Forever Valentine: Wednesday Mornings
Disclaimer: Nope. Not mine. Never will be mine. But all I have to do is dream...
Notes: Yes, wrote this when the Valentine's bug bit me mercilessly. I was trying to go for something... different. Setting has a personal significance and a sad story, but hey! I'm trying to make it happy! XD
Clincher line: "Won't you take me by the hand, take me somewhere new/ I don't know who you are but I... I'm with you." – I'm With You, Avril Lavigne

AP Calculus: pages 209-210 #1-17 odd. Also review the derivatives of inverse functions.
AP English: analyze and discuss a character from Othello; minimum of 2 1/2 pages or a minimum of 360 words. NO DOUBLE-SPACE!
AP Chemistry: review for lanthanoid test. Pick 5 lanthanoids and summarize their origins for essay portion.


The other assignments started to swim on the page.
"ARGH!" Her planner flew across the air and landed precisely in front of the librarian's desk.
The librarian looked up from her romance novel furiously. "Shh! Silence is the absolute rule in this library, young lady!"
The girl nodded, beyond caring, as she walked to retrieve her planner. She could feel the searing glare of the woman on her back, which seemed to burn a hole through her shirt. The librarian always picked on her whenever she was there. 'Miserable woman,' she said to herself bitterly. She looked at the scattered papers on the table. Hopeless. Five hours' worth of homework is ridiculous. Like the school board would listen to her, anyway, if she filed a formal complaint. 'Grin and bear it. And just do it.' Steeling herself, she glanced at her papers one more time.
Her fingers gripped her hair and she bit her lips at the same time to stop herself from screaming.


He walked in, scowling. The scowl was a set expression on his face, anyway. His ID was positioned to slide through the identification system when he heard a soft sigh. Perfect eyebrows connected temporarily as he looked up, disturbed when he discovered that the librarian was the source of the sound. He adjusted his one-strapped backpack to a more comfortable position, and took a deep breath after he saw the green light. They should really replace this poor excuse of a librarian...
"Back again?" the woman asked sweetly. Her voice sounded like a scratchy violin. He was tempted to give her his last cough drop, but decided against it. Some things, as his physics teacher told his class once, are beyond science and technology's reach. He gave a barely discernable nod. "You're welcome here anytime, you know. But that obnoxious girl is here again, too."
His head slowly turned to look at the corner back table. He knew where to look. Always. Precisely at ten o'clock of Wednesday mornings, she was there, buried in her work. Today was no different; he could see the books and paper material from his distance. It wasn't like the librarian was discreet about her disdain towards the girl, either. Every time he was there, he could hear the woman, hollering at the girl like Agatha Hannigan from Annie. The girl who sat so quietly at the corner back table.
Not only was the librarian oblivious, but single-minded, too. Didn't she realize that the only time he goes there is also on Wednesdays at ten in the morning?
It has gone on for almost three months now. Somehow, somewhere, he would find the courage to at least find out her name. Maybe today, he'll be able to walk to the bookshelves closest to her, where he can glance at her books or papers. Her name must be on them in some manner...


The variables in her paper didn't make sense to her anymore. Didn't she solve this set a few minutes ago? She buried her face on her unused arm and moaned softly. The numbers on her calculator were just a bunch of math lingo. There's no sense in these formulas when the person who's solving them was dead tired. The finger that she used to press the calculator buttons lifted and then suspended in midair. Which least common denominator for the complex fraction was she supposed to use?
At this time, she was busy deciding whether or not self-mutilation was considered a semi-suicide attempt. Could she be imprisoned for that?
The rustling sound of a windbreaker jacket. Her head turned and she saw, a few paces but fairly distant from where she sat, the guy with the untamable hair. A random thought managed to stray into her overloaded brain: 'He needs the hair relaxer treatment.' She noticed that today, he was closer to her than he ever had been. The girl looked at the section of the bookshelf the boy was at.
Technology. He must be a nerd. One fine nerd.
'Damn...'
Complex fractions! The words flashed across her mind's eye in neon pink lights. She took one last glance at the boy and smiled. Her attention was immediately turned to the assignment in front of her, but not without allowing one last thought.
She regretted that he'll never know that she smiled at him that day.


He turned to look at her after getting a feeling that someone was watching him. A part of him said that it was her, and the other part stated the feeling as paranoia. Maybe the librarian was getting to him in a deeper way than he thought conceivable. As usual, the pessimist in him proved the optimist wrong, seeing that she was engrossed in her work. She looked kind of cute today, her long hair done in a huge bun and one cheek squashed against her palm, where she rested it. 'Her expression should be more like that.'
His feet moved him six paces closer to her.
Casually, he glanced at her things. Her backpack lay haphazardly on the table, containing only notebooks, a large pencil pouch, and binders; the materials of a dedicated student. It gave him the impression that she was a practical girl, bringing only things that she needed and not the useless "necessities" that he found in all of his ex-girlfriends' bags. That impressed him, but he still didn't find what he was looking for.
He was silently surprised when she jumped slightly, startled out of her concentration. She looked at her silver timepiece and began the tedious process of cleaning up. Was it eleven thirty already?! He knew that she always left at that time. 'Wait! I still didn't get your name!' If he were to be honest, he was aware that he was making things difficult for himself. After all, going up to someone and asking for their name should be a breeze, right? But there was something about her that awed and somewhat intimidated him. Whatever it was, he didn't have the heart to find out.
Then it happened. The forces of gravity worked in his favor and one of her binder papers bent backwards, hanging over the edge of her book. At last, he saw her name, written in impossibly neat print.
Relena
He didn't catch her last name; at that point, however, he just didn't care. He got her name. He finally had a name for that girl and he didn't have to say "her" or "she" to refer to Relena. It felt weird for the time being, but he can get used to it. He wondered how her name would feel on his tongue.
His nose caught a whiff of a jasmine scent and his hand shot out to instinctively grab the source of the smell. It didn't take long for him to realize that he grabbed—
"Relena."
She simply nodded her affirmative and continued looking at him curiously.
"Your name is Relena." Her silence seemed to be an intentional hint that he was blabbing. She waited patiently for him to gather coherent thoughts. "Your next class..."
"It's at one." Relena refrained herself from taking her hairbrush out of her bag as she looked at him. "Why?"
Mustering what was left of his reserved courage, he lifted his head up a little more to see her clearly. Should he ask her? Living a life intrigued with a person can lead to obsession and, ultimately, insanity. Insanity, from there, starts a whole new cycle that could end violently. 'You're thinking too far ahead, bro...' He breathed to clear his mind. "Coffee. Have coffee with me."
His confidence fascinated her; he was telling her to go, not asking her, as if expecting that she would accept his offer. The color of his eyes took her breath away. One corner of Relena's mouth subtly tilted upwards. "My mama told me never to go places with a person whose name I do not know."
"Heero." At his reply, she noticed another thing about him: his eyes were extremely expressive. What his face and his voice seemed to lack, his eyes made up for. That moment, they were pleading for her to go.
"Well, Heero..." Her cautious words and tone led Relena to look at the straps of her backpack, a silent reminder that she needed to see the math tutor for help. Then she looked at Heero and his blue eyes. Internal conflicts really do suck.
'Grin and bear it. And just do it.'
Relena smiled. "Yes. I will. Where will we be going?"
Heero sighed of relief, though it passed on as an exhale. "Somewhere else, but not in the campus center. The coffee there tastes like socks."
With blatant disregard for the absolute rule of silence, Relena laughed. Then again, the librarian was too immersed in her novel to have heard the sound.