Timothy`s boarding school

Chapter 11 - In my feelings

Days are moving faster that I had anticipated. It's already Friday and next week Monday we will be starting our mid-terms. I did talk to Mr Stevens and we will be having a hockey match tomorrow morning during study time. This also means we will have no fans cheering us on. During tea break, the previous days I did try to talk to Christine but she has been giving me one word answers or avoiding me all together. I don't know what happened I thought we had a connection maybe it's her brother preventing her from seeing me or something. But none the less I'm going to keep on trying; I'm not going to lose this time. My study lessons with Ryan have started and truth be told it's like teaching the alphabet to a toddler. He knows nothing, I have to start from the very basic foundation to get any reasonable results but he seems to be advancing well, just not fast enough. I think we will have to increase our study time together. Everyone in my room has turned into a saint, there is no longer watching of movies even the erotic ones, and they have totally stopped playing Fifa and are now having study sessions and discussions. I'm absolutely blown away by what the fear of examinations does to people. Yayen has totally gone overboard with the study thing, he comes to get me at 3 o'clock in the morning so that I can study with him. I just can't, I sleep on almost all of them.

With the news of a game looming, all the senior boys had came back for training but I had to drill them hard to remove the rust they had acquired. My team was shaping out nicely although I wouldn't call it the best. Over the various sessions Theo has been going on trying to boss us around, telling us which drills to do but it all went to deaf ears even TK who was now warming up to him didn't listen to his nonsense. He eventually fell back into the fold and now I was in total control of my team.

Stacy has been acting weird around me lately, she has been asking for help way too much times and she is giving me these weird smiles I don't get. She is starting to give me the chills. What does she want from me? Because I'm never going to date her as it would totally destroy the little reputation I have, beyond repair.

I get off my bed, take my water from the element and immediately after, Martin and Peter are fighting to use the element next. They ask me to choose who gets it but I was not going to play judge and divide my friendships, they had to sort this out on their own. I leave my room with my bucket going to showers and in the corridor, I meet Michael. He stops me as he says we needed to talk. I stop and listen.

"You have been quiet recently Tim. Are you okay? You know, we made a deal and you haven't come yet to claim any of your benefits why? He says certainly puzzled. I certainly didn't want to rattle old bones; I had to put up a facade for him to let this all pass. I was over her anyway, she didn't love me, why should I care?

"Well I have been busy with the mid-terms and all. Just keep them fresh, will come for them any of these fine days" and with that said I take my leave and head for the showers. I notice with my hind eye that Michael stays stuck for a while before he moves back into his room. Maybe his amazed with how cool I'm with everything, he delights in seeing me suffer but no, I won't let him kill my happiness this time.

Ryan stops me just in front of his room and asks me to share my hot bathing water with him. It was extra cold today, outside through the window you could hardly see anything as it was all covered with mist and because we were on the ground floor we suffered the most as the front doors would be open. I agree and we go to the showers. Just as I thought, the showers were empty. I would be extremely exaggerating if I said at least half of the hostel was going to bath today.

We undress and get in to the showers, at least he had brought his pail, there was no way I was sharing mine with him, and I had been more than generous enough in even sharing my water with him. The high windows in the showers are suddenly blown by this strong wind, which brings in this chilly air that runs up my back and makes me twitch in pain. Ryan sees me, laughs and says "We better hurry or we will turn into stone in here"

We quickly bath and are now drying up on the benches just outside the showers, I had left my drying towel so was trying to use my wet bathing towel. He looks at me "What are you doing?" he chuckles; now my teeth are chattering from the cold. He takes his drying towel and places it around my shoulders and placing the ends in my hand and says "Are just gonna stand there? Let's go." I'm speechless to what has just happened and I hope my body doesn't betray me by giving in to what I'm feeling. I look down, how relieved I'm. I wear my pyjamas and we head down the stairs together. No one talks in the way, until we reach his room. I'm ready to give him back his drying towel but he says I should keep it; he will get it tomorrow hopefully with some hot water he had added.

Today I manage to get out of the hostel early. As I had some free time, I head to the classrooms first to drop my bag before I go for breakfast. I barge into my class with so much energy humming to one of my favourite songs Will.i.a.m 's feeling myself not excepting anyone to be present. To my surprise, I find Theo surrounded with a stack of books and the first word that came to me was "s**t". I'm not sure if I said it out loud or it was all in my head. I freeze for a moment before I continue towards my place not wanting him to know whether I cared if he was reading. I definitely felt threatened. Brian comes in also and shouts my name in greeting; it seems they were studying together. He sits right beside him although Brian was still in his pyjamas and Theo was already in his uniform clearly showing the different level of commitment and intelligence.

