chapter 33

Third Person POV:

Walking into school, Isaac didn't expect to see Zavier so soon but there he was, in front of his locker.

But it wasn't just him by his locker, Zavier was intensely making out with a girl he couldn't recognise yet but as he walked closer, he was able to identify her as Sapphire, the girl that had been chatting with that creepy Candace girl about Zavier and Bella ages ago.

Clearing his throat deliberately near them, they made no reaction to move, instead it seemed to him that they were in fact deepening the kiss.

"Excuse me." Isaac spoke loudly, causing them to separate, Sapphire sporting a faint blush on her face as she tried to hide a small smile.

Zavier frowned, as if it were Isaac's fault that they were near each other again. "What are you doing here?" He stared pointedly at Isaac, pursing his lips together.

School... What else would he be here for? Isaac wanted to say, but went for a more civil approach. "You're by my locker."

They both quickly moved to the side whilst Zavier looked Isaac up and down, uttering something about him not realising it was his locker, which Isaac knew to be a lie but didn't call him out on it.

Isaac expected them to, you know, leave this area, but they stayed next to his locker and all Isaac could hear were their voices, his own thoughts being drowned out by them.

This could've been his mind playing tricks on him, but Isaac felt like Zavier was speaking quite loudly deliberately, emphasising something about a date.

"Shh, we don't want everyone to know yet." Sapphire not very subtly glanced at Isaac, who was still ignoring them, but he did want to mention that making out in the open wasn't a good attempt at being discreet.

"It's fine. Isaac can know, can't he?" Zavier had a smug smile on his face. "Isaac, Saff and I are going out now."

Isaac glanced to the side, straining a smile, before looking back to Zavier's eyes which were scanning for a reaction from Isaac. "Okay."

Isaac didn't like the ache clawing at his heart, but tried his best to push it down, walking to History, which he realised he shared with Zavier and Sapphire.

Fortunately for him, he sat next to Jax, who was already half asleep when he came into the class.

"Jax." Isaac shook him awake gently.

"What's happening? Did Mr Pearson have a heart attack again?" Jax rubbed his eyes, getting them to focus.

Isaac looked at him weirdly, but shook his head. "No."

Isaac was going to say something but forgot completely when he heard a loud laugh come from the opposite side of the room.

He looked over to see Sapphire whispering something in Zavier's ear, who then made eye contact with Isaac, and held it. Sapphire started to kiss Zavier's jawline whilst he didn't break the eye contact between Isaac and him, at all, until Isaac couldn't hold it anymore and looked away, staring at the paper in front of him.

Mr Pearson glanced at Zavier and Sapphire for a split second, before looking away and not saying anything, but as soon as Isaac was asking Jax about what page they were on in the textbook, he seemed to remember he was a teacher.

"Jones, I don't want any unnecessary talking over me." Mr Pearson scolded, even though he hadn't even been teaching, but Isaac rolled his eyes and kept quiet.

He had always known that Mr Pearson didn't like him but he was the number one bum licker for Zavier and that had been another thing that had contributed to their rivalry when Zavier would purposefully frame Isaac to get in trouble.

"Since you like to talk a lot, you can read out the rest of the page."

Due to him telling Isaac off, Isaac hadn't been able to get the page number and it turned out neither had Jax. He peered over to the other side, glancing at Rory's book that was open and quickly scrambled to the page number.

"Anytime today would be nice Jones." Mr Pearson's nasally voice spoke again.

Most of the class stayed silent since everybody knew how much Mr Pearson hated Isaac, it wasn't a secret that he tried to hide.

"Where should I read from?" Isaac hesitated to ask, watching the frown on Mr Pearson's face turn into a scowl.

"Detention for delaying class time." Mr Pearson stated, a disgusting sly grin on his face.

Isaac's eyes widened, "What? How is that detention worthy?"

"Are you doubting my ability to teach, Jones?" Mr Pearson raised an eyebrow at him, as if challenging him to disagree.

"No, I'm doubting your ability to give out suitable punishments." Isaac heard a few snorts at that, enraging Mr Pearson more as his cheeks started to glow red.

"Get out Jones. Stand outside since you want to act like a class clown so desperately." Mr Pearson pointed to the door, his hand shaking a bit from anger.

Isaac's eyes narrowed, trying to understand why he was so mad. "I didn't do anything though."

"I said get out Jones before I have to get the principal involved and we both know what that would mean for your spot on the soccer team." Mr Pearson threatened, daring Isaac to disagree.

Isaac's expression completely changed as he aggressively grabbed his stuff and stood up, "Fucking saddo." Isaac muttered, walking out.

