You guys totally have the right to hate me and I'm sorry. For some reason, I suddenly have a life thing and I've been really busy but I'm not giving up on this story so no matter how long the updates take (which I hope won't be as long as this) I'll still update so don't worry.
I walked out of the office wanting to throw my new schedule away as I suddenly had a language. I tried a language in fourth grade and it only ended up with me having to pee constantly when we had to say can we use the bathroom in French to go and I couldn't. Needless to say, I was ecstatic when a language wasn't a class that was required at my old school. But that all went downhill when I found out that I had to take a language to graduate at Degrassi.
I tried to walk as slow as I could to the French class, sitting down on the benches in the hallways a few times, considering I had to reason to be late and there was no expiration on the lateness. But I still had to get to class eventually so I finally decided it was no use in wasting more time and found my way to French.
As I walked in, I felt like I was a freshman all over again, considering I was in a class with all freshman. They all looked up at me as I handed the teacher my note. I prayed and hoped that she wouldn't try to introduce me to the class like all teachers do but of course, she followed them and did.
"Class," anyone who wasn't looking up at me, joined in unison with the people who were, "This is Summer Mitchell, she'll be joining us for French this year. Say Bonjour to Summer!"
"Bonjour Summer." They all said, mostly all in monotone voices, which I couldn't blame them for. I wouldn't be all excited to say hi to the new kid either.
"You can sit next to Campbell Saunders." She said, pointing at him as if I didn't know him. Even though she wouldn't have known anyway but happily, I walked over to sit next to him.
I sat down eagerly as I finally had a class without someone I knew already. Well, I didn't know know him but I was familiar with him and I'd take that over sitting next to a stranger any day.
"Hey Robin." He whispered, as the teacher turned around to write something on the board.
"You don't understand how happy I am that you're in this class." I whispered back, pulling out a copybook and a pen from my backpack, "Also, I didn't know you were a freshman."
"Well, technically you didn't know what grade I was in so I could've been in any grade but I'm not a freshman, I'm a sophomore. I just have to take a language so I'm here." He shrugged, "And you?"
"Senior. Luckily, never took a language, but as always the luck ran out and now I'm sitting here, in a class which I'm bound to fail." I said, writing down what I could from the board but no comprehending any of what I was writing.
"Well, your luck isn't that bad." He said. I looked at him waiting for the part that wasn't that bad considering this class would probably bring my entire grade down and I had to get into a good college next year or I'd be shunned by my entire family. He finally answered, "Well, I mean, I'm in here. So obviously it isn't as bad as it could be."
"I don't why I didn't think of that!" I said with the best noncomical surprised expression I could pull which had actually turned out comical as Cam had broken into a fit of compressed laughter, which as everyone knows is the hardest laughter because you're trying to hide it.
As always, once Cam laughed, I laughed too. As we were laughing, to me, it didn't sound that loud but as people started turning around to look at us, I realized we probably would have been disqualified if we were on Silent Library. The teacher turned around and looked at us, causing us both of die down on the laughter as fast as we could. To avoid not laughing again, I avoided looking at Cam as a whole.
"Do I already have to move you, Ms. Mitchell?" she asked, causing everyone including the people who weren't looking at us the first time to turn around and stare at me. I could feel my face getting red as the attention was on me.
I shifted in my seat a little then answered, "Nope. I'm fine. Won't happen again."
She gave the eye that every teacher does that basically says 'you better not'. Then she turned back around to continue writing on the board and the class, or rather the audience, turned around with her to copy what she was writing again. I looked over at Cam with wide eyes and we chuckled just slightly enough so that only we heard, then finally started to take notes and listen.
When the bell rang, we both got out of our seats quickly with the rest of the class. As we were walking out, I stopped Cam and said, "Please tell me you're good at French or foreign languages in general."
He smiled and I felt relieved, "I'm not the best but I'm pretty good, I'll be able to help you."
We said bye to each other as we split apart to go to different sides of the school. I walked to my locker to put my new French textbook in my locker and as someone slid up the locker next to me to mine, I had already knew, or hoped I knew, who it was. I looked up and my instinct was right. Eli was standing there, smirking down at me. I thought things would be awkward after the almost kiss that happened but surprisingly, I didn't feel awkward at all.
"So, that essay, of course you're finished right?" he asked, as I stood up.
My eyes went wide as I realized I had forgotten all about the essay that we had to present today. I knew what I wanted to write, I was just so busy doing nothing that I forgot to write it. And her class was next period. I had no time to write it unless I-
I looked at Eli and as he smirked happily as me, it was almost like he hoped I had forgotten about it so that he'd have someone to skip with, which was a very plausible explanation. The amount that I didn't want to skip class was enormous but it was overwhelmed by how I'd feel if I went into Dawes' class and didn't have something to present.
