FicWad

Chapter 3; History Problems


I arrived home that afternoon and curled up on my sofa with my cheeks still bright red from the day. I had no idea how I’d survived; fourth period could have been hell on earth for the teacher I had for that lesson (Religious Studies) but he was away. Thank the heavens and the genius who invented microwave popcorn. Honestly, my R.S teacher (who also doubled as my History teacher) was... well, I guess you can find out later.

But even without the pure chagrin that was sure to come my way from R.S and History lessons later in the week, I had no idea how I’d made it through the way without completely beheading someone with my clumsy feet and the fact that I hadn’t been watching where I’d been going whenever Gerard was around.

Gerard.

Geez, even his name sent my hormonally deranged little pixies into a frenzy.

It was even worse when I compared his timetable to mine because now they had no opportunity to leave him alone. Not even for a day. Because my Year (11) and his Year (12) shared options classes. You know; media, art, music, that sort of thing. It just so happened that we’d picked, pretty much exactly the same fucking options. So I shared all of my options with Gerard. Like, all of them. I’d been bullied into Art by Kayleigh and Gerard had it too. It was... evil, in a word. My new ovaries would be gone and unable to regrow by Friday.

My only consolation was that I didn’t have to completely melt and die and blush and god knows what else for another day. Until tomorrow when I would undoubtedly find some new way to completely and utterly humiliate myself.

Until then, I was doing my best to push everything out of my head. I’d picked a DVD full of TV shows that my Mum used to watch and put it into the player, dangling the remote in my hand, a packet of Doritos tucked under my arm. Storm had freaked out when I got home, jumping about crazily like she did every day, but now she was sitting in my lap, her head resting against my chest, occasionally whining and nuzzling my elbow for me to scratch her head.

She’s a dog, you perverted freaks.

A German Shepard, to be precise, and only eleven months old. I’d got her on my 16th birthday last year. Her full name was Stormageddeon. Stormageddeon, Master of Revenge. I was a little... inebriated when I named her. Now she never answered to anything else. So she was just Storm.

I was zoning out slowly, staring blankly at the figures on my TV screen, when the doorbell rang. I screamed like a little girl and leapt backwards, almost catapulting Storm across the room and flailing backwards off the sofa.

“Fucking... agh!” I shouted, stuck upside-down and halfway off the sofa. From the direction of my feet came a giggle. I groaned. “Kayleigh, don’t fucking do that!”


“Do what? I rang the doorbell,” she said, throwing herself down on the sofa opposite me. She’d changed out of her school uniform and was wearing a red skirt and a black dress shirt. She kicked off her boots (seriously, who wears Docs with a skirt?!) and threw them in my direction.

“Yeah, and the doorbell scares the shit outta me,” I grumbled, scrambling backwards off the sofa so I wasn’t lying awkwardly on the floor with boots flying at my face.

“You’re pathetic,” sighed Kayleigh, turning her gaze towards the TV. “Oh god, I haven’t watched this show in forever!”

“I don’t even know what it is,” I said, regathering my packet of Doritos and sitting back on the sofa. “Hey, how did you even get in?”

“I have a key, moron.”

“Oh yeah.” We sat in silence for a moment, me watching Kayleigh who had her eyes glued to the TV screen. “So, uh...”

“So...?” she asked, looking at me. I flushed and looked at my fingers.

“Uh, aren’t you suppose to be like, with Gerard and... your other cousin? Because it’s their first day, and, you know, I’d have thought... will you stop smiling like that!” I said, because sure enough a giant smirk had grown across Kayleigh’s freckly face.

“Oh god, you have it bad,” she said, shaking her head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve been here less than two minutes and you’re already talking about Gee.”

“Well, I...”

“I didn’t bring him because I thought you’ve made enough of a fool of yourself for today,” she said. I blushed and looked at the floor, fiddling with Storm’s soft black ear.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“I just want to wait until Friday and see your face,” she said, grinning. I looked up, confused. “You know. P.E. History and R.S. Music, again.”

“How do you know what I have?!”


“We share the same classes, moron.”

“Oh.”

“And we have Mr Harthan for three lessons on Friday.”

“He’s not necessarily gonna figure out that I might, possibly... um, well, maybe have a teeny tiny crush on Gerard...” I said. Kayleigh smirked again.

“It’s as obvious as a giant duck doing the tango on a table, dude. ‘Specially seeing as you’ve just told me that you like Gerard,” she said. I groaned again.

“I hate you.”

“Love you too. Now pass me those Doritos.”

