In Our Heads (bxb) Completed

Chapter 5

Chapter 5.

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Cassian yawned as he reached for the milk after having poured cereal into his bowl. He was so tired, he had missed the bowl when tossing it in and had to spend some time gathering the little balls of cereal to put them into the bowl.

“Have you not slept?” He looked up hearing Jonathan’s voice.

“I did… for an hour.” At 5 AM is when his eyes finally began to droop and he stumbled over to his bed barely having the energy to pull the covers over himself before he fell asleep, only to be jolted awake less than an hour later by his screeching alarm clock. His eyes still felt heavy with sleep and the need for more as he looked back down at his cereal.

“Why did you stay up until four, Cassian?” Cassian smiled hearing Jonathan’s concerned voice actually speak his name for once.

“Couldn’t sleep, I’ll make sure to get more tonight.” He looked towards the dining room entrance as his mother walked in.

“Good morning, Sweetie.” She leaned to kiss his cheek before taking her seat. Jonathan greeted her before motioning to Cassian that he would be outside and then leaving the room, “Your eyes look awfully dark.” She said.

“Just tired.” He spooned the cereal in his bowl around as he wondered if maybe he should mention the party, just in passing, without even asking to go just to see what her reaction would be to all his friends and probably Amber going as well, “The team –”

“Oh, you had a match yesterday.” She cut him off, he nodded trying to get by that quickly so he could continue to what he wanted to say but his father’s voice came into the room before he could speak.

“Won?”

“You know it,” Cassian replied and felt himself smile when his father grinned at him as he sat down beside his wife.

“That’s my boy.” He said, “Keep leading them to that trophy.”

“I will, so after the game, we were talking and everyone –”

“Just remember not to focus too much on the game, how’s your preparation for the interview going?” His mother asked.

“It’s good.”

“Great. It’s coming up fast so you have to make sure you’re properly prepared. We want –” his mother stopped when her phone buzzed and glanced at it before looking at her husband, “We should get going, there’s an accident on the N84 that could cause us to arrive at the meeting a little late.” She said to him.

“Alright. You’ll update us later, right, Cassian?” His father asked as they stood up.

“Yes.”

“Oh – also, before I forget again. Ryan called the house sometime while we were all out, he left his number.” Cassian looked down as his mother placed a little card with a number scribbled on it. It was in Rosa’s handwriting so she must have been the one that answered the phone, “You should call him back.” He tried not to grimace when she winked at him, they were way too excited and vocal when it came to the possibility of a relationship between Cassian and Ryan, “See you later, Honey.”

His parents left the room talking about their upcoming meeting as he lifted his hand to pick up the card. He had no intention of calling Ryan back despite their excitement.  He just figured he had enough to focus on at the moment and maybe, if he thought he could actually be with Ryan, he would do contact him once he had finished his final exams and was certain he had his spot at Yale. Ryan did not particularly pique his interest though, so he would probably only call him if his parents kept on insisting.

He finished his food before jogging back upstairs to grab his bag and then meeting Johnathan in the car.

When Cassian arrived at school, he was immediately greeted by a few acquaintances before walking into the school with one of them as they discussed current football league statistics and recent matches. It was an exciting conversation for them both as they kept making their way through the school towards Cassian’s while just waving at their friends instead of stopping to join the others. They were drawn from their discussion as they entered the hall Cassian’s locker as in when a loud bang went off. Cassian’s head turned from his friend as he followed the noise.

Down the hall, Theodore was against his locker with Kian and four other guys surrounding him, from Jake’s stance and Theodore’s position, it looked like Jake had just shoved him against the lockers. Between them, at their feet was a bucket of what seemed like soapy water, a sponge and a cloth.

“Come on, man. You’re just going to take it? May as well just wash the car if you’re not even going to put up a fight right now.” Cassian’s jaw dropped as he tensed slightly when Jake shoved Theodore’s head causing it to bang back against the lockers.

