Feather After // Chapter 11 // Blow Your Nose

Aria's POV

"Viscosity is a property of fluids. If you say liquid and write liquid in your answer sheets forget about any grade. I will straight away give you a zero. Okay?" Mr. Harrison said and adjusted his thick glasses. He made a zero using his forefinger and thumb with his other three fingers sticking out in the air.

"Aria, define viscosity!" He shouted and his loud voice made me flinch. As the result my pen fell down and I almost fell down along with my pen. Mariam was polite enough to lend me her hand. She held the table before it would collapse with me on the ground. I looked at her and silently bid a thank-you. She smiled in return.

I stood up, and said," sir it's a property of l-fluid. Viscosity is a property of fluid which states that upper l-lay-er-"

"You don't know anything. Why don't you start studying? You just take everything for granted and then you wish everything will be okay. All you do the whole day is watch television. I told you on the first day don't be over smart in front of me. It would never help you. You don't know a simple definition of viscosity? It's the easiest of all!" He screamed and shook his head.

I was embarrassed. I knew the definition of viscosity but I just stumbled when I looked at him. He was very scary and his attitude was not helping, at all.

"Sorry," I squeaked and sat down. I felt miserable. I didn't know what to say. I could feel all the eyes on me and I felt uncomfortable all of a sudden. I knew Mr. Harrison was staring at me and I was surprised that he did not send me to detention.

"It's alright. You know how it all works, right? Don't be sad. He is mad. Don't worry. Everything will be alright," squeezed my hand.

Mariam lived in Iran and she ran away with her family because they couldn't take it anymore. Her family were refugees here but she got admission in Maple High because she cracked the scholarship test. She was one of the most beautiful ladies in our school. Bunch of guys liked her but she seemed oblivious to it.

She had live skin, blue eyes and black-brown hair(she told me the colour of her hair) considering that she wore a hijab.

"You are my rock," I mumbled to her and smiled at her.

"Aria, get out of my class!" I heard Mr. Harrison shout.

"But-"

"Get out before I call your parents!" He shouted again. Even if I didn't want to get up I had to because I surely didn't want my parents to come and talk with anyone. I did not want anyone to know who they were and what they did.

I grabbed my notebook, my pencil pouch and with my head down, I moved out of the class. Everyone was looking at me and I was looking at the floor. It was humiliating. It had never happened with me before. I never said anything to him and I was never rude with him as well.

The moment I stepped out of the class tears started streaming down my face. I didn't want to cry but I just did. I felt like everything bad was happening with me.

I was just thrown out of class right? It happened with everyone right? I walked down the hall towards the ground. It was one of my favourite places in the whole school, after the library of course. It was opposite to the library. With tears flowing down my face, I tried to keep my tears to myself.

The football ground was rectangle in shape and had green grass. The breaths of the grounds where attached to the benches. People often used to sit there while cheering for our school. The lengths of the long football court had where Empty and the left side if it was connected to the changing room were the players use to come from at the starting of the match. The right side of the football court was empty which connected to the running field and on the left side of the right length of the court was a gate, which lead to the roof of the school, which to my surprise was interconnected, to every other building of the school through small pathways which were impossible to see when one was one the ground.

The upper area of the school prohibited entry of any student but I got there when ever I could. It was amazing. It was calm and peaceful. My 'whenever' could only happen once when, I had come to see the school. From that time I had always wanted to come here but I couldn't because I was scared that I would get caught. But today was an exception. I was already crying and my sorrows had over powered my fears of getting caught.

I wiped my tears for the n'th time now, still my tear gland were not stopping. I was crying and now even if I didn't want to cry I just couldn't stop. Whenever I wanted to stop crying my mouth produced a wired noise and I started crying again.

I was on the foot of the stairs. The stairs were covered in dust and it was quite evident that it had not been cleaned for a very long period of time. I started climbing up the stairs and when I reached the end of it, I tried to take a deep breath and I failed miserably. My eyes were sore and my ears started to stink. I was pretty sure they were going to turn pink soon. My body started showing sign of need of water. I guess my tear glands were tired now.

My legs were shaking and for the first time I was too out of energy to notice the beauty of the nature around me. I was shaking but I wasn't sure if I was hallucinating or it was actually happening. I was not crying anymore but I knew if I thought about it more, I would start crying again.

I started walking towards right the side of the roof, my hand never leaving the contact of the wall of the roof. I knew, if someone was on the field I would have been visible to them but I didn't care.

"What are you doing here?" I heard someone say. In an instant I knew who that voice belonged to. Ignatius. I didn't want to turn around because then he would have seen me and I didn't want that to happen. I didn't reply and I continued walking. I hoped that if I ignore him, he would lose interest and he would leave. But the opposite of it happened.

I heard him walk towards me, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn't want to see his face. I heard him walk towards me and after a couple of moments I could feel him standing in front of me.

"What happened?" He asked. As soon as I heard him saying those words, I felt my eyes water and tears started flowing down in no time. I was forced to open my eyes and the most wonderful thing happened. I started sobbing as well. I had trouble breathing and I had to use my mouth for the air supply because my nose was almost blocked.

"Come here," I heard him mumble before I was pulled towards him. I gasped for air. I held on to his jacket like my life depended upon it. As soon as he pulled me towards him, I was engulfed in his strange odour, mixture of various smells like cigarettes, alcohol and his perfume. I heard him mumble something which I couldn't get and he started rubbing his hand on my back. He rested his chin on my head while he started humming the lyrics of Coldplay's Fix you.

I was started to calm down but then my mouth started producing noises again. I knew my mouth was having troubles breathing for my nose. My chest started rising slowing and relaxing slowly and suddenly the speed everything started to increase. To my surprise he got what was happening to me. He removed one of his hands from my back and used it to remove a napkin from his back pockets. He pushed me away from him lightly and then held the napkin near my nose and looked in my eyes to tell me what's he was doing.

He then touched the napkin on the opening of my nostrils and said, "blow you nose," and I reluctantly followed his orders. I took a deep breath and breathed out as strongly I could on the napkin. He wiped my nose using it and then kept it back in his pocket. He didn't look disgusted with it.

"He threw me out of the class," I slumped my shoulders.

"That's that why you were crying like that?" He asked, and surprise was evident in his voice.

"Not even that, He always picks on me in class. I didn't even do anything." I said.

"Who does that?"

I was enjoying what I was doing. I felt bad fifteen minutes ago and now I was totally fine. Ignatius, I don't know how he had the ability to change my mood within seconds. I never thought I would stop crying. But he did something which I couldn't do myself. It was good for a change. To be taken care of.

I smiled at him and he smiled back. He didn't look so bad for a second. He looked like a regular boy which he definitely was not. I suddenly realized how close I was sitting as bad as I thought of him. He was nice actually.. Our legs were almost untangled and I could feel his body next to mine.

"Baby, I'm back," I heard someone say. It was one of our school girl. And he was coming out of a small cupboard there. She was re-adjusting her top and while trying to get her hair back to normal.

Suddenly I realized what was happening. This all explained why Ignatius had messy hair and why he showed up so fast when I had been crying.

I had been such a fool for thinking that Ignatius liked me. It was all crap. I hadn't realised that I had started to like Ignatius until right now. It hurt knowing that the guymyou liked didn't like you back.

I don't know from where I found the energy. I stood up and started walking towards the stairs, leaving Ignatius and his girl behind.