____________________


The next day was even worse. It was a Wednesday. You know, hence the whole Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday day of the week think. Oh fuck, I’m rambling already. The thing is.. Wednesday wasn’t exactly a good day for me. Not in terms of coordination and controlling my mouth and my hormones and (at one point) at lunchtime when Gerard was laughing and grinning and biting his lip and looking at me through that curtain of soft black hair... I kind of lost control of my entire bodily functions and fell backwards off the lunch table, bashed my head against the pillar behind me and almost lost consciousness for a moment of dizziness and drool and hormones.

It didn’t help that all that he was the most adorable creature in existence. Or that, again, I’d run into him talking to Mikyla. Again. I was tinging slightly with hurt when I saw him talking to her, but again I told myself that I couldn’t blame her for wanting to talk to him. And why he’d talk to her.

I had double Art that afternoon - and I said already how I share all of my options classes. It turns out Gerard’s a good artist. Like, a really good artist - he did all the work and actually listened to the art teacher (as I hadn’t chosen it willingly - thanks Kayleigh for being a bully - I rarely did enough to scrape my pass) and then made everything ten times more adorable by drawing everyone as little vampire bat cartoons and I just felt my heart splash around in my stomach with pathetic-ness.

Thursday was just slightly better. Only slightly. We didn’t share any lessons, and I’d managed to... sort of... get my muscles under control. There was just one slight problem with Thursdays. And when I say slight, I mean a gigantic, huge, massive problem. As in, in between break and lunch I had two free periods. As in, a double free period. And so did Gerard.

I swear, he was deliberately trying to destroy my imaginary ovaries. Gerard was the sort of guy who could give a guy a pair of ovaries, then blow them up with adorableness, and then re-grow them back to explode again. And having a double period off really didn’t help anything. True, I would probably be studying or sleeping during those tow, but so would Gerard and I had about two and a half hours (if you include lunch and break) of nothingness and just a few people and Gerard. Kayleigh was a nerd and took ‘extra maths’ courses during those two so she wasn’t even around to save me if I died.

I woke up on Friday with my stomach tingling. Stupid really, but I’d double checked my timetable and nearly died. I’d already nicknamed Friday ‘options day’ because, you guessed it, it was options all day. And that was the last thing I needed with a planet-sized crush on my best friend’s super sexy cousin. To top things off... I had double Phys Ed first thing.

Fuck my life.

No, fuck my entire existence. The world had set out to kill me.

I normally like P.E. I know, shock horror, but it was really good. We had a chick called Toni who taught Basketball, my favourite option, so that’s what we did most of the time. But it was good. I’d checked and it was the only lesson of the week that I shared with all of my friends. But the last thing I needed was to be running around a field, hot and sweaty, looking at a hot and sweaty and really sexy Gerard.

We sat chattering in the gym whilst waiting for the teachers to turn up. It took barely ten minutes to get changed and sorted into our options; as per usual. Toni split us into the teams we’d been in last term and almost instantly began drilling the whole class through a few exercises. I was in the green team with Kayleigh. Gerard was in the blue team.

An hour later the teams were playing full-court matches against each other; my team had been up three times and I was lying in a sweaty heap on the floor. I was currently watching the red and yellow teams playing their last game. There was a distinct way the teams laid out their styles; my team was very tactical thanks to Kayleigh, the blues were just plain old ‘good.’ I didn’t really notice much; I’d just come off the pitch from playing the Blue team... playing against Gerard and yeah, he was sweaty. But sex sweaty and it was only the basketball and concentrating on it that meant I didn’t end up mauling and molesting Gerard there and then.

Zacky had the ball and was surrounded by the red team, so instead of passing he halted and Michelle kicked him in the leg. He made a small noise like a dying cat and curled up on the floor, huddling the ball to him like it was his lifeblood. I giggled, and the rest of the team converged on him like a pack of vultures on a carcass.

After a small while of shrieks and laughter the rest of the team moved away, just leaving Zacky lying on the floor laughing his head off. The rest of the class sitting on the sideline was laughing, as was Phoenix and Michelle, who were crouching by Zacky on the floor. Then they just collapsed on the floor, leaving them as a huge pile of giggling loons.

“Okay, guys, get up!” said Toni, walking to the middle of the pitch. “Get to the middle!” The whole class scrambled to their feet and rushed over to where she stood with her hands on her hips, looking around with her eyebrows raised.

“Alright, well done today guys. I want... what the heck are you doing?” I turned around and saw Zacky still sitting on the floor where he’d fallen over, still grinning. As we all turned he started to giggle, then crouched over and put his face in his hands, and just continued to giggle his head off. Toni looked bewildered.

