For PE, I have to do this run thing together with a girl.

Now, it's logical I'll have to go with Sammy, because she's my so called 'girlfriend', but I think I would've chosen to go with her even if she weren't. Or at least, I don't mind being her partner for it.

I walked over to the girl while running a hand through my hair, so I at least look a little decent. I've got to admit I've never felt like this around a girl anymore. Like, I'm well aware of my awesome charm and impact on girls... but Sammy's different.

"Hi," I say.

"Hey."

I feel a lump form in my throat when she looks past me, at everyone else in the room. Then finally, she trails her eyes over my body, and looks up at me.

"Are you good at running?" She asks.

I tilt my head at her, knowing I might be better at running than basketball. And she... well, those legs. I think mine are getting weak from hers. They're so- I nearly punch myself.

I can't drool over a girl's legs.

"You could say that. What about you?"

The question doesn't even make sense to me. By the looks of it, and how amazing her body was, she must've been good at it.

"You could say that," she mocks, and I smile.

"We'll see."

"You say that too much," she comments. "Perfect example of why you might be failing classes. Oh, I got a geography test... I'll see how it goes!"

I have to stop myself from smiling at her. "Would you stop insulting me for my bad grades?"

"As long as you don't try to make them good... no, I won't."

"Fine, Nerd. I'll continue to insult you for reading the things you apparently can't seem to get."

The things she read were... interesting. That's why I couldn't get it off my mind.

She elbows me in the side. "At least I read. Moving on, what about the nicknames? Us arguing isn't gonna make anything more believable so please tell me you made some of those up."

"I got plenty."

"Spill."

"Cute Patootie, Snuggle Bear, Honey Bee, Princess Poo-Poo, and Giggles."

She pulls a face. "Ahw, Little Pudding. You're so sweet."

I roll my eyes. Again, I have to hide a smile. "Fine. I got Samantha, as in Frozen, Samuel, so I can annoy you. Or Salami, Sammy... maybe Sandwich."

But I've already settled for Sammy.

"Idiotic."

"Don't expect me to call you Love, or Sunshine, or Butterfly, or whatever else those men call their girls. Little Mouse? Ridiculous. Samuel or Sammy or Salami, or nothing at all."

"We'll see," she spats, clearly annoyed I refuse to call her the cute crap. Well, Sammy is cute, right? "Let's just go. Grab a stopwatch and go outside."

"Make sure you stay with your partner, even though this is just the start exercise," the teacher calls once we stand outside, then blows on his whistle. "Let's go!"

The first five minutes go easy. I'm not out of breath and neither is Sam, which still impresses me.

"Guess I found some competition," I say. I can't help myself but to look down at my wristbands. I see they're not covering my wrists to my pleasure, so I readjusted them until I feel good again. "So, have you played any sports before?"

She raises her eyebrows, as if it's dumb.

"What? I can't ask you a question? It would be nice if I knew something about my 'girlfriend'. I know your brother, last name, that your mom's the principal, and that you like to read. That's it!"

"I've done swimming and dance. Am now stuck with jogging," she says. "And you?"

"Swimming, too. I kept going after I was able to swim, but then..." I swallow. "Then I quit. But it's always been basketball. Sometimes I enjoy running."

I quit swimming because I didn't want people to see my wrists. Swimming didn't allow bracelets and wristbands were impossible to wear during the sport.

She nods. "Do you have siblings?"

"No. You only have Jeff, right?"

She nods again. "How long have you lived here? In Etril?"

"My whole life. Jeff told me y'all just moved here, but your mom has always been the principal as long as I remember."

Not that I like that. In no way I mean it to insult Sammy, because she's nothing like her mother, but I don't like the woman, and she doesn't like me.

I might've gotten detention a few times last year, and it was reasonable, so maybe I should've expected her to call me an attention seeker after that student coach snitched.

But I doubt it. I've been hiding my wrists since my thirteenth birthday. Six years of not telling anyone, which makes me unsure if all people with the same issues as me struggle that long, or only struggle for a year or so. I'm not sure, and neither am I sure if I'm supposed to like it that I'm not sure.

"Yeah. Now she decided it's better that we go to this school too. I'm not sure why. It's so... strict."

"And terrible. Yeah, I know," I agree.

"Has changing schools ever crossed your mind?"

It means leaving my friends behind, so no. Here, I can be the funny guy because I know everyone. I'm not sure if I will survive around new people, and be as sassy.

"I don't want to leave my friends hanging and my parents invested too much into this school for me to leave." I shrug. "Anyway- we're doing good. The rest is way behind us."

"Great." A silence in which I can hear her heavy breaths. Something about that causes a stab in my stomach, and I mentally punish myself for letting the opening of the stab allow a butterfly in.

"Uh... you wanna come over this weekend? My mom's not there and I'm sure we can manage to get inside the office at home and look through some tests, if she has them," she suggests.

"Sure." I nod. Nervousness hits me fast, and I seem to mess up with the nicknames. "Thanks, Samuel."

"Shut up."

"What? It's a good nickname!" I laugh it off, but then my laughs turns real because there's just something about making her annoyed.

She grunts. "Okay, Mean Hoe. If you want to play it like that."

I gasp in a dramatic offense. "Stop that. Thomas always teases me with that and I don't-"

"What do I do?"

