Days Past from Health Class

This story is about a girl named Irene, a boy named Henry, and their time together.

Irene was sitting alone at lunch as usual.She had just transferred to this new school, and she had been here a few weeks... She wanted to go back. She only had a few friends here. and knew even fewer people by name. As she downed the last of her lunch, she decided that a lot of the people here were either stupid or completely absorbed in trivial matters. She had gathered that much from her people-watching. The bell rang, and she sighed, knowing it was time to leave from her spot. Getting up from behind the bushes, she frowned as she picked up her backpack. Fifth period: Vocal Ensemble. She sighed, gathering up her things as she walked to room D4 to attend her class.

She really disliked some of these people. They were loud, and crazy, and... And.. "Gah..." She muttered. She wanted to go back to her old school... Why did she even try to get into this arts school anyway? And how in the name of all things good and holy did she get in during the second semester? Walking in, she was assaulted by these people's noise again. They were always so noisy. She sat down and lay her head on the desk, barely paying attention when the teacher got up to the podium to talk. She was a short but rather wide individual. She enjoyed this class, though, so she attempted to pay attention. All she wanted to do right then, though, was get on top of the desk and scream out "I KNOW ALL OF THIS ALREADY! LET ME MOVE ON! PLEASE!" Her imagination slowly slipped away from the class, and before she knew it, it was seventh period. Last class of the day, thank God. She sat through Ms. Irmanski's Health lecture, watching and taking notes from the PowerPoint as directed about avoiding dark allies and the like. She sighed, and finally, the lesson was over.

Miss Irmanski didn't have any material left, so she let the class talk among themselves for the last five minutes of class. Of course, Irene wasn't really talking to anyone: She didn't know anyone in this class particularly well, so she just started packing up. Then she noticed that one of the guys from this class had sat down in front of her, and was facing her. "Hello. How're you?" He said. He seemed to talk like he knew her, like they were friends or something. It was... Disarming. "Hi..." She said. "I'm fine..." "Who are you by the way? I'm Henry." He grinned, seeming rather energetic. She wondered if there was something wrong with him, like he had ADD or something. He was bouncing up and down in his seat just a little bit, so it was just barely noticeable. "I'm Irene." She kinda liked this guy. He was... Intriguing. "Irene. That's a very nice name." He grinned. "So, how was your day today? Anything interesting happen?"

That was the first time she met Henry.

***

"Gah." She thought as she watched the PowerPoint. Ms. Irmanski's class was rather boring... With a few exceptions, such as when she ended early, like today. "Remember to do page 606 tonight!" She said in her slightly southern accent as her class swarmed to talk to each other. As usual, Henry came right over, This time, though, he had a deck of cards. "Wanna play?" He grinned. She was learning more and more about him every day. "What game?" "Five card draw?" "Um..." She bit the inside of her lip gently and didn't look into his eyes. "Don't know how to play? Huh." He shrugged, and she was a bit surprised. Usually people were frustrated with her when she didn't know things. "Alright, what games do you know how to play?" "Um, Go Fish?" "Alright. Sorry, I'm a bit rusty on that... How do you play...?" She laughed a little as she explained it to him. "Oh, okay! Awesome!" He grinned as he dealt the cards. He was a strange one, this friend of hers. Indeed he was. Suddenly, she realized what she had called him in her head. Friend. She shrugged a bit mentally as she asked, "Got any sevens?" "Nope. Go fish. Got any..." 

That's what he was. A friend.

***

It was a recess day for her Health class. Ms. Irmanski occasionally let them go out to the park across the street to exercise with  each other. Henry, of course, walked with her. They had grown pretty close. She laughed at his jokes, and she started to see that some of these people weren't so stupid after all. "Hey, Ira...?" Henry asked. They were sitting down on a concrete curb next to a large grassy area. "Yeah, Henry?" She was used to this new nickname by now. She had her own for him, but he didn't know that. She smiled to herself when he called her that. "Would you be okay if..." He trailed off. "Nevermind. It's stupid." As he said that, he turned away a little. In the few weeks she knew him, he had never done that. This was an odd conversation already. "No, tell me." "It isn't important."

"Tell me."

"No."

"Please?" She gave him her best puppy-dog eyes.

"Please, Ira... Don't do this."

He really wanted her to forget it. This troubled her, but...

"Come on, you two! Stop sitting around and get active!"

That was Ms. Irmanski. the Health teacher. She tossed them a ball. "Catch!"

That was what they did for the rest of the period; Catch.

***

Irene was, again, sitting down, eating lunch, when she noticed Henry walking over. "Hi!" He said, sitting down by her. "Oh... Sorry, is this seat taken?" "No..." What was he doing here? This was her place of solitude, where she ate, where she went when she wanted to be alone... She people watched here, surrounded by the bushes and trees that could only be seen through one way, despite the fact that the November leaves were falling from the trees and the bushes were thinning out. She wasn't quite sure she wanted to share this with him, it had only been a few months since they had met. Henry had found her, though. "What's up?" He said, grinning crookedly, his usual, cheery self. "Not much... Why?" "Oh, wait just a sec. Need to grab something." He left just as quickly as he came, but returned soon enough. "We got our yearbooks today." "I heard." "You gonna get one?" He plopped down beside her, opening a copy of the said yearbook. "No... I'm not in it, so why should I?" "Oh, come on. You've gotta be SOMEWHERE in here." He smiled and flipped to the middle, to about the second semester. "What kind of events were you involved in?"

