Echoes of the Heart

“Mate!” May practically squeaked. “Why does she want you to walk her home?”

“Dumb arse,” Hayes shoved May. “She’s into him, why else would she ask?”

“Maybe to make sure he’s not in danger of any flying pans on the way home?”

Hayes cracked up at May’s teasing, but I barely heard them.

I grabbed my bag and bucked it out of the room after Frankie so I wouldn’t miss the bus. I had no idea if Hayes was right and that Frankie liked me, but there was no way in hell that I was going to miss the chance to find out. My friends were trailing behind me as we left the school grounds. Frankie waited to board the bus until she saw me. She sat up at the front like she usually did and I had no clue whether or not I was supposed to sit next to her so I just sat a couple of rows behind her like I normally did.

It was a mild day not hot or cold, but I was sweating.

Quicker than I anticipated, the bus rolled to a stop at Cumberland Road. I stood up with my friends and some other students and we got off the bus. I glanced over my shoulder when I saw Frankie hop down from the steps onto the pavement and my heart thrummed in my chest. This was actually happening. She really wanted me to walk her home. Suddenly, I couldn’t remember how to walk and looked to my friends for help. Hayes’s dark brown skin looked flushed on my behalf and May was smiling like normal, but his smile was a little too big.

I cleared my throat when Frankie came to a stop at my side. I wasn’t massively tall, but I was taller than everyone else in my year and even taller than some of the older kids a few years ahead of me. I was five foot eight inches and, looking down at Frankie, I wondered if she topped off at four foot eleven. I had never realised how short she was until she stood next to me. She was seriously tiny.

“Uh.” Hayes coughed. “Hey, Frankie. Me and May were just about to go to his house, which is this way,” he pointed over his shoulder. “So we’ll see you both later.”

Hayes all but dragged May along as they walked away. I knew he thought he was doing me a favour by leaving me alone with Frankie, but he did the complete opposite. He threw me right into the deep end with no armbands because I had no bloody idea what I was supposed to do, or say, to a girl that I liked. I hardly knew what to say to a girl who I didn’t like. My mind couldn’t handle the stress of it.

“I live on Dulwich Road,” she said, breaking the silence. “Where d’you live?”

I knew she lived on Dulwich Road, her stop was three stops before Cumberland Road.

“Uh, on Trinity Street.”

Frankie nodded and turned and began walking away from Cumberland Road in a direction that would cut through a few streets and eventually lead to Dulwich Road. I snapped out of whatever the hell was wrong with me and hurried to catch up with her. When I reached her side, I had to take much smaller strides because hers were half what mine were. I glanced down at her and saw she was wearing a necklace with a pendant I had never seen before.

“I’ve never seen a necklace like that.”

She lifted her hand to the pendant and brushed her thumb over it before dropping her arm back to her side. “It’s a medical I.D.,” she explained. “I have severe asthma so I have to wear one for medical purposes.”

Right. Duh. I knew she had asthma. At the start of every school year for as long as I could remember we were reminded of her illness as well as a kid who had a peanut allergy. We knew what we had to do if either of them had one of their respective attacks. Get help immediately.

“So,” I said, shoving my hands into my pocket. “Why’d you want me to walk you home?”

“So I could talk to you.”

“Right.”

Talk to me about bloody what? My head was about to explode with the confusion of what was happening. Frankie looked as cool as a cucumber while I was as jittery as a squirrel.

“I’m going to talk,” Frankie began. “And you’re going to listen, okay?”

I was going to shit myself is what I was going to do.

“Okay.”

“Right,” she said. “So, I know you’re lying about how you got that bruise on your face.”

Of all the things I expected her to say, that was not it.

“What d’you mean?” I looked down at her, feeling my body tense as I walked. “I’m not lying.”