Loverboys

1

She stood with her back to the entrance of the hall where she had just registered with the janitor and received her key to her locker. No idea what to do with it, hopefully she hadn’t lost it at the end of the year, she always dragged her books to every lesson. Most of the time, she forgot she had a locker or she didn’t have time to put away the books she needed later. She would put her things in there for her monthly period since the lockers were right across from the toilets.

She now looked out over the central hall which was immediately the auditorium and as they had told her on the introduction day, also a restaurant and study place. Now, unfortunately, it was not yet crowded. There were five boys with a BadBoys appearance, at the side opening to the unofficial hall that ran around the auditorium and where you could get to the classrooms that led to it. There were a few female students sitting on the tables in the middle of the auditorium with their feet on the chairs around it and there were a few students waking up with a steaming paper cup of coffee or tea. She was in need of that too, but for that she had to be at the very back of the auditorium. Under the back stairs, which led to the void that looked all around over the auditorium, was a coffee and tea machine. But she had to go to those stairs anyway, so walking a little further to the coffee machine shouldn’t be so bad. Unfortunately, the stairs near her next to the lockers could not be used because a stairs elevator was installed there. Hopefully for large boxes and a cleaning cart and not for a wheelchair.

She hoisted her bookbag on her shoulder and grabbed the handle of the cardboard drawing folder she had received on that introduction day, a little tighter. It was an ugly cardboard case that she had painted with her own artwork of a dreamy background where on one side in brighter colors a hummingbird flew with a floating butterfly in the distance and on the other side the same butterfly but with the hummingbird on the background in bright colors. She sighed deeply, pushed her glasses with large round glasses up slightly, just high enough that the glass didn’t touch her long thick eyelashes and plucked up her courage to cross the auditorium to the stairs.

Without tea. She wanted to get into the classroom and again she wished that the auditorium had been a bit fuller. With that mahogany-colored hair, she stood out way too much. If only she had dyed it, but she would be too proud of the color. Plus the outgrowth of hair dye was also so ugly. She grinned inwardly, pulled her shoulders back and dared the crossing. The janitor had shown her the classroom for her first four hours and fortunately it was immediately to the left of the stairs. All her vocational subjects were on the left.

She quickly walked across the linoleum to the concrete stairs while she felt the looks burning holes in her back, neck, cheek and back of her head, causing her to droop her shoulders and lower her head with her gaze on the floor. She could be so terribly dramatic. Nobody was interested in her. Why should they? It was just imagination.

But she was indeed being watched. One of the five male students nudged his friend and nodded towards the young woman with the untamed red hair. His friend nodded back wordlessly when his gaze found her, grinned calculatingly and nodded again.

Once in the classroom where her fashion drawing course was located, where only a few students were already sitting, she walked to the back row. They were wide tables so they were seated far apart. That was nice for the first lesson. Ten minutes later, the class started to fill up and the teacher followed. After introducing herself as Jane to the two other newcomers of that second year beside her, she asked the three new students if they would introduce themselves.

Jane looked at her first and she waved awkwardly. She hated this so much. “Hi, I’m Lyn.” She didn’t say anything else, but everyone kept looking at her and she felt compelled to say more. Before she could open her mouth, the teacher waved her hand for her to stand up. Reluctantly, she gave in. “Lyn, nineteen years old and had my first year at a school in the north.”

The other students introduced themselves as Marsha and Leon to whom she hardly listened. After the introduction, Jane grabbed the Bible and involuntarily opened it. She knew she had chosen a Christian school, but she didn’t expect this.

Jane began to read a few verses from the disciples of Emmaus. One of the stories that Cathlyn really liked and listened attentively while studying her fellow students. Each and every one of them radiated the calm and self-confidence from people who were familiar with each other and the program. When Jane was done, she began to explain the assignment for the coming lessons. They had to choose a model from one of the fashion magazines and draw it in three different techniques. Cathlyn thought that was a nice assignment. She was a little rusty, but she was looking forward to it.

Jane handed out the magazines, “next to my desk there are more if you can’t find it in these and paper is in the cupboard,” she pointed to a cupboard with all narrow drawers. She stood around for a while talking to the two other new students before coming over to Lyn. “Hi, Lyn, of course I don’t know what your drawing talent is like, but if you have trouble with proportions or whatever, just come and ask, yes?”

“I will, thank you, ma’am.”

“We are modern here and you can address me informally and call me Jane. That makes it a bit more sociable, don’t you think?” Cathlyn nodded and smiled shyly.

“Thank you, I’ll pay attention to that,” she laughed apologetically. Jane smiled back and straightened up again as she turned to the classroom.

“Initially, we have three lesson blocks for this. So take it home.”

There was a nice chat while everyone leafed through the magazines. A few walked forward for another magazine, but Cathlyn soon found a beautiful model who was wearing a hat and a nice long coat with many shadows playing on it. She already knew exactly what she was going to do. One in color with ecoline, one in shades of gray with pencil and one in Indian ink with which she would only paint the shadows. These first four hours she worked hard to draw her first model in pencil technique and before she knew the buzzer went off for the lunch.

***

Knox looked at the young woman looking over the balustrade at students in the central multi-purpose hall below, her arms resting on the iron rim. In the lamplight, her hair looked flaming red and fell curly around her face. He had already seen her that morning from the place where he was now standing a few meters from where she was now sitting at the table, when she had entered the school and looked around somewhat uncertainly. Only then she was wearing glasses with large round lenses. It made her young and innocent, but she seemed older than he had thought at the time.

