Suddenly Chapter 5

Matty’s POV

As I pulled up to the school, a pair of strong arms lifted me up and off of my skateboard. I panicked until I heard a familiar laugh.

“D****t, Richard! Quit giving me heart attacks!”

He only laughed harder. I struggled free to lightly hit his arm, a pout on my face.

Rich smirked and slung an arm around my shoulders, starting to walk us toward the doors. “That’s kinda cute, you know.” I snorted while I leaned down to pick up my skateboard.

Tucking it under my arm, I wrapped my opposite arm around Rich’s waist.

As we approached my locker, he said, “You know, you’ve had that skateboard since the first day of freshman year. What’s so special about it?”

I smoothly avoided the question, my hand flicking out to spin the masterlock easily. “It’s a skateboard, Rich. Good skateboards like this aren’t cheap. I just keep it in sight because I know my mom won’t buy me another one.” I shrugged, hoping that he would drop the subject. Thankfully, he knows when to stop with something, and let it go.

Wanting to avoid an awkward silence, I picked up on a different topic. “So. What do you have for first period?”

Rich thought for a minute, then gave up and pulled his crumpled schedule out of his back pocket. I snickered. “I would hope that you would remember, seeing as you were just there yesterday.”

He smiled and winked at me. “Who says I went to first period yesterday?”

Without missing a beat, I smacked the back of his head. He winced. “Ow! What was that for?”

I frowned in disapproval. “Rich, you need to go to class!”

He grumbled. “Fine.”

But he didn’t seem to get it.

“No, you idiot. The bell’s about to ring. You need to go!”

Rich looked nonchalantly at the clock and made a sound of disinterest in the back of his throat.

“Richard!”

“Alright, I’m going!”

As he walked away, I felt bad, so I ran up behind him and hugged him from behind.

“See you at lunch!” I promised, breaking away to run in the opposite direction.

I didn’t see Adrian until 4th period, which was our P. E. class. We both hated it, seeing as neither of us were particularly active. But we also both needed the credits. So here we were, jogging around the school.

Now, let’s get one thing straight: I am not a fast person. Adrian is. She was built for running; thin, with strong legs and a long-lasting stamina. I was not.

Naturally, she had to slow down to keep pace with me. Usually the gym teacher didn’t mind, but Mr. Novak wasn’t having it. He knew that Adrian wasn’t jogging at full speed and urged her to break away from me. He even threatened to give her the grade that I was getting (which was barely passing). That had been the last straw for me. Adrian deserved good grades.

“You go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

She frowned slightly, casting a glance at the less-than-patient Mr. Novak. “You sure?” she whispered, trying to keep the conversation out of the gym teachers’ very good hearing.

I nodded. “Go. You need this grade.”

She sighed, but didn’t protest as she sped up, leaving me behind.

Apparently, Novak didn’t care about me getting a good grade, because I was suddenly alone on the side of the building. I huffed and slowed to a walk. If Novak couldn’t stay behind, then I wasn’t going to jog.

Being the f*****g klutz I am, I actually managed to trip over a patch of weeds poked up from the cracks in the sidewalk.

I swore loudly as I went down, my knee scraping painfully on the concrete. “Goddammit!”

I heard rapid footsteps and groaned. I could’ve at least fallen when no one was looking.

“Hey, are you okay?”

I wanted a giant hole to appear beneath me and swallow me up.

Because Jensen Ackles just saw me trip over some weeds and scrape my knee.

He hurried over to me and crouched down beside me, examining my bloody knee carefully.

I figured, what the hell. Life’s too short to hide from the people you like.

“I’m okay, I think. I’m kind of a klutz, so this is a normal occurance for me,” I assured him, pointedly looking at all the cuts and bruises that were already halfway through the healing process. He smiled, and I felt my breath catch, then quickly shook it off.

No. Run from the feelings. Run.

I awkwardly cleared my throat. “So, um, did Novak ask you to bring up the back or to run back and see if I was on my phone?”

Jensen laughed, and I tried so hard to ignore how it made butterflies erupt in my stomach. “Not quite. I got bored waiting for them to catch up, so I started another lap.” He looked up, and our eyes caught. Candy apple green on light blue. He blinked, then coughed and continued. “This looks like it needs more than me looking at it. We should go to Novak-”

“No!” I cut him off, leaping up onto my feet to show him that I was fine. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as fine as I thought I was, and I would’ve collapsed if Jensen hadn’t wrapped an arm frantically around my waist. Wincing, I muttered, “Wow, that hurts like a b***h.”

