“Your friends…”
“Christina and Javier?”
Aiden nodded. “They were really nice. Javier didn’t need to offer his water, and Christina didn’t need to pick up the stuff I dropped.”
“Oh, they’re the best. You know how sometimes you just meet people, and you know that you’re meant to be friends? That’s how it was with them.”
“And it was kind of you to check on me that day.” Aiden squeezed his hands. “I don’t think anyone else would’ve.”
For whatever reason, sorrow passed through Brendan’s eyes. However, the warmth quickly returned to the other boy’s full smile. “Yeah, it’s no problem at all. Anyway, what are you studying here?”
He didn’t question the sudden shift in conversation. “Education.”
“Oh, that’s cool! What kind of teacher do you want to be?”
They talked.
The scavenger list forgotten, they walked around campus. Brendan asked many questions, and Aiden answered all of them. Sometimes the president took out his camera to capture a gorgeous shot that he saw with eyes no one else saw: a bench that looked romantic in the lens, two squirrels fighting over acorns, and a cloud that was nothing more than a blob that transformed into a puppy at a specific angle. Aiden marveled at the photos, and stranger than everything else, his heart calmed at the attention.
Attention was never good in the world of the mafia. However, when the sky darkened, when Brendan exclaimed about the overlooked time, when they ran back to the classroom where all the other students had already returned, Aiden found himself yearning for that sweet, gentle attention that siphoned him away from his reality and placed him in the hands of kind, fun people.
“Thank you everyone for coming! I hope you guys had fun today, but please let me know if you have any questions about the membership fee or just any other question you might have.”
Aiden avoided the stampeding students who rushed toward Brendan. Instead, he turned around and scanned the room to find the one other person alone and busy with cleaning up a table. He walked over to him. “Javier?”
Javier whirled around. “Yeah—what’s up?”
“Do you guys have any tutorials I can look up online? I want to get better at taking pictures.”
“Yup—we have a list of links on our site. One sec…” Javier tapped into his phone. “Here’s our website. Click this page. We have a whole list of things you can do. These are good YouTube tutorials. This article breaks down the types of cameras really well, and you can also compare them to the photographs in our club’s gallery.” A satisfied Cheshire cat grin spread across Javier’s face. “The beautiful architecture photographs aremineby the way.”
Aiden chuckled. “Got it. I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for today.” He glanced back to see that Brendan was still busy talking.
Javier glanced at him. “Do you want to talk to Brendan?”
“He’s busy right now. I’ll talk to him another time.”
Javier waved. “Yo Brendan!”
Brendan’s face perked up.
Aiden snapped his head around to Javier with wide eyes.
“Come over here real quick!”
Wait—I don’t actually know what I want to say to him!Aiden’s mind reeled at the surprise.
“You got a question?” The president popped up in front of his eyes, while his mind still raced.
Aiden’s heart shot to his mouth, and with a yelp, leapt several steps back, quickly putting space between the two. His feet stumbled against each other, his body started to fall backward, and his arms flailed.
“Oh shit—sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.” Brendan grabbed his arms and helped pull him forward. “Sorry.”
Breaths came short. Aiden grabbed at his shirt in an attempt to breathe easier, but his heart only pounded louder.Stop it! This isn’t a shootout. No one is dying.
He tried to rebuild the world around him. He focused on the mundane topics that floated through the air of conversation: Christina’s sigh of exhaustion, Javier’s fake busying about in the background, and the students slowly filing out of the room like they did in every class he took.
It was normal, it was safe, and he had nothing to worry about.
