzzer went off, we headed inside to classroom 1-3 for a single period of Geography, after which comes a free period. We entered the classroom and sat down in the back again, and started a boring forty-five-minute long discussion about rocks. It was a typical, uninformative Geography class.