Isaac's frustration built up as he kicked a locker, regretting it as soon as he felt the pain in his foot.

Why the fuck did that stupid teacher think he had the right to embarrass him like that? Picking on a 17 year old just because he was probably jealous.

Isaac was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't hear Zavier coming up behind him until he felt a hand on his shoulder causing him to turn around.

"Aren't you still mad at me?" The pure bitterness in Isaac's voice was evident but Zavier ignored it.

"Are you okay?" Zavier just couldn't find that same pride he would get from before when Isaac would get told off by Mr Pearson. Now, he was fully ready to give Mr Pearson a right piece of his mind for snapping at Isaac like that.

"What does it look like?" Isaac shook Zavier's hand off his shoulder, stepping away from him to which Zavier just took another step, minimising the gap between them. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to check up on you."

"Okay, well I'm fine. You can go back to class and see your girlfriend, I'm sure she's missing you." Isaac muttered, wishing he hadn't said the words as soon as they came out.

Zavier let out a chuckle, smiling at him, "Are you jealous?"

"No, I'm not jealous. At all. I couldn't care less, it's not my problem." Isaac rambled, seeing Zavier looking so amused, not believing a word he was saying. "Whatever, believe what you want." Isaac turned around and began walking away.

Zavier was about to follow him when he heard Sapphire's voice behind him and turned to face her.

"Mr Pearson told me to come get you to make sure you were okay."

"Me? How about Isaac?" Zavier quickly turned, but Isaac had already vanished.

"He'll be fine, he probably just needs some alone time right now." She grabbed his hand, squeezing it gently.

Although she was being nice, Zavier wanted to tell her that she didn't know him like he did, but then realised that it was probably best if he and Isaac had some space from each other so nodded, then followed her back into the classroom.

***

"Where's Gemma?" Isaac asked, searching around the cafeteria to see if he could spot her.

"She'll probably be here soon." Harrison watched as Isaac kept looking back, not touching the food in front of him. "You good?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." Isaac forced a smile, tapping his foot on the ground.

"You sure?" Harrison checked again, to which Isaac nodded.

He stared at the entrance, urging Gemma to hurry up, when he finally saw her coming in with Hattie. "Oh finally, there's Gemma."

She was smiling at Hattie, Hattie's cheeks looking a bit flushed, but Isaac was far too anxious to focus on this budding friendship between Hattie and Gemma.

"Now that Gemma's finally decided to delight us with her presence, I have something to tell you guys."

"You're dropping out of school." Jax guessed, but Isaac shook his head.

"You're an idiot." Gemma popped in, getting a glare from Isaac.

"No, if you would let me speak-" Isaac tried to say but was once again interrupted, causing him to sigh in defeat.

"You're in love with Zavier." Harrison purposefully looked straight into Isaac's eyes, taunting Isaac to challenge him. Gemma and Jax looked between Zavier and Isaac, before glancing at each other sharing a look of mutual confusion.

"No, none of those. I'm..." Isaac hesitated, looking at their expectant faces. Was it really worth telling them? He could tell them later, right?

"...becoming a stripper." Jax finished for him, smirking.

Isaac shook his head again, "No... what, why would I become a stripper?" Jax went to answer him, but Isaac put up his hand to stop him. "No, I think I'm bi." Isaac finally blurted out, watching their reactions.

He observed Harrison's reaction, noticing a small smile playing on Harrison's lips but he had no time to question it as Gemma's voice pulled his gaze away from Harrison.

"Really?" Gemma exclaimed excitedly.

"Yes."

Jax stayed quiet looking down at the table but then with a serious looking expression lifted his head, "Does that mean you had to have a threesome with a boy and a girl to know that?

Isaac scrunched his brows, wearing a look of disgust, "What? No."

"Oh, must've been a rumour then." Jax mumbled, dejectedly picking up his ham and cheese Panini.

"I don't know what Jax is on about, but we're glad you felt comfortable enough to tell us." Gemma beamed, Harrison nodding in agreement.

Both Harrison and Gemma looked at him sweetly with smiles on their faces, making him squirm a bit. "Okay, let's talk about something else please."

"How about how Ethan's currently hitting up a freshman?" Jax brought up, causing them to all look at the table Ethan was sitting at in the middle.

True to Jax's word, Ethan sat with a freshman, but not just any freshman, Isaac knew her to be Gabriella. Isaac held in a gasp seeing her, what was Ethan doing?

