Before long, it was Monday again. In my opinion, weekends were never long enough. On the contrary, school weeks were always too long. It should be the other way around..., I thought to myself as I sat in my homeroom class, daydreaming about what it would be like to have a five-day weekend and two days of school every week instead. I guess I'll actually get that in college though...well...it won't be too long now.... Even if I had been paying attention, I doubted I would have understood everything the teacher wrote on the board. There were so many equations on there already, but that didn't stop the teacher from writing more as if her life depended on it. I'd already zoned out through about half the class, so I didn't bother taking notes on any of it. Instead, I simply decided I would try to learn it on my own later, and if that failed, well, that'd teach me to zone out in class. Oh well...back to daydreaming, I suppose. As I was doing so, I found myself looking around the classroom.

To my surprise, Nathaniel was sitting just a few rows over. Apparently, he had this class too. So now I'm sharing a class with Nathaniel? Okay...this is getting a bit awkward.... Still, maybe it was a good thing. I mean, if Nathaniel and I had a class together, it means we might get a chance to talk more. So, once class was over, I decided to stop Nathaniel before he left the room. I didn't blame him for being mad at me after everything I'd done to him, so I had reservations about trying to talk to him. Still, I didn't want this tension to last forever – I had to try. "Hi," I said to him with a smile, hoping he would be a little nicer today.

"What do you want?" He replied, as coldly as before. It was a bit disappointing, but I expected as much.

"H-How are you doing today?"

"What does it matter to you?"

"Well, its just that...I would like us to be civil again. It's obvious that we're gonna keep running into each other, so–"

Before I could finish my sentence, Nathaniel quickly pushed into the crowd of our classmates and walked away. Well...so much for "civil".... As I walked through the hallways to my next class, I thought about ways to repair things with Nathaniel. However, no matter how much I struggled to think of something, nothing came to mind. I was so deep in thought about it that even though I was looking straight ahead of me, I didn't notice someone coming my way...fast. I tried to dodge, but I was too late and they bumped into me.

"Oww...why does this keep happening to me?"

"Oh, sorry! Didn't see ya there."

I looked up to see another student, probably rushing to get to his class. I immediately stood up and started to apologize for not paying attention (again), only to be interrupted with–

"No, no! It's not your fault; I was the one who was running in the halls. So what's your name?"

"Um...Julia. Nice to meet you...?"

"Julia...?" He paused for a moment. "Nah. I think I'm gonna call you Skittles."

"What? Skittles? Why Skit–"

"Oops, I'm late! Gotta run, see ya later, Skittles!"

And then he ran off. I stood there for a moment, confused at what had just happened. What is going on with people this year? Whatever the case, I had forgotten what I was thinking about earlier, so I shrugged it off and continued on my way to class. For the rest of the day, I repeatedly kept remembering and forgetting about my conversation with Nathaniel. Every time I moved between classes, I would start focusing on it, but as soon as class actually started, I'd forget it all over again. I was beginning to lose hope that I would ever think of something nice to do for him. Then, during floral design, I suddenly got an idea.

That's it! I'll make him a nice bouquet of flowers. Everyone likes flowers, right?

With that idea in mind, I immediately set my mind on building the perfect bouquet with as many different flowers as were available to us. Unfortunately, today wasn't a project day, so I had to gather my materials secretly while Mrs. Hana was out of the room. It took me the rest of that class (and some of the next one) to finish my gift for Nathaniel, but I knew it was going to be worth it. All I had to do now was figure out when I'd have a chance to give it to him. After all, it was nearing the end of the day, and there were hundreds of students in the school. I tried my best to look for him in the halls between each remaining class, but to no avail. Funnily enough, I did see him in P.E. too. However, he didn't join in with the rest of us. Instead, while we were running laps, he just sat on the bleachers and read a book. Is he even allowed to do that?, I wondered. Why isn't the coach getting involved? I was going to give him the bouquet as soon as we were done, but when I looked over again, he was gone. I assumed he had left sometime during class, which was honestly very much unlike him. But then, I knew he hadn't really been himself lately. Regardless, I was determined to give him my gift; I'd worked too hard to give up on it now. By the time I got out of the gym, the hallways were already flooded. I pushed my way through, losing hope every second I didn't see him. After searching for several minutes, I finally found him at his locker.

"Nathaniel!" I huffed, trying to catch my breath after having rushed to get there. However, he didn't say anything, just closed his locker and walked away. "Hey, I'm talking to you!" I yelled, catching up to him as quickly as I could, placing my hand on his shoulder.

"What? WHAT?!" Nathaniel snapped as he turned towards me, his face seething with anger.

"I just...wanted to give you these." I said, smiling at him before handing him the flowers.

"That's it? You wasted my time for this? What even is this?"