“Seems like he’s smart enough to know he should not touch you, Jake.” One of the other guys chuckled.

Cassian felt himself begin to step forward but he stopped. Why wasn’t Theodore fighting back? He did not look like the type of person that would just take them shoving him around the way they were. He was tall and pretty well-built, he looked like he could hold his own in a fight. Maybe the guy was right, Theodore would probably be hit with an assault lawsuit if he dared lay a hand on Jake. Scholarships could not afford to defend themselves against people like Jake, whose parents had enough money for a great lawyer and to basically buy anyone they needed to if he was accused of anything.

“Go on, it’s practice boy.” Theodore still did not move when Kian grabbed the cloth to basically toss it into his face. Cassian grimaced at the movement wondering how he had ever found Kian attractive.

Theodore’s lack of response or retaliation seemed to be making the five guys around him angry, so Cassian began to yell out for them to cut it out but his voice was drowned out by the bell ringing. When the ringing stopped, no one moved as they kept observing what was going to happen next. In a school with a widely-enforced hierarchy, the people with the most influence, those whose families had the most money, basically ran the school. No one dared get in their way. Unfortunately, they despised the scholarship kids.

“Are you finished?” Cassian’s voice made everyone looked at him, except Theodore who just kept staring ahead as he had been doing for the past few minutes.

“Not entirely,” Jake replied looking at him.

“I think you are.” Cassian’s parents were known to be the most influential people at the school, he did not usually feel the need to point that out. He thought the hierarchy was stupid anyway, though at the moment it would prove to be helpful.

Jake ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek before looking back at Theodore.

“See you around, Scholarship.” As in when Cassian was not there to intervene.

The boys walked away, and with them, the students lingering in the hallway began to disperse just as a teacher walked into the hall to seemingly find out why no one was in their classes.

“Cassian, what’s going on here?”

“Nothing, Mrs Keenly. We were all just heading to class.” He replied. She narrowed her eyes as if she knew there was more to it, but nodded despite that. It came with being president of the student council, teachers just took his word for most things.

He greeted her before he turned to head to his class as almost everyone else had already left. Almost. Theodore was still at his locker and Mrs Keenly was heading towards him. He bit his lip seeing Theodore let out a sigh before turning to head to his own class.

Cassian figured he would talk to Theodore about whatever happened later and apologize for his friends’ and teammates’ behaviour. Though, that probably would not help much as it was just going to keep happening unless his parents suddenly gained massive amounts of money and influence.

Despite his arriving to homeroom late, the teacher did not bat an eye as he made his way to his seat and sat down. The class was buzzing as normal, with no one even finding what had happened in the hallway out of the ordinary. Theodore was a scholarship bullying was expected and everyone stayed out of it because Justin was involved. Justin whose family owned no less than thirty immensely successful resorts all over the place.

“Hey.” Cassian looked to his side feeling Lance tap his arm, “Need me to pick you up?” He asked.

“Pick me up?” Cassian asked confused.

“For the party on Friday. Don’t tell me you asked your parents.” Lance’s face dropped into one that looked utterly disappointed at Cassian.

“I did not. No, it’s cool, I can get there myself, just send me a pin.” He figured he would get by the guards and then call a Taxi paying by cash, not using his Uber account because his parents could check his trip history on that. They tended to follow his movements in case he got into any trouble when he was not with Jonathan or anyone else.

“You’re seriously coming out?” Amber sounded surprised.

“He came out when he was twelve, what are you talking about?” They laughed at the little joke, the laughter dying when their teacher called out to get their attention so that she could talk to them before the announcements were spoken about and then the bell rang signalling the move into first period.

Cassian took a second to note that Theodore had skipped homeroom and frowned wondering if Mrs Keenly had reprimanded him for making no attempt to head to his classroom in the hallway earlier. Or maybe Theodore decided to skip the rest of school, it would have been pretty humiliating being in his position, Cassian could not imagine wanting to be around school for the rest of the day, usually people had no choice but to continue through the day.

