The telltale heart

[Henry Berkwood]

Henry was a coward. A complete and utter coward. He seriously considered just not going. Hang his grade. How much would it really suffer if he missed one assignment? He was hardly in danger of failing as it was. If he just didn't go, he could avoid all the awkwardness that was bound to happen the moment he stepped foot in the dungeons. Because Henry was overthinking this. He kept telling himself to just let it go, to forget about it--he wasimagining things, dangerous thing, and it was far better to potentilally fail something than it was to put himself in a situation where he had little other choice except to entertain those thoughts.

As the boy made his way to the dungeons, he told himself firmly that whatever it was he'd thought happened in the library, it was nothing. Cole hadn't lingered over his hand like one might linger while touching their lover. That was just the overly fanciful thought process Henry had allowed himself to get tangled up in. Because he was a sad and pathetic boy who didn't use any of the common sense he was apparently born with. He was running late at the moment because he'd spent an extra ten minutes in the loo, banging his head against the wall. He would have done it in the dormitory, but, you know, Cole might have been there.

He was just going to act as though nothing had happened. That was Henry's plan. Act like nothing had happened, because it wasn't like there was anything he could really say, was there? If it was all in his mind, than he would have made a terrible, terrible mistake even opening his mouth. If it wasn't... Well, the boy hadn't actually allowed himself to think that far ahead, to be quite honest.

The door might have opened with slightly more force than Henry meant it to as he entered the room. He didn't really slam it--there was no loud bang or anything like that--but there was definitely some flinging happening. When in doubt, over-compensate like crazy. "Good! You're here already!" Henry said, his voice an octave or two too high before he forced himself to bring it back to normal. "Let's start."