"It's a bouquet. I made it for you."

"Wait a minute," he said, clearly not listening to me, "are these daisies? I'm allergic to daisies!"

"Wha, r-really...?"

"Yes, really!" He screamed at me, slamming the bouquet onto the ground. "And if you had ever bothered to ask me anything about myself back then, you would know that! You never cared about me, so don't pretend like you care now!"

"But–"

"Go away. Just go away and leave me alone! I don't wanna talk to you, I don't even wanna SEE you, so take your death trap flowers and just...go."

"...Okay..." I replied sadly as I picked the bouquet off the ground and walked away.

As I was leaving the school, I found myself distracted again. Not only did Nathaniel not like my gift, he hated it. And maybe it was my fault; how could I blindly make him a gift without considering it might actually hurt him? Who was I kidding? This was all my fault. How would I reconcile with him now? Still, I was proud of the bouquet I made. I didn't want it to go to waste, so I thought I would take it home and set it in some water there. However, upon reaching the entrance of the school, I felt somebody push me from behind. Before I knew what was happening, I found myself tumbling down the stone staircase all the way to the ground. "Owwwwww!" I cried, looking down to see blood spilling from my knees and shins. I knew it had to have been Capucine who pushed me; no one else was that cruel. "My flowers!" I exclaimed, as she ruthlessly stomped on the bouquet, confirming my suspicions. I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched it fall apart with each step. I tried to get up, but the pain was too much for me to bear. "Owwwowowowow!" I yelped, kneeling further to the ground.

"Hahaha! Later, loser!" She cackled once more before walking away.

At that moment, I saw a shadow walking towards me. "Oh my god, are you okay?"

"Yup..." I muttered. "I'm fine...just fine..." I wasn't, but I had to stop relying on people to help me up when I fell. Of course, that didn't stop the white-haired girl from helping me up anyway and taking me back inside to the school nurse's office. She even waited until the nurse had finished bandaging my wounds so we could walk back out together.

"So uh...thanks for helping me."

"Oh, it's no problem!" She replied with a bright smile. "Those wounds looked nasty. If you don't mind me asking, what happened?"

"Oh, nothing..." I trailed off, looking away. "...just some idiot bully."

"Oh god, that's terrible, I'm so sorry. Were those your flowers on the ground there?"

"Yeah..." I sighed. "They were."

"Well, I'm sorry they had to suffer that terrible fate. What, or dare I ask who were they for?" She grinned at me, obviously begging for a reply. I didn't have any reason to hide it, so I told her they were for a friend, but that they didn't take it well.

"Oh dear, that's awful. And they were such pretty flowers too. I'm sorry, I know how it feels to be rejected."

I immediately turned my head back towards her. "Rejected? Oh, no, no. It wasn't like that. Well...I guess it was...but in a different sort of way."

"Oh, sweetie...there is no 'different sort of way.' There's only one way, and that way didn't work. But don't feel bad! There are still plenty of fish in the sea!"

"But...that's not–!"

"Welp, I'd better get going now! My boyfriend doesn't like when I stay out too late. Oh, but where are my manners? I forgot to introduce myself! My name is Rosalya. What's yours?"

"Julia." I replied quietly. "It's nice to meet you, Rosalya."

"Julia...? That's interesting... Well anyway, see you later!"

Then she walked off, almost skipping. I wonder what has her so happy...and what did she mean by "interesting?", I thought to myself as I walked home. My name was interesting? The fact that she thought that in and of itself was interesting; however, it probably wasn't too important, so I told myself not to worry about it. Depressed about everything else that'd happened that day, I decided to call Jasmine as soon as I got home. Maybe she could offer me some support.

"WHAT?!" She shouted over the phone after I told her what happened to my flowers. "HOW DARE THEY?!"

Now, Jasmine didn't get passionate about too much, but the two things that did set her off were animals and flowers. "Well, as it turns out, Nathaniel's allergic to daisies...oops. As for Capucine, she's just a jerk; you know this." I tried to explain this to calm her down a little bit, but it didn't work at all.

"I will CUT THEM. You hear me? CUT THEM. ….But only a little bit, cause I dun wanna get in trouble."

That made me laugh. "So, like...a papercut?"

"YES!" She yelled back, laughing. "EXACTLY like a papercut. I'm gonna give them ALL the papercuts in the WORLD! MUAAHHAAHHAHAHA!"

"Haha, okay well you do that."

I stayed on the phone with Jasmine while I did my homework. It was so much fun talking to her about dumb things that I only hung up when I absolutely had to go to bed. After all, school would be even less pleasant if I didn't get any sleep. Thankfully, our conversation cheered me up a little, and I was able to sleep without too many thoughts rotating in my head.

….What? ….I can't just shut all of them off. ^w^'