5

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I stared at the boy who was stood next to me holding the green umbrella above my head. He was roughly my height, a little shorter if anything, and had a mop of messy slightly curly chestnut coloured hair that was poking out from underneath a grey hoody.

 

“You look like you might want to borrow this.” He chuckled and gestured with his free hand for me to take the umbrella off him.

 

“oh…erm…thanks I guess” I stuttered out still rather confused as to what on earth was happening, but the rain had gotten even heavier so I took up his offer and grabbed hold of the green umbrella.

 

Before I could ask him anything he had started off down the road towards school and I was left standing in the rain surrounded by a hue of green. I’d seen him around before, he was in my year, but other than that I didn’t really know him. I couldn’t even tell you his name, shows you how much I pay attention.

 

We’d only had one term at this school so far, and apart from my few friends I tried to keep myself to myself. I stayed away from all of the overly sociable groups of people, you could already tell they were the ones who were going to be having house parties and getting drunk at weekends in a few years time. That all just seemed like a bit of a hassle, not to mention way too many arguments at home, so I steered clear and four months on there were still some people I didn’t know by name. Apparently this boy with his green umbrella was one of them. 

 

I must have been frozen still in my thoughts of cliques and future drunken house parties because the next thing I know I’m jerked back into actuality by that boy shouting back at me from a few houses ahead.

 

“Are you coming or what?” His voice carried over the loud clatter of rainfall.

 

I shook my head quickly to rid my eyes of the glazed over expression and sped over to the now slightly soggy boy standing ahead of me.

 

“You were beginning to look a bit like a garden gnome there!” He laughed once again quite loudly, however this time it was at his own joke.

 

I rolled my eyes at him, but the almost guttural laughter that was emanating from this boy was way too contagious, and before I knew it I was chuckling with him. His face was all screwed up with his eyes closed tightly and this seemed to tickle me even more. As quickly as it had started the laughter begun to die down and I started to continue up the road leaving the damp guffawing boy behind before quickly turning on my heels.

 

“Are you coming or what?” I shot back at him with a hint of a smile.

 

“Alright…alright” He replied with a smirk plastered across his face.

 

“Alexia isn’t it?” He asked me as our pace quickened in the awful weather.

 

“Yeah it is, erm I’m sorry and all but I have no idea what your name is” I said almost too quickly, hoping that wasn’t at all rude.

 

He stopped dead in his tracks and threw one hand to clutch at his chest and the other across his forehead in a melodramatic manner.

 

“How dare you!” He gasped in his state of feigned horror. By this point I was stifling laughter, but managed to contain myself from falling into a fit of giggles somehow.

 

“Sorry” I offered to him while still oppressing my laughter. “If you haven’t noticed already I don’t really tend to pay much attention to what’s going on around me.”

 

He let out a single soft chuckle before replying. “I’m Jack, well Jackson but yeah, so you often zone out of reality then?” 

 

“Erm…I guess so, my Mum says I should stop doing it before it becomes a really bad habit and my Dad says I’ll never get anywhere if I live in my head all the time.” I think he noticed my face drop.

 

“What do adults know eh?”

 

Well done Alexia, someone’s vaguely nice to you lets you borrow an umbrella and then BAM you over share.

 

“I prefer to think of it as having an active imagination anyway.” I grin back at him hoping I didn’t just make the whole exchange awkward and weird.

 

It didn’t matter anyway because by this point we had gotten into the school building. I put down the green umbrella and handed it back to Jack who now was in the middle of peeling a rather drenched hoody off himself and replacing it with a blazer from his bag. I thanked him again and just as I turned to go find my friends he nudged my arm as he walked past me.

 

“See you later Gnomie” I could tell he was laughing by the way his shoulders were moving rather swiftly up and down.

 

“Sure thing Jackson!” I shot back at him without hesitation, causing him to spin around and glare at me.

 

“Don’t call me that it’s Jack!” He called over at me through the crowds of students.

 

“Oh Sorry Jack” I shouted back, giving him enough time to turn around and start back down the corridor before I continued “…son.”

 

His head shot round looking for me in the crowd, once he made eye contact with me I gave him a cheeky smirk and then darted in the other direction. 

Author's Note

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