The late afternoon summer sun was spilling into the kitchen where sounds of clattering spoons and cups were heard. It seemed that Becca needed a hundred assorted utensils just to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich partnered with a glass of milk.
She just put together what she deemed was the best, most perfect sandwich in the world for her afternoon snack when Chloe burst into the back door, flinging her school back to the floor like a child on the verge of a full blown tantrum.
"I hate Shakespeare! I hate his plays, I hate writing reports and analysis of his plays and whatever he wrote, I hate his made-up words! I hate him as much as I hate Tolstoy!" she stomped around, expressing her full chagrin.
"Wow, yeah, hello. How did your day go?" Becca dryly greeted her girlfriend, although she secretly thought her girlfriend as being so cute at the moment. Chloe getting riled up about something not aca-related was rare and Becca could compare her to a puppy whining for attention and cuddles.
She and Chloe just got together a few months ago when she finally realized her feelings towards the redhead and she loved discovering new things about Chloe. Chloe as her best friend and Chloe as her girlfriend was like a spot the difference worksheet where it was overall the same but she just adored figuring what those small differences were.
She was brought back to reality from her musings when Chloe seized her perfect sandwich and took a big bite out of it.
"Hey! That was the most perfect PB&J known to mankind since the 1940s!" she made a pathetic grab at it but Chloe danced away still munching away on the sandwich.
"BecccaaaaaAAAaaaa…. I had a bad day…." Crumbs and peanut butter adorned the corners of her pouting girl's lips.
"So I noticed."
"Cheer me up!"
Becca closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "Let's see… Do you want to go for a walk with me?" she jumped off the kitchen stool and headed for the hallway to get her jacket. "Let's go before the sun sets."
"Yay!" Chloe brightened up and skipped towards her but not before polishing off the glass of milk on the counter.
"My snack…" Becca morosely looked on.
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Not far from the Bella house was a small rustic botanical garden and that's where Chloe poured out her disappointment and frustration about her Introduction to Shakespeare class.
"It's like I just don't get what his point was when he was writing it. All my papers have been C-'s and Fs and it sucks so hard. I thought studying English lit would be better than Russian lit. There is no…. no…m-"
"Malaria."
"No meaning, Becca! No meaning in studying all of this!" Chloe huffed, crossing her arms then sat on a small stone bench, facing the setting sun.
Becca cocked her head to the side. She then removed her jacket and draped it on Chloe's shoulders and she sat beside her. She sighed patiently and admired the myriad of colors in the sky caused the setting sun.
"I can't tell you it's going to be okay… You know there aren't any of those subjects in my course list." She piped up. "But I do know a poem… I think this is a good time to recite a love poem to you. " An awkward grin was offered to Chloe which made the girl giggle.
"Go for it." She chuckled good-humouredly, expecting the "Roses are red…" variety. That would be so Becca after all.
What she didn't expect was for Becca to look deeply into her eyes and reach over to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear before gently stroking her face. With undiluted adoration in her eyes, her melodic voice delivered sonnet 18 as if she herself wrote it only for Chloe.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.