I nearly fall to the ground when the brunette pops up next to Sammy.

"Holy shit!" She makes a jump as well, and nearly lands in my arms before she steadies herself. I deny that I wished she would've fallen in my arms. "What the hell?!"

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

"Thomas, what the actual f-" I curse, quite pissed he ruined what could've been a good talk.

He crooks a smile. "Teresa went to smoke a cigarette so I sprinted to catch up. Did I interrupt something?"

"No-"
"Yes, clearly-"

Sammy seems to be the one in denial now, while I'd rather smash his head in the mud and be honest about how he did interrupt.

"Well, I know I didn't interrupt you two making out so I don't even care." I wish. "What's up?"

"The sky."
"Minho's ego."

I give her a glare. As often, I have to hold back a smile. "What do you want, Thomas?"

"More than you can provide, but that's not the point. I'm just wondering why you, Minho, out of all people, didn't tell me you were dating someone! I'm your best friend, man. A week ago? When you pretended you didn't know Samira and shook her hand? Not cool. You should've told me!"

Sammy and I now share a glance, both thinking about the fake dating. "Yeah, well, Thomas, I'm not gonna tell you everything if it's none of your business."

"You suck." The brunette exhales as we continue jogging. "And by the way, try a little harder. You're not exactly being the boyfriend every girl dreams about. I've seen Samira carrying her books and I'm surprised a rotten, emotionless boy who doesn't even touch her made it this far."

I would love to be the clingy (fake) boyfriend, but I don't want to annoy her because it's fake, after all.

He turns his head to Sam. "And with emotionless, I don't mean it in an Aaron Warner way."

I frown. The who?

She gasps. "You know Aaron Warner?"

I can feel a feeling crawl up in my stomach. I know it's jealousy, but pretend it's... it's fear of the unknown!

"Yeah. I'm a proud bisexual teen, of course I know Aaron Warner. I haven't got the patience to read many books, but I've done my research." And he turns back to me. "Dude, you're a red flag for not acting like Aaron toward your girlfriend."

Dude, how can I act like Aaron to my girlfriend without knowing the guy? 

"I'll act however the hell I want to my girlfriend," I say. "I won't take dating advice from the boy that's been in love with his best friend for over ten years, Thomas," I add, just to rub it in and make myself seem less of an idiot.

"Peeta Mellark would never." With a roll of his eyes at me, Thomas speeds up his run. "Samira, make a man out of that boy."

"Right..."

Even she seemed vaguely confused now.

But when there's a pain in wrist, I forget about everything. Speaking about swimming and then feeling an unfamiliar feeling of jealousy is making me sweat, and it hurts.

Another mental punish for myself. I should've put bandages on the cuts, not only some stupid wristbands.

I wince when we arrive in front of coach again, mumbling I have to go.

Guilt evolves in my body fast because of that. I'm ruining my own life with this. I can't even properly say goodbye to Sammy because it's hurting like lemon on paper cuts, and I can't keep my face straight.

"Uh- you okay?" She asks, her eyes wide. "Are you in pain?"

I curse to myself. Both because she noticed and because I'm clenching my fists from pain, but that gesture only makes things worse.
"Will be fine," I assure.

"What's wrong?" She glares beside me. I'm not sure if I like that or not. "Do you have... I don't know- asthma or something?"

"No, it's nothing." My usual habit of running a hand through my hair to calm myself, only causes me to wince. It feels like I'm ripping more cuts open. "I've got to go. Sorry. I'll see you, Sam."

I feel her eyes burn in my back once I start rushing away, the guilt doubling. I shouldn't have cut her off like that while she's worried, but neither could I have told her what was actually wrong.

I only notice what I've done ten minutes after I arrived in my dorm.

My plan was to clean the cuts up. To bandage them, after disinfecting.

But with my mind still on the guilt and Sammy, my hands had automatically grabbed the blade and slid it over my wrist a few times, the pain barley overtopping the burning one.

I stare at what I've done now, my eyes widening.

Not the plan.

I bite my lip. Blood is flowing out of my wrists and dropping onto my shorts. I don't really care about that; it's happened in the past, too. It's just realizing this has turned in such a habit, that I didn't even feel it until now.

I close my eyes for a second. Try to contain the tears forming, and my breaths that are speeding up. I'm having trouble understanding myself.

There was no big reason for me to harm again, and it's panicking me. I always hope I don't go too deep. If that happens, I might have to go get stitches or it'll never heal, and I don't want that.

I guess that's what upsets me now; I'm afraid because I've lost control.

Then, my phone makes a sound and I glare at it through my tears. 

나의 사랑 <3

You okay?

Fine

Okay. Great.
Lmk if you something's wrong

I try to hold more tears back, but I can't. My hands are shaking from pain and panic as I type, and I'm barely able to.

Nootjgijf woengn

What

I take some deep breaths. A part of me wants to tell her everything, or at least have someone to comfort me again, but those thoughts lead me back to thinking Edith Gray might be right. That maybe I am an attention seeker.

I takes me a few minutes to calm down and text something normal back.

Nothing is wrong**
Sry
My hands were cold
Wouldn't move

Translation: My hands were shaking from panic.

Right.
Night, then.

Night

I sigh, then start cleaning up.