A Heart Still

3 Bruised ego

I was sitting in the school canteen, eating my lunch, thinking about Claire. 

I just couldn’t bring myself to eat my food, so I kept stabbing the piece of god knows what with my fork. The whole day ran by but I still couldn’t pry my mind of the topic of Claire’s whereabouts.

If she wasn’t at home, then where was she? She even left her phone at her house and I’m sure she would tell me even if she wanted to run away from this hell and never come back.

My thoughts were interrupted by someone taking a seat right next to me.

“Hey, Becca. Why so frowny?” Todd threw his arm around my shoulders and I sighed. 

He was a basketball player and the team clown. He was that i***t kid who could only do one thing, play basketball, and his ego could fill the whole room because of it.

“Todd.” I greeted dryly, still picking at my food.

“Leave the poor girl alone, Todd.” Someone else said, sitting down opposite me. 

Denis smiled at me and put down his tray, starting to eat his food.

“Hi, Denis.” I greeted, thankful for the intrusion.

A couple more guys sat down and started talking to Todd and Denis, but I didn’t really listen. They were talking about the game that was supposed to be next week, but I wasn’t interested. 

These basketball players were not my type. I realized I wasn’t going to eat anything anyway, so I threw the napkin and fork on the tray, getting ready to leave.

“Hey Becca, where is Claire? Haven’t seen her in a while.” Denis asked me, making me look at him with a sad expression. 

“I’m not sure.” He grimaced at my answer but didn’t ask anymore. 

“You don’t need her.” Todd nudged my shoulder, snaking his hand around my waist. “Remember the date you promised me? How about we go now? I can ditch the last period, it’s just art anyway.”

I turned my head to face him to tell him to keep his hands to himself. I also never promised him a date! What was he talking about? He kept bothering me for the past two months, always acting like I was his biggest fan, but I was just annoyed with him.

I opened my mouth to say no thanks, but someone beat me to it.

“She can’t, actually, we are supposed to be working on a project right now.”

I looked behind myself to find Mr Harris standing there. 

Calling him that was ridiculous but I still didn’t know his first name.

He was frowning down at me, his arms crossed over his chest and he had sunglasses on but I knew he was glaring at me.

Normally, I would tell him to not talk to me like that but this solved my Todd situation.

“Yeah, sorry Todd but I have plans. Bye guys.” I quickly stood up before Todd could start arguing and headed out of the canteen with Harris.

“I have been waiting for you in the library.” He said dryly when we walked down the corridor. 

“Oh, sorry about that. I just wanted to grab a quick lunch but forgot about the time.” I apologized.

“I figured.” He sighed and we walked to the library, taking our seats by one of the tables.

“So, where do you want to start? And what’s up with the sunglasses?”

He hadn’t taken them off when we came into the library and it wasn’t like it was too sunny in here.

He didn’t answer and instead took a book out of his bag.

‘Phaedo: Or, the Immortality of the Soul by Plato’ the title read and I looked up at him, impressed.

“I thought we could start with Plato, since we already talked about him in class, so I took you this to read.” He handed me the book and my brows furrowed in confusion. He wanted me to read it? 

“You brought it for me to read? Did you read it?”

He scoffed, shaking his head. 

“Of course not, I don’t read this kind of books.” Alright, I was not impressed anymore.

“Why not?”

“I have my own opinion on the soul, I don’t need anyone else telling me.”

I sighed, shaking my head. “I have my own opinion as well, but that doesn’t mean I won’t read other people's opinions.”

He leaned forward in his seat, clasping his hands in front of him, and I couldn’t but notice his tattoos.

He was wearing a black short-sleeved t-shirt, making the tattoos visible. There were patterns, going from his shoulders to his forearms and I had to admit, I liked the way they moved when he flexed his muscles.

“So tell me, Grayson, what do you think about the soul?” he asked and it sounded like he really wanted to know, so I sighed and started speaking.

“I don’t think soul exists. What people think about as a soul is just a row of chemical processes in the brain.”

He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms on his chest, which drew my attention again.

“Interesting, so you are the sceptical one.”

I frowned at him, not liking to be labelled. “What do you think Mr Know-it-all?”

He chuckled but started to talk. “Just like you, I think I don’t have a soul, but I think some people do. For me, it’s something you are not born with but something you gain in life, or lose it after.”

I stared at him for a while, stunned. This really did have something about it. I started to wonder what went through the mind of this guy. 

“Anyway, this is about what society thought, not us.”

He said, making me get my thoughts back in place. “Sure, so let’s get started.” 

We started working on the project, well, mostly me. It was not like he wasn’t doing anything, but he would always turn down my ideas and suggestions and made me go with his, but I had to do the actual work.

I had to admit though, he did have quite good ideas.

It was four in the afternoon when he started collecting his things. “I need to go. Are you free tomorrow after school?” 

I shook my head and he sighed. “So on Monday?” I just nodded at him and he nodded back at me, making his sunglasses move a little and I saw the black eye he was sporting. 

A gasp left my mouth as I scooted closer, wanting to take a better look at the huge bruise on his face. “What the fudge happened to your face?”

The people around shushed me and I rolled my eyes, muttering “Oh, calm down people.”

I stared up at him expectantly but he kept quiet, taking his things from the table. “Harris, what the heck happened? Also, what’s your name? It’s ridiculous to call you Harris.”

He sighed and fixed the sunglasses. “None of your business. See you on Monday Grayson.”

He said, walking out of the library. Seriously? What was up with this guy?