Laia & The Transferee - Chapter 60

AIDEN RETURNED inside the classroom a few minutes later with a sheepish grin.

Laia was quick to walk towards him, concern on her face. “What did she say?”

“Nothing serious,” The boy beckoned Laia to return to where everyone was. “She was just concerned about my performance,”

“But she does realize that you were a late enrolee right? It’s not your fault–”

“What happened?” Vivi interjected, pushing the asshat away from her and running towards Aiden.

“Just a few concerns,” Aiden replies dismissively.

With the tone of the boy’s voice, Laia knew by then that it was more than just a few concerns. Knowing that her Mathematics teacher was someone who would often stick her nose to where it doesn’t belong (like how she repeatedly asked Laia when she was a freshman if she was taking memory-enhancing pills because of her high grades) it’s a given that she might’ve said something inappropriate to Aiden as well.

“Are you sure?” It was Shane who asked next.

Aiden temporarily looked agonized by another question thrown in his way but he quickly replaces the expression on his face with a relaxed one. “Yeah, don’t worry about me,”

Everyone exchanged worried glances except the asshat who pulls Aiden towards him. “Anyone hungry?”

Laia raised an eyebrow at the asshat’s obvious way of changing the topic. Fortunately, it seems that Laia was the only one who noticed since everyone else seemed delighted enough to go to the cafeteria to buy some food.

Unnecessary purchases, more like.

However, before the five students can even take a single step outside their classroom Brie appeared out of nowhere and was about to bump straight into Vivi and almost fell face flat to the ground as Vivi evaded her.

Luckily, the other girl was quick to catch her by Brie by her arm. “Brie, what’s with the running?”

“Where’s Jake?” Shane asked when she noticed how Jake wasn’t with Brie even if the whole reason why Brie went after Jake was to get him back.

The two also missed their Mathematics quiz because of whatever conversation they had that took an hour, after all.

Brie says a few words of gratitude to Vivi before letting out an exhausted sigh. “He didn’t listen to a single word that I said,” She glared at the asshat next who raised his hands in surrender. “You made him really mad, Sammy!”

Aiden turned to the asshat and gestured at the bruise on his face. “Is it because of the black eye?”

“What else,” Vivi rolls her eyes and dragged the asshat towards the door. “Thanks for the reminder, I’ll be taking him to the clinic then–”

“I’ll do it,”

Everyone looked at Laia like she grew a horn. Even Laia herself couldn’t believe the words that came out of her mouth but she decided to stick with it. “I’ll do it and you can focus on Jake,”

Brie and Vivi exchanged curious and puzzled glances but at the end nodded. Shane placed a hand on Laia’s shoulder before the four left (alongside Aiden who apparently didn’t want to feel left out). “Shout if Samuel does something,”

“I’m standing right here?” The asshat pointed at himself with an almost betrayed expression on his face but Laia knew him enough to know that he was joking.

Shane raises an eyebrow. “Your point?”

“You’re backstabbing me!” He dramatically wails making Shane chuckle and hit him gently in the shoulder before leaving to catch up with the three who had already left to find Jake and talk some sense into him.

If they could.

“Uh?” The asshat turns to his companion, tilting his head to the side. “Are we going to the school clinic, then?”

“Uh-huh,” She pushes him a few steps forward. “Let’s go,”

When he doesn’t move a single step, Laia starts walking first and then beckoned the asshat to follow her. The school clinic wasn’t far by any means but the girl could feel the asshat’s stare on her the whole time and when she finally had enough of the boy’s blue eyes on her she turned around, glaring at him. “What’s with the staring?”

The asshat raised his hands in the air. “I was just wondering what’s with your sudden kindness,”

“You mean how I offered to accompany you to the clinic?”

“Yeah,” He continued staring at her like he was making sure not to miss a single thing that could be evidence of why she did her voluntary action. “It’s just–”

“Weird? Surprising? Suspicious? Don’t worry,” She waves her hand. “It’s primarily because I don’t want to tag along and see any of the three girls insisting what they think and worrying about Jake when he’s literally an adult who can make his own decisions,”

He’s literally nineteen and just a few months to reaching twenty, the girl adds to her train of thought.

The asshat whistled. “You mean his decision to skip two classes because of our argument?”

“Yep,” Laia replies, popping the ‘p’ before opening the door to the clinic. “Oh, the nurse isn’t here.”

“It’s her break, she’s probably in the cafeteria,” The asshat says in a manner that made Laia suspect that this isn’t the boy’s first visit to the clinic. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re suspecting something.”

