“Jack, how do you think you did on the exam?”
“Dude, I’d rather not even think about that crap right now,” Jack replied. His thoughts were far from the onerous exam he’d taken last week, far from the class he was in now. He could only think of the blonde haired girl two seats in front of him. For weeks now he’d been admiring her from afar, trying to get her attention in small, subtle ways.
“Psst.” His friend Wilmer, sitting behind him, whispered to him, “Hey, did you give her the note? The party’s tonight and-“
“Two days ago, now just shut up, teacher’s about to pass back the exam.” The truth was, he didn’t want to get it back. He felt horribly about it. During the exam, as he jotted down his answers, looked over his work, he only prayed she was going to be lenient with the partial credit. God, he thought, I’m gonna need as much partial credit I can get.
“Hey,” Wilmer tapped his shoulder, “so what time do you think you’ll come over tonight? I was thinking about-“
“Can’t we talk about this later? We’re about to be called out.”
“Sure, sure. So are you going to help me set up? There’s a pretty long list of things I need to get, I could really use your help.”
“Yeah yeah, whatever.”
“Are you going to bring that blonde girl?”
Turning around in order to look at Wilmer squarely, Jack said quietly but hard, “I don’t know, man.”
“Jack!”
Turning around in surprise, he responded, “Yes, ma’am?”
“Would you like your exam, Jack?”
“Uh…yes, ma’am.”
Pausing for a moment, as the teacher and the class noted that he wasn’t going to move, she said, “Well, come and pick it up, Jack.”
“Oh…uh…okay.” He slowly picked his way up his row, stepping over book bags and purses. He could feel the eyes of the class on him, and he started to blush.
On his way back to his seat, he stole a quick glance to the blonde haired girl, and saw that her eyes were searching for his and was discreetly shaking a note in her hand for him. He nonchalantly took it and continued to his seat.
Anxious as to what he was about to find out, he set his exam face down and began to open the girl’s meticulously folded note. His heart, which was beating so excitedly just a few seconds ago, sunk to the floor. He read what the girl had written with pretty frilly letters in purple ink:
I’ve got a boyfriend.
He threw the note back over his shoulder to Wilmer and expecting the worst, turned over his exam. For a moment, he could only gawk with his mouth open at his score. After looking it over again, this too, he threw over to Wilmer.
“A perfect score? What the –“
“Yup,” Jack whispered back with a smile. “It sure is. I’ll be there at six to help out.”
No comments:
Post a Comment