We sat in the computer lab as I quickly finished typing up my essay as the bell was about to ring in a few minutes. Eli sat next to me spinning around in the chair, looking as bored as anyone could possibly get. I felt frustrated as I kept typing things that I was sure wouldn't make sense to anyone else and even though Eli had said that was what Dawes wanted, that wasn't logical to me. I mean, if I'm writing something, I want the listener to understand the exact point I'm trying to bring across.
Before I could tear myself to shreds in my head to the point where I'd want to erase the whole paper and start again, I printed it out after going over it with spell check. I grabbed the paper from the printer as the bell rang and exited out of the document before grabbing Eli out the chair and pulling him out the class along with me.
"Someone's excited to get to class." Eli said, walking faster to catch up with me.
"Excited, no. Trying to get this crappy essay presentation out the way without the added pressure of being late, yes." I said, walking even faster.
Eli stopped abruptly, grabbing my arm and pulling me back. My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding horribly fast as it always did before presentations in front of people. He looked down at my hands and shook his head.
"You need to calm down." He said, looking me in the eyes as he put his hands on my shoulders, "It's just an essay. It's good. If the rest of them don't believe that, then who gives a shit? They aren't writing for you, you are. If it makes sense to you, then it's good and that's all that matters. If you keep hyping it up, you're just going to exaggerate it more and not know what to say while you're up there. Just take deep breaths, look at the ground occasionally if you feel too much pressure. Or look at me the whole time. Just don't make it a huge deal. It's everyone's first essay this year, no one's is going to be perfect, okay?" He stared at me, refusing to look away until I gave him a response.
I took a deep breath in and sighed out, "Okay."
"You'll be alright, Smitchell, I know you will."
We walked into the class, just a few seconds before the late bell rang. Almost everyone was in class, probably afraid of the same thing as me. The wrath of Ms. Dawes after being late on a presentation day. I sat down, clutching my hands together tightly, making them turn clammy. I wiped them off on my jeans, hoping it'd go away but as more and more people presented and the chance of me having to go up there increased, so did the clamminess in my hands.
"Next," Ms. Dawes said, scanning the room for the next contender. I held my head down, hoping she'd look over me like everyone normally did but the odds weren't in my favor as I felt her stare stop at me, "Ms. Mitchell."
I cursed repeatedly under my breath as I stood up to walk to the front. I wiped my hands on my jeans once more and picked up my paper and walked to the front of the room. I looked down at the scratches on my gray Doc Martens that I never paid attention to before but suddenly was so interesting. Finally, I gained just enough courage to overwhelm my fright and looked up at the class, specifically at Eli who mouthed, "It's good" with a thumbs up for added encouragement.
I took one last deep breath and began with the first line.
"A question I hear every day is 'are you okay?'. People ask you this all the time, most frequently, when they can't read your expression or when that expression is one that isn't happy." I took another deep breath as I could feel myself stuttering as the nerves were becoming more and more noticeable. I wiped my hands on my jeans again and shifted the foot I was leaning more on, then I continued, "But don't you ever wonder why people ask this? Is it because they care or because they want to think they care? If you weren't okay, that wouldn't affect them directly. They'd feel bad, of course, as any decent person would, but they wouldn't not be okay because you weren't okay, so why ask? Maybe it's because they wanted to feel like they did something. You weren't okay so to make myself seem more nicer or more caring, I'll ask if you're okay because you're crying. I could have asked if you wanted to talk or if you needed a friend but no, I only asked if you were okay because that's all I cared about. I didn't care why you were crying or why your head was down because that's more effort for me to make sure you're okay. I just wanted to know if you were okay. Then again, is anyone ever just okay? You could be happy, you could be sad, you could be tired but no one is ever just okay. No one ever has no emotion at all unless they're medicated in some cases. But we all have feelings. Our feelings are based on our ability to hide things from ourselves and lie about things to ourselves. You can say you're happy, but that could only be because you refuse to think about the time you felt like you'd never be happy. You can say you're depressed, but that could only be because you refuse to find good in anything. You can say you're confident, but that could only be because you hid that time you used to stare in the mirror and want to puke because of what you saw. So, are you okay?"
I stared down at my shoes, scared to look up into the sea of unfamiliar faces and expressions that were unknown to me. No one clapped until Ms. Dawes started slowly clapping and the class began to start with her. Finally, thinking I didn't fail I looked up and started to walk back to my seat when Ms. Dawes stopped me.
"Ms. Mitchell, where did your inspiration for this essay come from?"
"I guess when you're quiet and unnoticed, you see things that are unnoticed."
Okay, so far this story is kinda slow but I promise it will become #swaggy in no time okay? And if you could, review and let me know what you think ok I'm sorry for not updating in a while ily guys.