“Weird child...” she said, shaking her head. “Like I said, well done today guys. All those wantin’ to be goin’ on the ski trip in February, ya’ll gotta get a letter from me and get in the first payment by the end o’ this month, okay? Right, give me five and then go get changed.” We scrambled to our feet, high fived her and waltzed out towards the changing rooms.

“You’re going on the ski trip, right?” asked Ray, standing behind me in the line to get the letters for the ski trip. I shrugged.

“Yeah. Thought it would be a laugh.”

“It is! I’ve been before,” said Kayleigh, running up to join us. I grinned and began fiddling with the hem of my shirt to pull it over my head.

“Who else is thinking of going?”

“We talked about this at the end of last year, didn’t we? I think like, all of us are gonna go...”

“Oh god, I can see this going to the shits already,” said Ray. “I’m going, I’ve already asked for the money...”

“This isn’t going to be good,” I said, finally winning the battle with my shirt and pulling it off. I wiped my damp face with it. “God, this stinks.”

“Frank, put your shirt on,” said Kayleigh.

“You don’t find it distracting, do you?” I said, pouting. She just raised her eyebrow at me.

“No, but all the girls ogling you like you’re the sexiest thing to walk this planet might.” I smirked widely.

“I think it’s the tattoos,” said Ray.

“Or my general ultimate sexiness,” I said, tossing my head backwards and waving my arms in the air. Ray and Kayleigh wrinkled their noses.

“Yeah, go have a shower, you stink.” We turned the corner to the changing rooms and my stomach swooped; Gerard was leaning against the wall, his hair plastered to his face with sweat. I could feel myself beginning to drool. Until I noticed that he was talking to Mikyla who was wearing short shorts and a tight top, having just returned from dancing.

“Shut up,” I said, deliberately not looking at them, instead keeping my eyes fixed on Kayleigh’s face. She giggled and waltzed onwards to the girls’ room. Ray smirked and pushed the door open to the changing rooms.

I straight over to the mirror and looked at myself in the mirror and blanked a little bit. When lots of people did P.E, they ended up looking horrible and shiny and smelled absolutely awful. I was one of those people - and now my eyeliner was running from sweat. I really needed to remember not to do it until after P.E and a shower.

“And what else is new, Frank is wondering around taking his clothes off in a room full of sweaty men,” said a voice behind me as I got out the shower. I turned, ready to spit an insult at whoever it was, but I saw Zacky staring at me with a grin on his face. I rolled my eyes, tucked the towel around my waist tighter and opened up my locker, my evil-smelling tracksuit in my hands.

I knew that Gerard was somewhere behind me but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. He was too damn hot for his own good and if I fully realized how he was almost naked and I was almost naked it wouldn’t end well. It would be very sticky. Literally.

I did up the fly on my skinny pants almost thoughtfully, and looked down at myself. I could see why someone would find me attractive. But not other guys. As far as I knew, Gerard was a straight as a line, proven by the what I now noticed as flirting from Mikyla. Fucking whore. Sad thing was, she and Gerard were basically perfect for each other, being beautiful and clever and popular. Gerard had become popular, in case you were wondering. I wasn’t unpopular, nor were the rest of my friends, we just sort of sat in our corner and existed.

“Oh, do stop checking yourself out,” said Zacky. I laughed and turned to reply, but caught instead the green-eyed gaze of someone. Of Gerard. My stomach flipped. We started at each other for a spilt second - his eyes drifted down across my body and I suddenly felt really self-conscious. Was he checking me out? Then I glanced down again and realized he was probably just trying to read the tattoo that looped around my hips like a belt.

“Search... Search and Destroy?” he asked. I nodded and shrugged, turning back around to button my shirt up. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling and rubbing the back of my neck again, a habit I’d gotten into after my first tattoo there and when I was embarrassed. I had no good reason to be embarrassed, but you’d be too if the guy of your dreams was staring at you. I glanced up and sure enough, he was. With that infuriating smirk on his sexy, sexy face.

____________________

I had double History next thing. Fuck.

Let me tell you something about History lessons. Our teacher was Mr Harthan. Usually, he just let us call him ‘Dan’. He taught History, R.S and Media in school, but I didn’t take Media. Otherwise, Mr Harthan was the only reason I’d taken History as an option; I’d sort of been forced into R.S by my Catholic parents, but that didn’t matter. Because of the teacher. Every school has one of those teachers - he was pretty young for a teacher, with shaggy brown hair and eyes that seemed to be laughing at you the whole time, but he was the best. He was the dude who picks on the entire class and doesn’t follow any rules. They guy that all the students celebrate if he’s their teacher and complain if he’s not.