He was almost relieved when he walked into his English class and saw Theodore seated in the front of the class, head down as he focused on scribbling into an open book on his desk. What was he doing though? Class had not started yet so he had nothing to write down. Was he drawing? Cassian attempted to step towards where Theodore was seated to have a look at the book as he passed to go to his desk but felt an arm thrown around his shoulders.

“Practice?” It was one of the guys in his soccer the team. He let the arm lead him down the row of seats away from Theodore’s desk, towards the back of the class where his own seat was.

“Nah, we won yesterday. We can have the day off.” One of the others said.

“Never.” Cassian’s reply was automatic and it made the few guys in the room that were in his team groan, he chuckled, “We can skip the lunch session.”  The statement was followed by cheers until the teacher called for them to quiet down and told Cassian to get to his seat. He chuckled as he moved over to his seat beside the window and the class began.

The halls were crowded with people wanting to make their way to the cafeteria, the sea of students pushing their way towards it while Theodore walked the opposite way. He had yet to find a quiet, secluded place to hang out. He had no intention of heading anywhere near the cafeteria as he had no doubt that dozens of eyes would follow his every move, and he did not want another incident with the rich pricks that tried to force him to wash a car – ‘practice for his future’ they had called it. He figured it was best to just stay away from them, he did not like drawing attention to himself or fighting but there was only so much he could take and he did not want to risk getting kicked out of the school. With how Mrs Keenly reacted like she had not seen what happened, he had a feeling if he were to get into a fight with one of those guys they would get off without so much as detention. No wonder they thought they could push people around just because they happened to have less money than they did. The teachers seemed to want to stay out of the students’ way as much as they could.

The hallway cleared up as he reached the stars and he turned to look over his shoulder wondering if he should head to the backyard of the school. Probably not, the sports teams at the school seemed to never take a break and he was certain one or more of them were going to be using the fields in the back of the school.

Instead, he jogged his way upstairs figuring he could just sit on one of the balconies overlooking the teacher’s parking lot because no one would be down there, so no one would see him. When he stopped on the second floor however, he remembered that there was a door beside the stairs on the third floor so he jogged up to find out why that door was there. If it was not a storeroom, maybe it led to the roof.

The floor was as empty as the second floor was and when he tugged at the door it opened easily despite the ‘no entry’ sign. He furrowed his brows in confusion wondering if the faculty just trusted that the students would obey the sign before he pulled the door open further. There were stairs that led up to a platform that led to more stairs, but he could not spot a light switch or light bulbs, which was weird. He turned on his phone’s flash, letting the door shut behind him as he made his way further up the stairs until he reached another door. He pushed it, and like the other, it was unlocked. A flood of light entered through the opening the door made and he stepped out turning the light on his phone off. He was on the roof.

Shoving his phone back into his pocket, Theodore let the door shut behind him again as he walked further onto the roof. Surprisingly, he was alone. The roof was decorated with patches of grass and small potted plants, it looked as well taken care of as the rest of the school did. He walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down onto the front courtyard of the school. There were a few people and their friends talking and eating, no one looking up at him. This would be a good place to hide if the fact that the door was unlocked was not just a one-time thing. He turned to run his eyes over the rest of the roof and noticed a couple of benches. Why would they put benches on the roof when no one was allowed to go up to the roof? His eyes shifted when he heard the door open and he watched expecting a maintenance man or teacher to step onto the roof, but instead familiar brown hair came into his view as Cassian looked around before his face turned towards Theodore.

“Are you following me?” Theodore spoke first because that was what it genuinely seemed like to him. He had noticed that Cassian seemed to look over at him quite a bit in class, or just blatantly stare at him every few minutes. Was it because he agreed to have dinner with his parents two days ago?

“Uh…” Cassian’s cheeks seemed to tint slightly which made Theodore raise his brows, “Yes.” At least he was honest, “I wanted to check on you… after this morning. And apologise.” That made Theodore tilt his head.

