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"I'm sorry for yesterday" I said when Aiden stopped in front of my desk in maths.

"It's alright" he replied, "I'm sure the drawing ended up being amazing."

I shrugged. "It's okay, I guess."

"Well, see you later then." He walked past me to a desk at the bottom of the class, leaving me alone with Ella.

She opened her pencil case and took out a pen, acting nonchalantly. "So you didn't go out with him in the end?"

"I had to redo a drawing, so..." I let my words drift off as I looked in the direction of Harry's desk, just to notice that Janette was sitting next to him, Niall being nowhere to be seen.

"You're still on about him, aren't you?"

I turned fast to look at Ella. "What?"

"You still like Harry. That's why you aren't interested in going out with Aiden. He's hot and interested, so there's no other explanation." She tapped the pen on the desk as she spoke.

"Maybe I'm just not interested."

"You'd have to be dumb not to be interested in Aiden" she said sharply. "And blowing off your chances with him just to pine over a boy you'll never have a chance with is profoundly stupid."

I sighed. "I don't have to necessarily be interested in someone not to be interested in somebody else."

The entrance of the maths teacher in the class saved me from any possible continuation of the conversation.

I glanced at Harry again. I wasn't possibly interested in him... was I? He was for sure interesting to me, but did that mean that I was interested in him... in that other way? It wasn't an option. It had never been one. But what if Ella was right, and I was indeed starting to like him? What was there to like, anyway, if not his pretty face? He was still a mystery to me. And I couldn't possibly like someone I didn't even know. That wasn't how it worked.

Janette put her hand on his forearm to catch his attention, and he subtly turned his head towards her. She whispered something in his ear, to which he didn't seem to reply in any way.

I shook my head and went back to look at my notebook. The last thing I needed was to be called out by the teacher for being caught looking at Harry.

As soon as the class ended I rushed out of the class. I put on my coat and checked if my notebook and pencil were still inside my pocket before walking out of the building and sitting on one of the five steps that brought to the main door. I took the notebook out and I opened it to a white page, my eyes momentarily focusing on the remainders of the page I'd torn away just the day before. I looked up, wondering what could've been a good subject to draw. A wisp of wind came around, making the leaves of the tree next to the stairs tinkle, a few falling to the ground.

I stood up and carefully took one. It was brown and crumpled up, as you'd expect it to be in mid-autumn. I went back to sitting in my previous place and put the leaf on the short white wall. I glanced at it for a few seconds, letting my mind drift off. Ella was wrong. I didn't like Harry in that way. It wasn't professional, to say the least.

I sighed and started to sketch the basic shape on the white paper. I'd always preferred to draw in black and white. It was way easier, and it allowed me to relax and think of other things, which didn't really happen when I was focused on using the right colour in the right way.

All of sudden I heard the sound of steps coming towards me, and before I could turn around someone was sitting next to me.

I didn't need to look at him to know who he was, I could recognise the cologne perfectly. "Hi" I said, staring at my drawing.

He didn't reply.

"How did you know I was here?" I asked him, the pencil stopping on the paper.

"Lucky guess" Harry said, and I nodded.

"So you didn't run away from your girlfriend today, did you?" I added, trying to make conversation.

"You're hiding away from your friend" he noted instead. "Why?"

"Uh." I shrugged, looking up at the street. "Sometimes she's just... I don't know. It's like... I kind of constantly feel judged when I'm with her. Does it make sense? Like, she always has something to say about everything I do and, I don't know, it just kind of gets too much sometimes?"

He didn't say anything, and I looked at my drawing again, fixing the border of the leaf.

"You don't talk much, do you?" I asked him after a while.

"I don't like to talk if I have nothing important to say."

I turned to look at him. "And who decides what's important? You, or the people you talk to?" I asked him, too curious to stop myself.

He gave me a side glance. "Is that relevant?"

I looked down, stifling a chuckle at his answer. "Of course." I played with the pencil a bit. "Where's Niall? I didn't see him today."

He gave me a weird look at the question. "He's at home."

"Did you miss him today? I don't know... you're always with him."

"Of course I am" he replied, and I smiled to myself when I noticed he'd avoided answering to the question.

"Does your free period coincide with mine, by any chance?" I asked him giving him a fast glance, and he nodded.

I looked at the leaf on the wall, noticing that the wind had moved it a bit. I put it back in its place, looking at the drawing to make sure it was in the same position of before.

"I like to come out here when I have some free time" I said. "I mean, it isn't that it's, I don't know, a beautiful place or stuff like that. It's just better than staying inside, I guess? Besides, I can't really draw leaves while I'm in a classroom, right?"

His finger grazed on the side of the notebook, that was still on my thighs. "It's the same as yesterday."

I nodded, closing it and looking at the cover. "I always carry it with me" I told him. "Sometimes I just see something that inspires me, and I want to draw it. This makes it easier. So yeah, it's just full of sketches of random stuff." I opened it again, shading the drawing of the leaf fast before closing it again. I side glanced at him, without saying anything.

He was looking down at the street, his forearms on his knees, his shoulders relaxed. I wondered what he was thinking about.

I stood up quickly when I caught myself staring at him for a little bit longer. "I... should go" I said hesitantly, and he looked up at me, his eyes greener than usual in the white light.

"I wouldn't want Ella to discover my hiding place" I continued awkwardly under his stare. "Thanks for keeping me company." I didn't wait for him to answer, rushing inside instead. I leant against the wall for a second, trying to catch my breath before entering the cafeteria.

"Hey Sierra" Aiden said as soon as I walked through the door, leaving a table with some other people to walk towards me. How did he manage to always be around?

"Hi" I replied, putting the small notebook back into the pocket of my coat.

"So about going out together... I have a photography project I need to work on this week, so how about we make it someday next week?" He asked me.

I smiled, glad that it had been delayed for a while longer. "That seems fine."

"I can't wait to see the new drawing, by the way."

I just smiled at him, not really knowing what to say, surpassing him and reaching the table Ella was sitting on.

"I thought you'd gone home or something" she said, without looking up from her phone.

"I didn't." I simply replied, taking the binder with all my drawings from my bag to give my last one a look before my art class came around. I quickly skipped through the drawings, each one in its own transparent folder, keeping them half hidden from Ella's view. I stopped when I saw the one right before my last.

I looked up to make sure Ella wasn't paying attention and Aiden was back on the other side of the room, catching the sight of Harry walking in and sitting at a table with what I supposed were his friends. I looked back inside the binder.

The drawing was simple, still yet to shade. It pictured a couch, the person sitting on it dominating the scene with his sharp look addressed to the viewer. I always made a copy of my drawings before shading them, in case they got ruined.

I covered it and closed the binder quickly with a fast intake of breath.

Maybe Ella was right.

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