It was Friday afternoon. School just ended and most pupils got picked up by their parents or went home with the schoolbus. Most pupils. Not everyone. Because Cosima sat, with her head leaning into her hands out of boredom, in detention class. She sighed dramatically, which sounded more like a hungry zombie than a real sigh.
She did it again. After a few times most people should've known that they shouldn't interrupt the biology teacher, especially if he had a bad day and the dark rings under his eyes were visible even bigger than usual. The cranky, old, little man didn't like to be interrupted, especially if Cosima started to point out how wrong he was about his explanation about syntetic genes. He didn't even allow Cosima to explain herself and started to yell immediately at her to not interrupt him anymore and at that point he more looked like a barking dog than a real teacher, including spitting saliva into Cosima's direction. He warned her to keep her mouth shut, but after a few minutes she discovered another mistake in his story. Even before she started to talk, he yelled, or barked, at her to pack her stuff and get out, like all the times before. She simply hated this man and it was obvious he hated her as well, or at least strongly disliked the cheeky grin she put on her face every time her finger shot up in the air to correct his flaws. How he could ever become a biology teacher was a big mystery to Cosima.
But this time was different. Usually, nobody dared to interrupt Mr. Harris. The grumpy man had the habit to bark and spit at everyone who tried to ask a stupid question or admit they didn't understand what he was saying. Cosima, until today, had been the only one who dared to do anything. Because when she was explaing what was wrong with the little talk he was giving the class, another girl stood by her side. Cosima had blushed when she saw who helped her. The cute, blonde at the back of the class with the obvious French accent nodded in approval and even added some little details Cosima forgot to tell. The exchange student had been here for a few days and barely talked, too shy to talk in the foreign language, afraid to make a mistake. Usually making notes with and eager and fast, but a graceful kind of handwriting. It surprised her to hear her talk, the sweet sounds of the accent floated through Cosima's ears like music, and to even understand what she was talking about. The brown puppy eyes never left hers while she was talking, not daring to look at Mr. Harris or the other kids, looking at the dreadlocks for reassurement. Cosima nodded, placing a cheeky grin on her face, impressed that the shy Delphine Cormier could talk back like that.
Mr. Harris had been speechless, neither expecting Delphine to take Cosima's side. He was used to handle Cosima's sassy behaviour, but two students seemed to overheat his tiny brains, unable to speak without stuttering. Eventually, not only Cosima, but also Delphine had to leave the classroom and came back for detention.
Right now she was looking at the back of Delphine's head, critically analysing the perfect curls falling over her shoulders when she bowed her head to read her book, which was, surprisingly, about the subject we handled in class today. Cosima's belly felt like a bomb of little butterflies had exploded in ther stomach, eagerly trying to find a way out. She felt her cheeks flushing a bit and placed her hands over her face, to hide her blushing and guilty feelings that she thanked her blonde savior by being highly attracted to her pretty face.
It took two hours of detention, a lot of practising in her head, but once they were free to go again, Cosima jumped up from her seat and immediately rushed over to Delphine. She placed her hand on her shoulder to keep her from walking away, the beads of her bracelets clanking together.
"Hey, wait!"
The cheeky, confident smile appeared on the dreadlocks' face as she looked into those shy, brown eyes. Delphine seemed to startle a little by the sudden appearence of the tiny girl, but after a few seconds a timid smile grew on her face.
"Bonjour," she said softly, trying to avoid eye contact by taking her book from her table and placing it in her bag, organazing her schoolbooks cautious.
"Delphine, right?" she asked. Delphine's eyes met hers for a few seconds, until the shy girl realised she was staring and broke eye contact again.
"Oui.." she said. It was almost a whisper, but Cosima wasn't going to let go so easily. " And you're Cosima?"
"You got it, girl," she said grinning. "Anyway, I wanted to thank you for helping me. Mr. Harris is such a bitch, can't handle if anyone else knows more about the subject."
This caught Delphine's attention. The timid smile grew a little more which made her even more beautiful. Her cheeks were also flushed a little pink by the sudden apology by the other girl.
"He isn't exactly the best teacher," Delphine admitted. Cosima grinned and nodded quickly, happy she found a subject they could talk about without Delphine shying away from her. They obviously agreed that Mr. Harris was a big douchebag.
"Exactly!" Cosima said, waving her hands in front of her to sign how right Delphine was. "I was wondering, because you helped me, if I could take you out sometime. To the movies, or something. You know, just to thank you for your help. Nobody ever stood up to him, except for me, I think."
Delphine smiled, showing her perfect white teeth as she nodded enthousiastly.
"Oui, d'accord! Of course," the blonde said immediately. The bubble of hope in her belly exploded in a furious rage of butterflies, causing to make Cosima grin even brighter and her cheeks to flush to crimson.
"Amazeballs! So, what if we exchange phone numbers and I'll send you a text if I found a nice movie, or something, okey?" Cosima proposed. Delphine nodded in agreement and took her phone out of her bag. But instead of just simply dictating her number, she took Cosima's simple pink mobile and put in her phone number herself, with the corners of her mouth pulled up into a small smile. She gave the phone back to Cosima with a cheesy smile that Cosima wasn't able to notice before. Their eyes met one last time, her hazel ones with the cute brown and for the first time in a while Cosima felt to urge to break the eye contact and hide her face in her hands to cover her flushed cheeks. Delphine bit her lip softly, running her front teeth over her underlip before she let go again, letting her puppy eyes run over Cosima's skin.
"Fair enough," she said. "I'll wait for your message, then."
Delphine smiled one last time, took her bag and walked to the door of the already empty classroom. Just when she wanted to dissapear around the corner, the blonde turned and gave her another amazing smile.
"Salut Cosima," she said, with a little chuckle. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Cosima lifted up her hand and waved a bit as she blinked a bit to weak up from her trance, noticing she had been staring at the exchange student a little too long. Quickly she gathered her things, randomly put them in her bag and rushed out of the classroom, just to see the last glimp of Delphine's curls dissapearing around the corridor.