Zavier himself didn't look too happy at that either, glaring at Ethan but Sapphire was there to distract him. Isaac tore his gaze away from Ethan to glance at Zavier, watching the way he ran his hands through Sapphire's golden hair, her -ironic- sapphire eyes lighting up at him. Seeing Zavier's head turning towards him, he glanced away, focussing on the table.

"That's fucking gross." Gemma's voice alarmed him a bit before he relaxed remembering that she was talking about Ethan, not him.

Isaac couldn't help but peer again at Zavier, oblivious to Harrison surveying him.

"Isaac and I have some homework we need to finish right now, don't we Isaac?" Harrison finally spoke up, causing Isaac to quickly turn his head back to the table.

Isaac shook his head at first, but seeing Harrison mouthing the words 'Go with it', he started to slowly nod,"Uh- yeah, I think."

It wasn't hard for the two of them to slip out since Gemma was still complaining about the disgusting relationship between Ethan and Gabriella.

"What did you want to say then?" Isaac stopped as soon as they got out of the cafeteria, but Harrison carried on walking.

"Let's go outside." He instead answered.

"Is that what you wanted to say?" Isaac speed walked, catching up to him when they got outside.

"No, I wanted to talk to you about Zavier."

Immediately, Isaac groaned loudly, holding back the urge to roll his eyes. "Why are you so obsessed with Zavier and I?"

"So you're saying that you two aren't anything more than friends?" Harrison raised an eyebrow at him.

"Yes, I am saying that." Isaac nodded.

"Not even fuck buddies."

"Jesus no." Isaac repelled back, although he couldn't lie and say he wouldn't like the idea of that.

"Okay then, prove it."

"Oh god, deja vu much." Isaac grumbled. "No, I'm not falling for this again." He spoke up, shaking his head and stepping back.

"Falling for what?" Harrison stepped forward, backing an unsuspecting Isaac to the wall.

"Are you gay? Because I wouldn't judge if you were, it's just kind of weird for you to want me to kiss you if you're not."

"And if I was?"

"Nothing at all, I don't judge, but this, er, seems pretty gay to me." Isaac confessed, his eyes darting to side as he realised he had been stupidly backed into the wall. Feeling uncomfortable under Harrison's gaze, he tried to move to the side, but Harrison grabbed his arm, pulling him back.

"Harrison, are you okay?" Isaac looked into Harrison's blank stare but then moved his gaze to the floor, not liking the way Harrison was looking at him.

"Why don't you call me Harry like everyone else?"

"Because... well," Isaac tried to think of an explanation, but he realised he didn't have one, it had just sort of become a habit. "I don't know." It was at first a way to annoy him but now it just came naturally.

"I like it."

"That's great, can we go now? I'm feeling hung-" Isaac never finished, feeling a pair of lips on his.

Isaac froze for a second before pushing Harrison away from him, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. "Why the fuck did you do that?"

"Because I like you. Don't you like me too?"

"No wha- Where did you even get that from? One second you were basically calling me a slut for Zavier then the next you're kissing me?" Isaac stepped away from Harrison seeing him step forward.

"Is this because of Zavier?" Harrison frowned.

"God no, no, I just didn't know you thought about me in that way." Isaac scratched the side of his head, feeling very awkward. "I'm sorry Harrison, I don't like you that way. I only see us as friends." He tried to reject him in the kindest way he could but he was still trying to figure out where or when he had indicated any hint of liking Harrison as more than a friend.

Harrison stayed quiet, looking down at the ground. Isaac decided to attempt to 'comfort' him by stepping forward to place a hand on Harrison's shoulder but he moved away, shaking his head.

"Just forget this happened alright." He mumbled before walking back into the school.

Isaac didn't bother going back into the cafeteria and instead sat against the corner of the wall trying to wrap his head around Harrison's confession.

They were just friends; he hadn't done anything that would've led Harrison on but now it made sense why Harrison didn't like Zavier anymore. With this half true theory of Harrison's about Zavier and Isaac, it was obvious that his hate was just jealousy.

Isaac's questions were cut short when he remembered that he still had detention later. His mood immediately plummeted thinking of Mr Pearson's greasy face. If murder was legal he would be the first person on Isaac's hit list... or maybe he would've killed Isaac already.

Either way, Isaac noticed it was nearing the end of lunch hearing the chatter from outside of other students in the hallways. Isaac got up from the ground and headed inside to go to his locker.

All he could think about was that thank God he didn't have any lessons with Harrison next- that would've been torture.

A/N: hope you enjoyed this chapter ;) i'm posting them quicker now because i've finished the fic!!  :0

(written 25/01/20)