Jensen cautiously set me back down on the grass, then sat beside me. “Give a guy a little warning next time you try something like that, would ya?” His words were playful, but his tone was dead serious. He rubbed a hand up and down the back of his neck, and I dreaded the inevitable question. “So, why don’t you want to go to Mr. Novak about that knee?”

I sighed. Knew it. “I just…” I hesitated, but then went on, hoping that Jensen wouldn’t just spill my feelings into the popular crowd. It happened sometimes that I just needed to vent, and I vented to whoever was closest. Seeing as I couldn’t really walk, Jensen took the hit. Richard had been in the middle of my emotional rants more than anyone else, and I knew he didn’t enjoy listening to me vent about ‘girly stuff’, but he would do it all the same. I turned my attention back at Jensen, forcing the thought of Rich to the back of my brain.

Live in the moment.

“If I went to Novak, then all the other students would see me, and they’d rub it in my face about how much of a klutz I am, and they’d laugh and point because I tripped on a f*****g plant, and-”

I was shocked into silence when Jensen threw an arm around my shoulder. “Calm down. You’re kind of hyperventilating.”

I laughed breathlessly and tucked a piece of hair self-consciously behind my ear. Then I mentally slapped myself.

You are not a little schoolgirl! Quit it with the whole, ‘Jensen makes butterflies swirl in my stomach’ crap.

“I do that sometimes.”

Kill the cliche, don’t relive it!

He laughed again, and I found that inner voice fading away as a blush coated my cheeks.

“So. I don’t know your name. You obviously know mine, so it’s not fair.” He grinned. “What’s your name, princess?”

I didn’t hesitate at all this time. “Matty. Nice to meet you, Jensen.” I would’ve shaken his hand, but he didn’t hold it out, so I didn’t shake it.

He did, however, smirk. “Matty… short for Madison?”

I groaned.

Here comes the part of the conversation that makes me want to jump into traffic.

“No. Do I have to tell you?”

He smiled, and it made me feel overjoyed to know that it was because of me. “Not if you don’t want to.” After a moment of silence, Jensen spoke up again. “You know, we can’t hide behind here all class period. Novak will notice that you’re gone.”

I shook my head, and I could feel a smile inching onto my face. “No, he won’t. But he will notice that you’re gone.”

I could tell that he was trying to keep the wide grin off of his face, but he was epically failing.

I bit my lip to hold in my happiness.

“Besides,” I continued, wanting to talk before the squeal came out. “What am I supposed to do? Walk in there with my knee that looks like it’s taken a hit from a sledgehammer and just say that everything’s fine?”

I laughed along with him this time, and it felt amazing. Like I was letting go.

Jensen broke off before I did, grinning at me. I self-consciously stopped. “What?”

His smile grew. “Your laugh is gorgeous.”

It took us a bit to figure out a plan, but it was solid.

Jensen snuck me into the men’s locker room, cleaning out my knee and throwing me a pair of sweatpants to cover it up. I questioned about what other people would think, and his response surprised me.

“Well, they’ll probably think that we got down during gym class and I loaned you my pants because you couldn’t find your shorts.” I blushed wildly at the thought of me and Jensen doing… that. “But, hey, at least the rumor that you’re lesbian will be put to rest!” And then he kinda got serious. “That is just a rumor, right?”

I snorted, and his mask crumpled. He laughed right along with me.

As I calmed down, I noted something. “Hey, with all the rumors, why did you think that they weren’t true?”

He turned to let me get changed, but I could hear the smile in his voice. “Well, you and that guy, Richard. You seem, like, really close.”

I smiled. Everyone always misunderstood. “You can turn around now. Rich is like my brother. Sure, we flirt non-stop, but neither of us want anything else from it.”

Jensen smirked. “Well. Our paths have been entwined, Matty, but never joined.”

I laughed long and hard when I understood the reference. “Pirates of The Caribbean? Seriously?”

And he laughed along with me. And the butterflies in my stomach were restless.

Author's Note

Again, all actors are being repurposed as fictional characters in the case of this story; maybe one day, I'll change them out, but today is not that day.