Chapter 13

 

        Alex wasn't able to find Sean that night. He had no idea where the boy went and it worried him immensely. It was hard for him to concentrate on anything because he was busy wondering if Sean was all right. He stopped by the boy's house several times, but there never seemed to be anyone home and he even called once or twice, but no one picked up.

        It was Monday now and the first half of the day went by really slowly for Alex. He didn't pay a single bit of attention in any of his classes because his mind was set on whether or not Sean was okay. Not even Vincent was able to get Alex to pay attention to what was going on around him.

        Lunch rolled around the corner soon enough and Alex headed to the cafeteria. He sat down at some random empty table, not really caring where he sat. A hand reached into his lunch bag and pulled out the sandwich that was in it. He then slowly began to eat, his eyes fixed on the surface of the table as his mind wandered elsewhere.

        “Hey,” a somewhat quiet voice came moments later.

        Alex snapped out of his thoughts and he looked up to see Sean standing over him. Relief immediately washed over the brown-haired teen. He practically wanted to hug the dark-haired boy out of joy that he was okay, but he refrained from doing so.

        “Mind if I sit down?” Sean asked, still keeping the somewhat quiet tone of voice.

        “Go ahead,” Alex said, smiling.

        Sean nodded and slowly sat down next to Alex. He didn't bother getting his lunch out of the brown paper bag he had with him, but instead sat there silently and fidgeted with his fingers a little. Alex looked at him.

        “Something wrong?” he asked the dark-haired boy.

        “Yeah, I just wanted to apologize about Friday night,” said Sean. “I was acting a little mean towards you when you were just trying to help.”

        “It's fine, but why were you trying to do that anyway?”

        “It's nothing important.”

        “It's got to be something important if you nearly killed yourself over it.”

        “Let's just leave it in the past. I'm over it right now.”

        Alex eyed Sean with suspicion, who didn't seem to notice this. He couldn't help but to feel as though the boy was hiding something, but he couldn't quite figure out what.

        “And by the way, you probably shouldn't come to my house unexpectedly like that,” said Sean.

        “Why?”

        “My parents don't like it when people do that. They like to clean up the house and everything.”

        “You sure that's the reason why?”

        “Yeah.”

        “Guess your dad gets that angry when people show up unexpectedly like that?”

        “He was in a bad mood then too. Work gives him a lot of trouble sometimes.”

        Alex nodded. There was a part of him that didn't want to believe what Sean was saying, but he just let it go for now. Instead the two went onto talking about other things as they sat there and ate their lunch. When it was time for Algebra II, they both headed to the classroom and sat down at their assigned seats.

        After going over the problems from the homework they had over the weekend, the teacher began the day's lesson. It wasn't long until Alex lost complete interest in what they were learning. He tuned the teacher out with his thoughts as he looked towards Sean, who was copying down the notes from the white board. Alex watched the boy a little, wondering what it exactly was that Sean seemed to be hiding. He wished that Sean wouldn't try to hide things from him, especially if it was something that made him that upset Friday night. At the same time though, he was just glad that Sean was still all right. He just hoped that he wouldn't have to witness something like that again.

        When fifth period was over, Alex and Sean left the classroom and walked down the hall together. After talking a little, Alex got an idea.

        “Hey, how 'bout coming over to my house Friday?” he asked. “After school we could just go straight there and hang out for a little bit.”

        Sean didn't answer right away. His father never said anything about going over to someone else's house. However, his dad would be angered if dinner wasn't ready when he got home, which was a problem since Sean was the only one who cooked supper. Sean didn't really care though. He wanted to be able to spend time with Alex aside from lunch and math class, and this was a good chance to do it.

        “Alright,” Sean finally replied a couple seconds later.

        Alex smiled and nodded to the younger male's answer. The two parted ways shortly after that to head to their next class.

Reviews

[Amy]

I like this chapter a lot, Alex is a nice guy.

[Amund Schofield]

Ok Sean is acting kind of stupid in this chapter, which is something I like. Makes him like a real teenager.

However, no mention of bruising. Has he had them so much he can fake like he doesn't have them? Explain that please.