Blood is Ruby Red Chapter 2

At one twenty-nine, I entered the empty detention room, where I didn’t deserve to be. A couple of minutes later, ten other students lumbered in, followed by a teacher who was taking detention.

“Right, as many of you already know, you have this time to work and think upon your actions. Remember, no talking, or you will be in for an hour after school,” he announced.

As he was talking, Hans strolled in, and slid into the seat beside me, not noticing the confused look I was giving him. Why was he here?

“Now, I’m just going to collect some work I have to mark from my office, and I will be back in one minute. There is to be no noise while I’m gone.”

Hans’ eyes followed the oppressive teacher out the room, then turned to me almost instantaneously.

“Hey El.”

“Hans, what are you doing here? You don’t have detention!” I exclaimed in a hushed voice.

“I got it purposefully just now so that we could talk.” A mischievous grin was slipping onto his face.

“We don’t need to talk,” I sighed.

“Yes, we do. It’s been three months now. I can’t deal with it anymore. Please just go out with me again.”

I blinked, shutting my eyes tightly for a few precious, extra seconds, trying to procrastinate the world of awkwardness. “Hans...”

“C’mon posh girl, am I, like, too poor for you?”

“Jeez, Hans, of course not. I just don’t think that... I mean... well...”

“Please El, it’d mean so much to me.”

His sparkling blue eyes were so persuasive and alluring. His gaze was inescapable.

“But you know why we broke up.”

Hans knew exactly what I was talking about. “You being rich ain’t the reason I like you, we talked ‘bout this.”

“Your parents only liked you going out with me because you told them I was rich.”

 “Look El, I told ‘em you were loaded coz they thought you were a gold-digger, get it? Coz you came so dressed up they thought you’d make me buy you loads of stuff, so I was telling ‘em you wouldn’t. I didn’t know they were gonna be so focused on it after.”

I looked away. Hans put his hand gently on my arm.

“C’mon El,” he gave me a small, hopeful smile. Unfortunately, even the tiniest of his smiles are enough to completely overpower me.

After hesitating for a moment with fading reluctance, I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders. “Okay.”

“Fantastic,” he grinned, “but if you’re done hugging me, Mr Brown’s ‘bout to come back into the room.”

I pulled away quickly as the teacher re-entered the classroom.

“I heard some noise and I am not impressed,” he announced, “but since I don’t know who it was, if you all work hard and in silence for the rest of detention you won’t get another.”

Sighing, I opened my history textbook and started answering the summary questions, which we had to do ‘unless we wanted detention’, in the words of Ms Bushnell. I began to read the first paragraph on this page of the textbook.

World War II lasted from September 1939 to September 1945, starting after Hitler took over Czechoslovakia then invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany.

“You’re not seriously gonna work, are ya?”

I turned my head to see Hans leaning over, whispering quietly in my ear.

“You trying to get me another detention?” I hissed back.

“Depends. Will I spend more time with you if we both have detention, or we both don’t?”

Although he seemed to be pretty amused, I was not looking forward to more detention. I had so many way better things I could be doing.

“If you get me another detention I won’t talk to you,” I warned.

“And working it is.” He sighed then glanced up at the clock. “Ten minutes left, there’s no point working.”

“Hans and Elina, if I hear anymore talking from either of you both of you will be sitting in an hour-long afterschool detention,” Mr Brown threatened.

After giving Hans a warning look, I turned back to my history. Hans rolled his eyes and stared out the window instead.

When the bell rang at two, I packed my bag and stood up. Hans began to follow me out the classroom.

“Hans, I would like to talk to you about your last homework assignment,” Mr Brown called him back.

“Catcha later,” he whispered in my ear.

As I wondered out of the classroom, I caught sight of Ruby.

“Ruby,” I rushed up to her.

“Whassup?” She responded coolly. “You look like you’ve just won the lottery. Not that that would affect ya much anyways.”

I hesitated, not sure how she would react. “I’m going out with Hans again.”

“Well your I-ain’t-gonna-get-back-with-him frame of mind ain’t lasted long,” Ruby replied satirically. “But since you’re with him now, you should totes double date with me and Jude tonight!”

“Omg, that’s a great idea!” I exclaimed excitedly.

“I’ll text ya the deets, and you can tell Hans,” Ruby smiled.

“Thanks Ruby!” I gave her an excited hug.

“Now c’mon, I wanna go back to the classroom,” Ruby wriggled out of my arms, chuckling.

In our classroom, I wandered over to Hans, who appeared to be indulged in his textbook and hadn’t noticed me.

“So we like reading textbooks now, huh?” I grinned jokingly.

Hans looked up. “Oh, hey El. No, I have to read this for next class.”

I perched on the edge of the desk opposite. “So, um... d’you wanna go with me, Ruby and Jude to that restaurant tonight? Jude asked Ruby on another date and she said we could come along.”

“You mean like a double date?” he asked.

I nodded, squeezing my hands together behind my back hopefully.

“Yeah, defo babe.”

A smile broke out on my face. “Cool. I’ll text you when Ruby tells me the deets, ‘kay?”

“Wicked.”

Grinning, Hans flicked his wispy fringe back across his face then looked down and reluctantly continued reading the textbook.