He turned around and rolled his chair between two chairs near the tables to the balustrade to see what she was looking at, but saw nothing special except students eating and studying and a few kissing each other. Stick and Glee he called the couple. As soon as they saw each other, they ran to each other, started kissing until the end of the break bell rang, they let go, wiping their mouths and went to next class. Nothing had changed compared to last year. He couldn’t imagine finding someone he loved so much that he would forget his lunch for it. He chuckled softly and grabbed his bag. Now that he was talking about lunch...

His bag was not closed properly and his bottle of water rolled out... under the young woman’s chair. Shit.

His mouth twisted into a mischievous grin. Now he had a reason to talk to her. “Ehm, excuse me...” She didn’t react, so focused on what was happening down the hall, so he rolled his chair closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Before he realized what was happening, a shot of pain ran through his wrist and moaned. The woman had a painful grip on his wrist and now looked at him in shock with large, light green eyes, almost bright at her dark red hair. Realizing that he was not a threat, she quickly let him go.

“Oh I’m so sorry!”

Knox rubbed his wrist briefly, didn’t want to look too faint, and grinned crookedly. “Nothing to worry about. I’m the one who has to apologize. Sorry to scare you.”

Cathlyn shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. What did you want to say?”

“My water bottle fell out of my bag and,” Knox pointed to the bottle under the table and to his body, “I’m not very able to bend over.” She chuckled before her eyes widened in shock.

“Shit sorry, I didn’t laugh at you.” Twinkles appeared in Knox’s eyes.

“Are you sure?”

“Really didn’t! You were joking about your... At least, that’s what I thought... I’d better keep my mouth shut.”

“Don’t worry. I was joking too, but it’s the truth... I can’t really bend over,” he grinned.

“Is it bad? I mean. Of course it’s bad,” she said as she bent down to get the bottle and looked at him apologetically while handing him the bottle, “but I mean, forever or temporarily?”

“No idea, I had an accident, ran off my bike and since then something has been short-circuiting in my nervous system or spine that causes me to regularly lose the strength in my legs.” He held out his hand to prevent her from reacting. “Let me introduce myself. Knox.”

“Cath eh Lyn,” she quickly corrected herself, taking his hand, but it was no use.

“Strange name Cathehlyn. Where does that come from?” Cathlyn chuckled.

“My name is Cathlyn, but I introduce myself here as Lyn.”

“Still a special name, Cathlyn.”

“Comes from Caitlyn and Cathryn. My parents merged the names of my grandmothers.”

“Do you mind if I call you Cat? I think that suits you given how you reacted just now and your hair color.”

“Do you understand why I introduced myself as Lyn?”

“I got it.”

“Your name is also very special, at least for here.”

“Dutch, American and Norwegian grandparents.” She nodded understandingly. “By the way, what were you looking at just now that grabbed you so much that you didn’t hear me?”

“Just looking at a group of handsome boys,” she laughed awkwardly and put her glasses back on. Knox was breathless for a moment. She was so sexy, with those glasses and her shy smile and quickly looked at where she had pointed her head to avoid seeing him staring at her.

The boys from that morning were in the same place again. “Mm, I would stay away from them.” Cathlyn laughed mockingly.

“As if they would give me another look.”

Knox looked at her in disbelief. He wanted to say that she was super pretty, but if that would keep her away from those guys, he wouldn’t make her any the wiser. His brother had asked him to keep an eye out for suspicious cases involving loverboys. And those boys were in first place on his list of suspects. His brother Thor was a detective and tasked with the increase in loverboys in high schools.

“What education are you following here? You don’t seem like the type for fashion school and on that side is the computer technology course, right?” He chuckled.

“No, not a fashion freak, more of a computer freak, and indeed, I follow computer technology, although I don’t exactly need it. I know more than most teachers here.” She looked at the boy in the wheelchair in front of her. He didn’t radiate anything of a computer nerd vibe except his hair that looked copper-red under the lamplight. Despite the wheelchair or maybe because of the wheelchair, he was quite muscular and had a very handsome and strong face. He seemed older than the age of the students who normally followed a course in secondary vocational education, between sixteen and nineteen years old.

“Why?” she asked quickly before it was too noticeable that she had studied him, but he let his gaze wander over the students below.

“My brother thinks I need a piece of paper.”

“Why not higher professional education if you know so much?”

“Because I don’t feel like studying anymore. Although I wonder if I better could have done that, because now I’m mostly bored and I probably wouldn’t have had such a hard time at HPE either. Everyone here is also much younger than me. But now I can just keep doing my job.”

“What kind of work do you do then?”

“I help companies install new safety programs and solve computer problems.”

“Smart.” She looked at him inquiringly.

“What’s wrong?”

“You said that everyone is much younger. How old are you then?”

“Twenty-two.” She raised her eyebrows.

“Struggled with this for a long time,” he pointed to his legs, “and then didn’t feel like it because I was busy.”

Mm, she thought it was a strange story. Why take another course when you already knew more than everyone else in the profession and already had a job. She looked below again. The boys were flirting with a few students. Knox and Cathlyn were quietly eating their lunch and talking about her first fashion drawing class and he wanted to see what she had drawn.

“So wow, you’re good and that drawing folder is beautiful too. You have talent.”

“Always been a hobby, so I can indulge myself here.”

Cathlyn put her drawings back in the folder when the buzzer rang to signal the end of the lunch break. She smiled a bit shyly at him. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No, I can reach everything and my next lesson is also here in the hallway. I see you.” She nodded and they both went in the direction of their next classroom.