The class was buzzing as we sat in our seats - thank God Mr Harthan didn’t assign seats - just like every History and R.S lesson, waiting for him to walk in and begin teaching. And it would probably be completely unrelated to the topic we’d been doing and probably didn’t even follow any of the curriculum set by the school.

“Alright idiots, sit your butts down,” said Mr Harthan, walking into the room. “How was your holidays?”

“Not bad, Sir.”

“Good!”

“Oh? What did you do?” Mr Harthan sat down at his desk and rested his chin on his folded arms.

“Visiting your Mum.” A ripple of laughter ran through the class at the comment made by Steve, some short kid in the front row. Mr Harthan smiled as the chuckling died down.

“Steve, when you were born, did the nurses mix up the wristbands and give your parents a birth from the zoo instead? Because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a human that walked in on your mother and I last night.” This earned a much bigger laugh from the class and a round of applause. Steve blushed.

“That was uncalled for, Sir.”

“Your face was uncalled for.” Mr Harthan kept quiet as the class laughed again. “Now guys, today we’re going to continue our work on...”

“That was a Charlie the Unicorn reference,” said Dakota, smiling at me. I chuckled and watched Mr Harthan stand up and jump onto the desk, falling back down again a split second later so he was perched on top of it, waving his hands about as he spoke.

“I knew there was a good reason we chose this class,” said Zacky.

“...for example, Frank, what is bothering you right now?” asked Mr Harthan, making me jump a bit. I turned my head and looked at him.

“Huh?”

“Is there anything troubling you right now? Like, something happening right at this moment in time?”

“Well, no...”

“Good. Zack, what about you?”

“No, Sir.” Zacky and I exchanged confused glances.

“Precisely. Dicky?”

“Yeah, something’s bothering me. You keep calling me Dicky, and I’m sitting next to this guy,” said Dakota, pointing at me.

“Hey!”

“Yes, well, I can see why that would bother you, but that’s not the problem right now. What I’m trying to say is, you’re never depressed about your current situation, it’s always something that was or what might be.”

“How is this related to History in anyway?” I asked.

“It isn’t. Look, I’ll prove it to you. We’ll take the next person from the corridor and I want you to make them smile,” said Mr Harthan, striding to the door and flinging it open. “And there is currently nobody in sight. Never mind. But come on guys, next time you’re just walking down the corridor... just smile. Smile at someone. Make them smile too! It’s not so hard, if you see someone smiling, it’s easy enough to smile. Next time I see you in the corridor, you better be smiling. Lilly, stop laughing, you better smile, I’ll kill you. I’ll rip your heads off if you’re not, that’s a promise.”

“Is Sir on drugs or something?” Gerard asked me, his warm breath tickling my ear. For once, my stomach didn’t swoop into my shoes, I was too busy trying not to burst out laughing. Mr Harthan looked deadly serious about killing us all, but I just couldn’t keep my smile off my face.

“Oh god, I love this class so much,” I said, shaking my head in response both to Gerard’s question and to clear my own head. Zacky nodded and grinned as Mr Harthan switched to a new topic at the front.

“I had a dream about it once, actually. I have other dreams, too! I have this dream, that one day I might get out of this shithole of a school, and one day I might have kids and a beautiful wife... don’t laugh!” he said, pointing accusingly at the class rolling around in hysterics. “At least I could get a girlfriend, some of you can’t even manage that... tutu boy.” Mr Whitton pointed at me, and I blushed bright red.

“He could easily get a boyfriend, though. What’s this I hear about you eyeing up the new kid, hey Frankie?” I didn’t say anything and stared at my fingers, not daring to even try and peek at Gerard’s face out of the corner of my eye. “I thought as much. Well, enough of my rambling. I kinda of went off topic there...”

I snuck a peek up at Gerard, and found his eyes boring into mine. I flushed again and stared at the front, my stomach doing that awful swooping thing again. There was a tiniest trace of a smirk on his adorable features and he was staring at me with a sort of sexy, self-satisfied fervour. Great, so now the last person I wanted to know knew that I was a hopeless freak with a crush on the sexiest guy in the school. Nice.

Well, I suppose it couldn’t get any worse.


Heheheheh. How did you all like this chapter, guys? You like Mr Harthan? He's kind of based a lot off my real-life R.S teacher. He did actually once talk to us about the whole smiling thing and he constantly teases these two boys in my class for fancying each other. Anyway, please Rate and Review, I do hope you liked it xx