#te1

Maybe he was sick. But no, he felt normal, better than normal even, excited somehow and giddy and…happy, he guessed.

He glanced at the bracelet around his wrist, like he had done so many times that evening, and could not stop himself from touching the tiny stones and tracing the letters on them.

Pend Pals.

He did not like the name and had told the others so, but of course none of them had listened. It sounded stupid and childish, but then again, friendship bracelets in themselves were probably stupid and childish.

His heart still started to beat a little bit faster just by looking at it though and he felt a small smile creeping onto his lips.

The thing was, Beckett has never had any friends.

Well, that was not entirely true. There was Katrina, who was without a doubt his best friend, but she always said that that was not the same because she was already his sister and he knew that Katrina was good with people, that she just got them and Beckett just did not and therefore he guessed that she was probably right when it came to these things. There had been his grandmother who had died six years, six months and four days ago - yes, he knew the exact date - who had loved him very much and whom he had loved very much in return. And then there was…no, that was it, actually.

He realised that it sounded quite sad, but he was fine with it, really. He has always been a bit different, has always liked things nobody else really seemed to like. Yes, sometimes he had been lonely and yes, sometimes he had really, really wanted friends. Once, when he had been very young, he had even had an imaginary friend, who had also liked books and had read even more than Beckett himself.

But he was older now, more mature and he barely thought about these things anymore.

It was weird how a small, ordinary bracelet had changed so much. Maybe not for the others - certainly not for the others, he knew that they were quite popular - but for him. For him, it had changed everything.

The times when he would walk into the dining hall not knowing where to sit and desperately looking for a deserted table were over. The times when he would sit alone and scribble something in his notebook during breaks, while everybody else talked to their partner or sat on the desks of their friends, chatting, laughing, were over. The times when he would go straight to his room after lessons to do his homework, do yoga, read, listen to some music, talking to nobody until the next morning, thinking about nobody because there was nobody he could think about and nobody thinking about him, were over.

Finally, there were people he belonged to and who belonged to him. Maybe they were idiots sometimes, but they were his idiots now. Shreya Mistry, Griffin Langley, that annoying Zephyr guy and Alectrona Knox were his four idiots.

Well, except Alectrona of course. She was smart and witty and very good at all kinds of spells, sometimes even better than him, which was impressive. When he watched her during lessons, and he had noticed that he did that quite a lot apparently, he saw that intriguing mixture of fascination and enthusiasm and intelligence sparkling in her eyes and he then had the strange feeling that he never wanted to look away again. Sometimes she caught him, turning her head in his direction and meeting his gaze, smiling. He had noticed that she smiled at him a lot. And he had also noticed that he quite liked her smile - her lips were very pink, her teeth very white and there were dimples on her cheeks and small wrinkles around her eyes. Beckett often wondered what exact color her hair was because he was certain that he had never seen that particular shade before. It was quite extraordinary and kind of reminded him of the sun. And how soft her skin was. Which sounded very creepy, but it was the truth nervetheless. When she had tied the bracelet around his wrist her fingertips had brushed his hand and he had felt a warm, fluttering feeling in his chest and stomach and had blushed immediately.

Sometimes he wanted to tell her these things, but he knew that he could not, that it would be weird and he did not want to make her uncomfortable.

He traced the letters on the bracelet again.

Pend Pals.

Now that he really thought about it, it did not sound so stupid and childish anymore and he actually quite liked it.

Beckett sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. He decided that he would go to bed and instead finish his homework tomorrow when he was hopefully more like himself again.

-

In the morning, he got up and brushed his teeth, washed his face and put on his pants, his shirt and blazer. Before he left the room he hesitated, then he rolled his sleeves up, exposing the bracelet and the eight letters on it.

While walking through the hallways, his backpack slung over one shoulder, he passed some other students, their tired faces illuminated by the morning light, and he thought he noticed some of them looking at his wrist. But maybe that was just his imagination.

He entered the dining hall and headed straight for their usual table, not even looking around.

“Good morning”, he said, sitting down in the chair next to Griffin, who yawned in response and rubbed wearily at his face.

Shreya was reading some kind of fashion magazine he had never seen before, but still nodded at him briefly with a small grin and Zephyr, who was eating something Beckett had also never seen before and which looked, frankly, quite disgusting to him, winked at him.