Ten minutes later, they had found her. "Hah! Told you!" He smiled at her. "Oh! Oh! I have something to show you! Be right back!" He jumped up and ran out. Irene felt... Sad, for some reason. She realized, rather suddenly, that she didn't want him to go. When did this emotion come along? She asked herself. When he came back, however, she felt a rush of happiness come to her. He wasn't gone for good... Not yet, at least. "Check this out!" Henry said excitedly, pulling out a laptop, unaware of the turmoil inside of her.

***

"Most people would say that this is a date." Henry chuckled as they walked into the theater, tickets bought. It wasn't a big place, really, so they just walked right up to the concessions. "One medium popcorn, please." The trees outside had no leaves, but the sky was blue, and it was chilly outside. It was December of their sophomore year in high school, and she had asked if he wanted to go to a theater after school to catch a movie, since she had absolutely nothing to do, and her parents couldn't pick her up until much later. She had stressed specifically that this was NOT a date.

"I know, but it isn't."

"It totally is." Henry teased as they walked to go see the first movie. When they walked in, they noticed that it was only the previews... The actual movie wouldn't be shown for about fifteen minutes. First thing's first, getting good seats. The theater was mostly empty, so that was no problem. As they sat together, they whispered to each other about the movies they saw in the previews. "Wanna go see that one after?" "Sure." She smiled as the movie eventually started, and she got comfortable. At some point, Henry's arm found it's way across her shoulders. "Forget it, it's a date." She thought to herself, smiling and snuggling into him, enjoying the movie and her companion.

***

She smiled to herself as she headed to the Winter Formal, only a few weeks later. For the first time in awhile, she was looking forward to a social event, and it was... Interesting. As she walked over to the line, she looked around. No sign of Henry. "Huh... Wonder where he is." She thought to herself. "Hey, beautiful." She turned around, and there he was. "I grabbed a spot a bit farther up. Would you like to come?" He held out his arm, offering it to her. She smiled as she took her boyfriend's offer, and they started walking up towards the front.

BANG, BANG.

Before she could process what was happening, Henry was on the ground, writhing in pain, covered in blood, herself kneeling beside him, holding him steady, trying to stop the bleeding. "God...!" He yelled. He was shot in the back, going straight through the stomach. "Henry... Henry, please, just stay calm. Please, just stay with me! Henry!" She sobbed. "Someone call an ambulance!" The shooter had run, that crazy psycho, but she knew who he was... That son of a... She would kill him. She would kill him if it was the last thing she did. She would do it painfully and slowly, she decided as she held on to Henry's hand. "Irene... Irene..." He coughed. "It hurts..." "I know, I know, just stay with me. Please, just... Come on, don't go, please... Don't leave me alone..." She cried... "Irene... I love you..." He coughed again, spitting blood onto the pavement. Far off, the wail of sirens could be heard. Someone was pulling her away from him. She didn't want to go, she had to stay with him, She had to, what if he died and she wasn't there, she had to go...

***

"Happy birthday to you..." Irene mumbled. "Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday dear... Henry..." She let out a choked sob. "Happy... birthday... To... You..." She laid a blue and white plaid pillow that she made down next to the gravestone, his birthday present. The gravestone had Henry's name on it, it had his birthday, February 12 and the day he got shot, but it couldn't be him, no, that was impossible... Any minute now, he would come over to her and squeeze her hand, or hold out his arm like he always did for her and ask her if she was ready to go yet, or if she needed more time...

She clamped her hand onto her mouth, holding back a sob. She fell down to her knees.

"Henry... Come back. Please Henry, come back... I love you..." Tears were streaming down her face. No, no, he couldn't be gone, that was impossible, the hospital must have hidden him or something, then replaced his body at the morgue with a dummy for the funeral. That must be it. But in her heart of hearts, she knew it was true.

He was dead. She had watched him get killed. She had seen it. She steeled herself for what came next. She examined the knife she had picked up from the local pawn shop, a nice big bowie knife... That should do the trick. She would make him feel her pain. She would make that psycho pay for killing him. Then...

"..."

"I'll see you soon, Henry."

Author's Note

Firstly: What do you think of her thoughts to herself?
Secondly: Pacing?
Third: Suggest any other things you think would make this story better. I am on this site to get better at writing fiction, so please, feel free to tear this story APART!

Reviews

[Loll]

I feel I´m not necessarily the target audience for this story but I read it anyway. At first I was expecting this to be a story of an outsider (Irene) in a new, hostile environment, but it turned out to be a love story. However I didn´t feel sad in the end. This is mainly because I couldn´t really relate to Irene. Actually all I know from her is that she moved to a new school that she doesn´t like, met a guy with possibly ADHD, hung around with him, and then he was shot. Because the story itself doesn´t have a lot of action in it (except for the ending) you could maybe focus more on the characterization and creating tension between Irene and Henry. What is Irene like, how does she look, what makes her special and also what makes Henry so special in her oppinion. This could be done either with creating more tension in the dialogue between Henry and Irene or focusing on the thoughts of Irene (maybe both). As for the progression of time, I found that in the end it was clear that a lot of time had passed between the first scene and the last three, but as for the first three you could maybe add little hints to imply how much time has passed. I liked how you left the ending. Maybe in the future you´ll write (or have already written) about the following events with Irene? It would be interesting to read a growth story of a shy outsider turned into an angel of vengeance.

[Irene Groves]

i am very intrigued by this story, however the ending is a little confusing. You should try to expand a little on it. Over all it seems very realistic and i would like to read more.