“For them?” He asked. He watched Cassian open his mouth in response, like he was about to say something but he closed it like he was second-guessing before he spoke.

“So, how’s the chess club? Is it giving you all the academic or mental stimulation you yearned for?” His voice sounded lighter, playful and it made Theodore give a humoured scoff under his breath.

He was not really sure how to reply, it usually took him a few seconds to think of what he was going to say before he replied to people. He was not planning to become friends with anyone at the school, he did not really like having people to speak to… Well, sometimes he wanted to have someone to speak to, but it always seemed like so much effort to him. Talking to people. Being with people. He felt quite uncomfortable around other people and so just preferred to be alone so that he would not have to feel uneasy or worried about every move he made or every word he said.

Cassian on the other hand, as Theodore had observed, seemed to love being with people. He was very popular within the school and could not seem to take a step in the hallway without grinning and waving at someone. He was so social, it seemed weird to Theodore. How could anyone be so carefree and just… happy around so many people?

“You know a lot about those models my father builds.” Cassian walked over to the bench so he could sit down before he lifted one of his legs onto the bench casually like he was seated on a couch.

“Someone I knew was really into the hobby, your father’s collection is much more extensive. What is that, 20 years?” Theodore leaned back against the balcony.

“Thirty. My grandfather always tells me this story of how he got my father one little boat to build for his 14th birthday and he because obsessed with building that thing for the next couple of months, he barely left his room.” Cassian smiled like he was remembering a fond memory, almost like he had watched his father obsess over the model despite him not even being born at the time, “He’s built so many, he even made one himself, cut every bit of the wood himself. He’s very passionate about it. I wish…” He drifted before he looked at Theodore and smiled, “Do you have any hobbies?”

Theodore stared at Cassian for a few seconds. The smile he gave after drifting off seemed…mournful somehow. He wondered why. The smile also made Theodore realise Cassian smiled a lot, he was basically always smiling or laughing. Who wouldn’t when they lived the way he does? His house was big enough to be a small hotel. But he should know that things are not always as they seemed, even people like Cassian could not always be cheerful. The smile struck a cord and Theodore decided to humour Cassian with an answer.

“I like to draw and write.” He liked dancing too, but it was never something he would say out loud because saying something like that was always followed by a request to dance from whoever it was said to. He only danced when he was alone despite having been doing it for years.

“That’s what you were doing in English, right? Drawing.”

“Yes.”

“I wish I could draw.” He chuckled at Cassian’s reply, mostly because the guy gave a pout when he said that.

“What about you?” He asked, “Anything you like doing?”

“I… like doing?” Cassian asked. He was quiet for a while as he seemed to be thinking about it and Theodore waited patiently before Cassian finally spoke, “I guess I like playing the violin… Piano too.” The uncertainty in his voice was clear.

“You guess?”

“Well, no. I like it. Yeah. I’m good at it.” He said.

Theodore wanted to point out that someone being good at something did not particularly mean that it was something they enjoyed doing. Anyone could learn to be good at anything. For some reason he did not say that out loud though and there was silence between them for a few seconds before the bell rang. It was weird that the silence was not awkward. Theodore immediately began to make his way towards the door hoping to get to class before anyone else, he hated being late because that involved walking into a room already filled with people and becoming the main focus of all of those people until he reached his seat.

“Hey, Theo.” Theodore stopped once his hand was gripping the door’s handle when Cassian called out to him. He looked over at the guy that had not stood up from the bench, instead just swinging his legs over to the other side of the bench so he was facing Theodore, “I never got your number Sunday night.”

“Yeah, you didn’t.” Theodore gave Cassian a smile and was surprised when Cassian’s own smile grew at the answer.

“I’ll ask you tomorrow.” Theodore just shook his head as he opened the door to head into the stairway.

Clearly Cassian was going to be annoying, but something about him seemed quite inviting. Theodore could not help but think maybe Cassian’s constant following or watching him was not such a bad thing.

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