LOVE ME (BWWM)

Ebony sat there at the edge of her bed, trying to mentally prepare herself to go to college. The cold air brushed against her brown skin, creating little goose bumps, that's all it took for her to jump right back into bed, she had a strange feeling about today.  After a lot of thought she decided to stay in bed, she emailed her teacher and told her that she wouldn't be attending college, her teacher quickly emailed back and said that it was okay and she would email her the work so she wouldn't miss out on anything from her class. Once she knew that everything was sorted, she did the only thing she knew what to do in this situation. Sleep. This was the only way she could get through it without having to actually go through it, just a way to pass the time really. She slept until 10am surprisingly, she thought she'd be asleep for much longer, she took this as a sort of sign to get out of bed, not feeling any better than she had when she woke up 2 hours ago, she put on some fluffy socks and made her way downstairs. Guess you can't sleep your problems away. "Hi mum, how was your night shift?" Ebony asked while making herself some cereal. "Um it was busy, why are you not at college already?" her mother inquired; the thing with her mother was that although she tried to understand she just couldn't wrap her head around the whole mental health thing, Ebony had been diagnosed with depression and severe anxiety, this was hard to accept for the both of them, but it did explain why Ebony had lost interest in most things and why she had distanced herself from everyone and everything. "I just have a lot of anxiety right now, but I emailed my teacher and told her, she just emailed the work to me so I can give it in for tomorrow" Ebony replied with a mouth full of crunchy nut cereal. "You need to go to college, and I'm not taking no for an answer, so go upstairs get ready and go to college, I love you but go" her mum said as she made her way upstairs. Ebony wanted to argue but she knew she wasn't going to get anywhere with her.  She never did anyway. Dragging herself up the stairs and to her bathroom, she started by brushing her teeth with minimal effort, looking in the mirror she was revolted by what she saw; her untameable hair was sticking out in all sorts of directions, see she got her long hair from her sperm donor, he was partially indian which explained the length and the curliness from her mother who was from Africa.  To explain; her 'father' situation; her mother wanted kids but didn't have anyone to have kids with so she resorted to getting artificially inseminated, meaning Ebony only had her mother throughout her life. After brushing her teeth, she willed herself to go into the shower; the hot water clouded her vision, as the heat intensified she realised how bad her day was going to be once she stepped out of the shower. Putting her music on;  hyped herself and got out of the shower, she realised she had forgotten her towel in her room. She walked into her room, drying herself off and applying lotion on her body, basking in the smell of cocoa butter she kept the towel around her and chose her outfit. Eventually, she opted with some high waisted black skinny jeans and a dark grey turtle neck, after struggling to put them on she remembered she hadn't put on deodorant, that would have been embarrassing.  Taking her time with it, she put on her Jadon Doc Martens, and grabbed her backpack from the hook on her door, she took her headphones out and started playing &burn by Billie Eilish, to get in the right state of mind before she pursued her route to hell *cough* sorry school. As she was running down the stairs she missed a step and fell down the the last few steps of the stairs. THUD! "f**k" she said as she rubbed her now bruised elbow, gathering all the things she dropped on her way down the stairs, she took her keys from the counter and made her way outside, seeing as it was the beginning of winter, she turned back around and unhooked her black jumper and black jean jacket. She figured that since she was already not supposed to be in college, she would take her time and go to McDonald's, Ebony's go to order was always a chocolate milkshake and some fries, but as cold as it was she wanted to be as warm as possible, so that meant getting a large hot chocolate to warm her insides. Going up to the self serve machine she put in her order, because ain't nobody trying to talk in the morning and because she was scared she'd mess up when she was saying her order and end up panicking, this was all due to her social anxiety, one of her many undesirable traits. As she walked towards the pick up point the woman called out her order number. "Order number 13! Large hot chocolate." She said with an unknown accent, Ebony tried not to laugh as she went to get her drink. Time for college. She started walking towards the place she'd grown to hate, to ease her mood she put on some John Mayer. "Don't worry, I've been thinking 'bout you too" "What do we do?" "Your heart is where my head should be, the dissonance is killing me" "It breaks my heart" "It breaks my heart"  Just as she walked through the empty halls, she went to the front office but hesitates, as she stops in her tracks she's pushed over, almost falling face first on the floor, she's caught in mid air and brought up to a hard chest. What the f**k, whose chest is that hard ? She thought to herself. All of a sudden she was pushed back down, almost as if the person who held her was burned, "watch where you're going". When she touched the floor, she looked up at the person who dropped her, what do you know, it just so happened to be the supposed hottest guy in college, Bryce Everson, medium length blonde hair that flowed past his ears, piercing blue eyes that could probably freeze you on the spot if you looked at them long enough, Ebony couldn't lie and say that he wasn't a good looking guy, but there was something off about him. She quickly got up, gathered her things and speed walked to her class. Too scared to knock on the door she began pacing back and forth, trying to prepare herself to walk into the classroom, she was interrupted when her teacher walked out of the classroom. "Ebony I thought you weren't going to come in today, are you feeling okay?" Miss Blue inquired thoughtfully. "I mean that was the plan but my mum was just... she doesn't get it, she just thought I was being lazy, so she forced me to come in" Ebony said while taking her jacket off. "Oh, I'm sorry about that, if you're not feeling that great, you can just stay in the library, I'll write you a note so they wont bother you" she said while giving her a hug. "I mean I'm already here so I might as well just go in so I don't miss anything" Ebony said while still in the hug. Releasing her; Miss Blue walked into the classroom and held the door open for Ebony, Ebony walked in with her head low so she wouldn't have to make eye contact with any of her peers, before she could sit in her seat, she saw someone in the seat next to hers, she already knew that there weren't anymore spaces so she walked to her seat.  "I'm sorry if I'm in your space, I wasn't expecting to sit with anyone" he said, Ebony didn't reply, being a loner, she thought that she knew who everyone was but this person was clearly new. "Hello?" He said while turning his body towards her fully. "Oh sorry, I was just thinking about something, you have an American accent" she blurted out, 'that wasn't embarrassing at all' she thought. "Uh yeah I do, I just moved here about a week ago, my names Max Morte" he said while extending his hand out to shake. "Oh, I'm Ebony Winters" she shook his peculiarly warm hand, part of her hadn't wanted to let go but she had to before it got awkward. "Ebony" he repeated under his breath, "nice to meet you Ebony" he said, finally letting go of her hand. She began taking her notepad and pens out, alongside her iPad. Max imitated her, but instead of taking out the essential school supplies he brought out a subway sandwich.  "Are you seriously eating right now, you know you're not allowed to eat in class right, you could get a detention" she tried to warn him, but he only sent a mischievous smirk her way.  "Au contraire, that's only if you get caught", he did have a point, Ebony had once done the same thing in her old teachers class, she had opened her bag, which just so happened to have a pack of cookies inside, her teacher, Mr Powell had somehow smelt it and gave her a detention because in his eyes she had "intentions of eating it", she always thought that he was a werewolf or at least part dog because of his amazing sense of smell. Class went on and Max had continued to try and talk to Ebony and tried to get her attention; from what she had learned, Max was from somewhere in America called Ohio, her first opinion of him was that he was one of the popular guys who play loads of sports, but he said that the only sport he did used to play was football, but not British football. Everyone was excused for lunch alongside the rest of the college, Max decided to follow Ebony out of the classroom. "Why are you following me, go hang out with the other popular guys" she said as she walked away, he couldn't lie and say that it didn't sting a little bit because that's what he was mostly known for at his high school, and he didn't want that here.  Even though Max didn't want to give up so easily; he ultimately knew that if he was in her position, he'd get annoyed too, he started walking to his car so he wouldn't have to socialise with anyone, but stopped when he saw Ebony getting things thrown at her by a group of girls and guys in the lunch hall. He stormed over there and stood in front of Ebony's table so that none of the paper balls hit her. "Are you okay?" he asked while turning to face her. "I'm fine, I was about to leave anyway, thanks for stepping in but I had it handled" she said while picking up her book and attempting to leave. "Didn't look that way to me" he defended. "Okay and that's your opinion, I don't need your help, goodbye" she said while trying to walk away. "I was just trying to help" he said blocking her from going anywhere. "Look, I don't know what you want from me, I don't know if you noticed but I don't have any friends and I'm not looking to make any either" she said finally escaping and walking away. Max stood defeated, the first person he tried to become friends with had turned him down, this was definitely not something he was used to. "Why would you wanna be friends with her, have you seen her?" The main girl from the group said. Max ignored her and walked to his car, there was fifteen minutes of lunch left, so he walked to his car, just before he got to the car park he saw a bunch of guys around it taking pictures of it, he didn't really want to be surrounded by all of them so he decided to try and find the library, that's one place he knew would be quiet. It took him a couple of minutes but he finally found it, walking inside he looked for a table right at the back but instead came face to... chest with Ebony. "Looks like we just can't seem to be apart" she said in mock seriousness, as much as he didn't want to admit it, it was true, they kept running into each other. "Ebony I'm sorry for being so clingy, I'm just trying to make friends, and just not be so out there with all the popular s**t, ya know" he said while offering a chair for Ebony, to the nearest table. "I mean technically speaking I wouldn't know, but I understand what you mean, you don't want to be in the spotlight... I mean I'm not saying we'll stay friends but I can try because I would want someone to do the same for me" she said, sitting down and crossing her legs. "Thanks man, I really appreciate it" he said, sitting down too. "Would it be to forward of me to ask why you came in late today?" Max asked with a gleam of hope in his eyes. "Yes it would be, I have a lot of boundaries that you'll find out soon enough" she said checking the time, "we better get going, Miss Blue is a really good teacher and friend but she doesn't like people who are late without a good excuse" she said standing up and dragging Max up with her, which turned out to be harder than she expected but not really because he was pretty big guy. "You're friends with her?" He questioned. Ebony began to get nervous because he was the first person who had shown an interest in her and had wanted to talk to her willingly since she started college, as much as she wanted to try and make friends, her anxiety wouldn't let her, it also didn't help that she didn't fit in with anyone either. "She tutors me" is all she said, trying to avoid the somewhat touchy subject.  Biology passed by very quickly as the two of them crack jokes and work well together, Ebony started to believe that Max might become a really good friend.