Laia cursed the boy internally. He really knows too much sometimes and would definitely pass as a mind-reader if given the chance.

Nevertheless, Laia doesn’t admit that what the boy suggested was what she was doing. At least on her mind, that is. “You’re overthinking things,”

He shrugs and laid down on one of the beds, his arms folded behind his head. “Are you staying until the nurse comes back?”

“Do you want me to stay until the nurse comes back?” She lazily replies, placing her feet up on a nearby stool once she settled on one of the chairs.

“I guess your company is tolerable compared to being alone in a white-painted room and white tiles,” He feigned to shiver in disgust. “Though wouldn’t you want to buy that disgusting coffee that you like?”

Laia turned to the asshat who was already focused on his phone as if the words he just spoke didn’t mean much to him.

But to Laia it did.

Nobody knew about her weird love when it comes to the cafeteria coffee, even Brie. Brie knew about how she would often buy it but had no idea that her friend genuinely loved the cafeteria coffee.

Or maybe Brie did know about it but she never spoke about it to Laia openly.

The girl mentally slaps herself. Back to the topic at hand, Laia. How did the asshat even know about the cafeteria coffee that she grew to like over the three (almost four) years that she had to settle for it instead of buying coffee in the coffee shops outside their school as everyone does?

Everyone except Laia, apparently.

“How did you know–”

“Mr. Laurie?”

The asshat immediately stood up straight and pocketed his phone. “Hi, Nurse Ava,”

Nurse Ava was a middle-aged woman in contrary to what Laia thought would be a woman close to their age range and probably someone the asshat had a crush on.

Or maybe even a relationship, since Laia did hear rumors before about the asshat getting it on with some of the school faculty. Though of course, those may be all just rumors that nobody else paid attention to.

Except for Laia. Again.

“Samuel, this is the fourth time that you have been here,” The older woman walked towards the asshat with an ice pack in her hand which she pushed on the asshat’s hands. “Put this on your bruise,”

Laia gave the asshat a once-over at what the nurse just revealed but the asshat didn’t even spare her a glance.

It was obvious that he was hiding something again and Laia absolutely doesn’t want to be left in the dark in times like this.

Unfortunately, the bell just had to ring.

Loudly at that.

“Ugh,” Laia groans when her ears started ringing at the sudden noise. “Fuck that bell,”

The nurse turned to her with a shocked expression. “Language, Miss Lopez!”

Laia sheepishly smiles. “Sorry,”

“Hasn’t she evolved into a new version of herself, Ava?” The asshat grins teasingly, earning a glare from the girl who had already stood up. “Don’t you like this version more?”

Nurse Ava shakes her head but smiles. “Whatever version Miss Lopez likes more is the version I’d like to see her develop further into.”

“That was cheesy,” The asshat feigns to vomit before turning to the girl. “Would you want to hear the bell again before you decide to leave?”

“Samuel, don’t be rude,”

He shrugs innocently. “I’m just saying,”

“Don’t mind him, he can be pissy for no reason,” The nurse accompanied Laia to the hallways and when the asshat was out of earshot, she whispered to him with concern laced on her voice. “I worry about him, dear. I know he doesn’t want you to know or any of his friends for the matter but I think you should,”

“Know what?”

The older woman sighs. “His bruises,” The nurse temporarily steps back when a group of students passed through. “He didn’t have them often before–”

“What do you mean before?”

Laia couldn’t restrain a frown. Before? But she hasn’t seen any bruises on the boy’s face or body before?

And then it struck her.

“The bruises weren’t on any visible parts of his body, dear,” The nurse’s words confirmed Laia’s suspicions. “They were all over his back and sometimes even his chest,”

Laia immediately thought of Samuel’s father, the same man whose face has been put up in posters and billboards for the last few months due to the elections coming in next year.

“He never tells me why he had those bruises,” Nurse Ava continues. “But it’s evident on his face that he wants someone to know and help,”

But will he accept her help? Will he accept anyone’s help?

Can she even help?

Can anyone even help?

“Talk to him, dear,” Laia’s hands were gently taken by the nurse into her own. “He might not say it out loud but he needs someone.”

The girl glances at the asshat’s silent form inside the clinic. He was just sitting up straight with the ice pack still on his bruise as he held on to it like a lifeline.

And even when she was already drinking her favorite (disgusting) coffee and surrounded by her friends who finally talked sense into Jake and made him come back with them, Laia couldn’t get the image of that Samuel off her head.