The Watch - Part 2

“So, how was your last lesson of the day?” Tom asked as we turned the corner to head into the street where my house sat. Tom was eating his Snickers bar and I went for a Lion Bar. Due to it being the beginning of summer, the sun stayed in the sky for much longer before heading back down towards the horizon, meaning the day was hot. The sun was behind us as we headed towards my house, meaning our backs were getting quite hot.

“The usual,” I answered.

“Who did their presentation today?”

“Amy.”

“Nice. What did she talk about?”

“Time travel and how it might be possible in the future, assuming we can get past the limitations of Today’s technology,” I explained.

“Oh, of course, you mentioned that before. You didn’t want to give off the impression that you were copying her so you talked about how the Universe works. You do know that you could have written about time travel, don’t you?” Tom said. “No one wouldn’t have minded. It’s not the subject the teachers are worried about, it’s you.”

“I know,” I sighed. And that was the end of that point.

“So, how was her presentation?” Tom asked.

“Really well written,” I said, “there were a lot of good points.”

“Sounds like you listened to every word,” he said smiling.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” I said legitimately not having a clue as to what he was on about. “She wrote a very good presentation that drew the entire class in, that’s all.” Tom didn’t shift his smile.

Amy walked around the corner, wearing a patterned shirt that was neatly tucked into her skinny blue jeans. Her golden hair was flowing smoothly behind her like a makeshift cape. She had something blue sticking out of her ears and it was only when she was right beside me that I noticed that it was her earphones. She was listening to a band that I doubt I would know, locked in her own world, not noticing me watching her walk by, which is a relief because I must’ve looked rather creepy indeed.

Ever since Amy entered the classroom on our very first day of college, I’ve had feelings for her, and that was some years ago. Four to be exact. She hadn’t changed that much except for her height, but even then she was a head shorter than me. Only one person in the entire world knows about my feelings towards Amy and that’s my best friend, Tom, who keeps on pushing me to ask her out, but every time I’ve tried to, I have always backed out due to lack of confidence or she was in deep conversation with some of her friends, and it’s bad enough trying to talk to her alone, let alone with her friends watching and listening to my every word, which would probably be full of stutters and nothing else.

“Dude, just ask her out,” Tom said, nudging my elbow as soon as Amy was out of hearing distance, even though I doubt she would be able to her as if we were right next to her as her music was turned right up so that I could just about hear what the lyrics were.

“I don’t know,” I said, letting my brain’s natural hesitation kick in.

“Sebastian, you do this all the flipping time. You have had feelings for her for four years now, but you just haven’t made a move, and soon, it’s going to get to a point where you are going to regret not asking her. She could be with someone else by the time you finally pluck up the courage to do so. The sooner you go up to her and ask, the better it’ll be. Sure, you’re going to feel nervous, but you just have to fight through it. Having nerves is just another way of your body telling you to take it slowly and keep your head on the ground, and everything will go fine. And I know that you don’t want her to say she’s got someone else.

“Then go over there and ask her out,”

I turned back around, but saw that Amy had already made it to her front gate and, stepped through, waking up along the garden path and was unlocking the door.

“But what if she says no?” I asked.

“It’s better than her and all her friends laughing at you, spreading the word around the entire school until the entire world blows up,” Tom said, describing how my mind works. He’s not far wrong. In fact, he’s got the order just right. “Her saying “no” is the worst that can happen, but it’s the fact that you made an effort to go up to her and asked that counts. Nothing else matters.” He does have a point. But, she’s listening to her music at the moment and I don’t think she’ll like me very much if I distracted her from that. Maybe next time.

“And there goes yet another opportunity,” Tom stated as Amy turned down an alleyway.

“Will you drop it,” I said angrier at myself for not doing anything than Tom at keeping pushing me forwards. I know that he has only my best interests at heart. And I have his as well.

“Sorry,” I said immediately afterwards. “I didn’t mean to snap.”

“I know,” he said sympathetically. “And I’m sorry for pushing you like that.”

“Come on, let’s back to mine. You can pick what game we can play, even though I already know what it is going to be.”

“Actually, I can’t for once,” Tom said. “My mum and dad are going out and I need to go with them.”

“Awesome. Where’re you going?”

“Some place,” Tom said. That was his way of saying that he didn’t really listen to what his parents were saying. “Apparently it has free food, and you know I don’t pass up on an opportunity for free food.”

“No. No you don’t,” I said, shaking my head. There were a couple of seconds of silence before Tom said.

“What do you mean you already know what game I’m going to pick?”

“Well, you’ve been trying to beat me at GT5 for ages now. Each time you lose you always say that you’ll beat my backside next time.”

“You wait,” he said, “when I come over to yours tomorrow, I’m going to leave you at the start line in a cloud of smoke.”

“Are you sure?” I teased.

“Tomorrow,” he said confidently. Tom started to break away and cross the road.

“See you then,” I said waving.

“Tomorrow. You’ll see.” Then he disappeared down another alleyway that was directly opposite the one that Amy went down earlier. Tomorrow, Tom’s going to try and beat me at a race. We’ll see about that.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)