I quickly place my bag on my chair and leave the classroom almost stumbling into the janitor who was just finishing his work. I go outside and my hands are shaking. What was happening to me? My breath is puffed now. Was I that threatened by Theo reading? I was more intelligent than him, I know it and seeing him study is not going to convince me otherwise. I was better than him and with the incoming mid-terms I'm going to prove it once more as I have always done, well, almost always done.

I walk to the dining hall slowly just getting there, right on time. I get in my form line just standing right behind Ryan, who looks impeccable as always. His shoes polished and shined are shimmering black, his socks pulled up reaching just below his knees, and his short neatly ironed resting on his waist and then the black blazer just the right size not too big and not too small. I look at myself and I'm totally disgusted.

At my breakfast table drama is always the main course with Lindsay dishing it out."Ooh hie Tim, do you see how much Theo is reading?" As his new norm, Theo now carries pamphlets to the dining hall and he will be reading them during breakfast and lunch. "Better enjoy it whilst it lasts, your rein is coming to an end soon." She giggles right after. I totally ignore her.

Kimberly greets me and I wave my hand at her, she tries to have a conversation with me but my head space is elsewhere. I can't believe I used to crush on this girl so hard but now she seems just like a stranger. I do not feel anything towards her anymore and I'm no longer angry at her. I guess I never really truly loved her, that's why I think I never made an effort to get her. The rest of breakfast goes on smoothly with very little drama, from time to time I turn around to look at Ryan's table. I just wanted to see how he ate. He does seem satisfied and at one time he notices me staring and winks at me before quickly looking away and diving back into the conversation on his table.

Class today was pretty laid back, teachers didn't do a lot of teaching. They were just over emphasizing on some expects of their test which we were supposed to look out for. In between the lessons I did talk to Stacy, she seemed a bit nervous today and I don't know why? Maybe it was fear of the incoming examinations but I didn't bother myself with asking. But she did say something that sounded a bit strange to me. She talked about how sometimes she felt like she was stuck in a deep hole and couldn't come out. I did ask her why she couldn't come out but she said it's because she was afraid of what the world would do if she did. That sounded quite vague. I was really confused now, which prompted me to ask her if I could do something to help. She said yes there was something but was convinced I wouldn't do it. This conversation was now getting out of hand; I just let it go eventually.

At lunch time, when boarders were leaving their classrooms and heading for lunch, I managed to catch Christine by the entrance of the school block. I walked with her as we went to the dining hall.

"Hie" I say, smiling and looking at her.

"Hie" she responds, hugging the books she was holding closely to her chest.

"The other day you totally freaked out, did I do anything wrong?" I ask, wanting to see if her brother had anything to do with it.

"No, break was over that's all" she says still looking at her feet as she is walking.

"Okay, then you don't mind me coming to see you then?" I say, definitely trying my luck here. She smiles, steals a glance of my eyes and says "Maybe"

Before I can say anything else, she says "I have to go" and speed walks to her friends who were just ahead. "See you after lunch then" I try to say, when she is still in hearing distance, definitely didn't want to shout. She totally ignores my last statement. I chuckle, as I notice the canning resemblance with her brother. Both of them were so hard to figure out. Damn I say to myself, I had totally forgotten that today is Friday, there are no afternoon lessons which means she won't be coming back. I was such a fool.

After lunch, I went to the grounds with my hockey team to put up the final touches. Our hockey field was never really maintained at all, so for our match tomorrow, we had to borrow the soccer guys ground which was in formidable shape. We had one totally huge problem; we had to mark the ground ourselves. So after our team's final panel beating, we got the quick lime from the stands and started marking. I had memorized the dimensions but it was going to be a challenge to link the two goals and their respective D area.

We take ropes and tape measures from the sports office and start trying to mark the field. Because the hockey pitch was a bit smaller than the soccer one, it was going to fit right in between the two soccer posts. We line the sides with the ropes after measuring so as to maintain a straight line. We pour the quick lime onto the sides and thus also repeat the same process for the ends. By the time we are done marking, all of us are covered in the white dust of the lime. We look like we were jumping around in flour. I totally hated doing this but it was a necessary evil. This white wash was also now making me sick as I had a problem with dust.