American literature - 1st period

“Ok listen up class, I’m giving you all an assignment that’s going to be worth half your grade for the semester.”

WHAT? UGHHH!

But wait, we’re going to change it up a little this time. Every one of you in this class has something that everybody else can learn from , so for this assignment you’re pairing up and working on a joint essay.

EVEN WORSE.

I hate working in groups because I’ve only even been paired with people who either expect me to do all the work or do such a shit job that I end up having to do all the work anyway to save both our butts and get a decent grade.

I subtly scan the room trying to find a partner that wouldn’t give me much trouble. My eyes fall to Grayson on my far left. Grayson was an ex of mine that lasted longer than most, we got along great but it turns out that we were nothing more than good friends. I knew that he’d be someone who pulled his own weight and would make this assignment the least painful experience.

I caught his attention and just as I was about to mouth “partners?” to him, Mrs Jones smacked a ruler on the table making us all jump.  “Before you all so conveniently pair up with your friends, I’m letting you know that the aim of this task is to learn from people that you DON’T usually hang out with. It’ll give you a new perspective of the texts that we’re studying because everyone reads and interprets things differently.  And therefore Iwill be pairing you up.”

ARGH. Lord help me.

As she went through the list of pairs, I zoned out, trying to think of a way to fix this. I suddenly heard my name called out but my partner’s had been called first and I didn’t catch who it was.

“What?” I say

“Ryan Haywood and Ava Maxwell” Mrs Jones repeated.

“WHO?”

“Ryan Haywood. Miss Maxwell do you need to get your hearing checked? I fear you may be DEAF“ said Mrs Jones, shouting the last word  for effect. And what an annoying effect it was.

“When, where ,why, how and feelings, Mrs Jones. I was only testing to see if YOU were up to date with the essay structure.” That was my lame come back but it got that smirk off her face and the class laughing.

“Always the witty remark Ava, but touché and nice save.” She said with a knowing smile. Hey, at least she had a sense of humour.

But back to the assignment, Haywood, Haywood, it sounded so familiar but our school had hundreds of kids so I couldn’t be sure. We were only 4 or 5 weeks into the school year and I wasn’t really familiar with my classmates…not that I really pay attention though. Eheh.

I swear I’ve seen it written down somewhere before…OH DAMN! Ryan Haywood was the kid who beat me on last year’s American Lit exam! Before then I’d always been number one and I guess I never bothered to look at who was in 2nd place until BAM the bastard’s name appears above mine.

CURSES! I’m dreading this already! This guy was probably some snobby nerd who would be all condescending and shit because he beat me before. Well Mr Smarty-pants it won’t happen again! During my little interior monologue I was looking around the room for this goody-two shoes but I couldn’t see anyone that matched my mental image.

“Ahem” someone clearing their throat behind me caught my attention. I was in the second last row looking for a teacher’s pet who would be sitting up the front so it didn’t even occur to me to look behind to the back row.

I turned around only to be mesmerised by the most beautiful blue eyes I had ever seen, framed by adorkable square ‘nerdy’ glasses that had the exact opposite effect of ‘nerdy’ on this guy. Managing to tear my eyes away from his, I surveyed the rest of him. And f*** did I like what I saw. His short dirty-blonde hair was styled to perfection in that just-got-out-of-bed-but-my-hair-is-still-perf -lol-you jelly? kind of way that is actually REALLY hard to achieve (I’ve seen so many guys who have failed. Terribly.) He had this charming and boyish yet masculine face with the cheekbones of a Greek god statue and although his clothes weren’t completely my style, the preppy collared shirt and thin sweater he wore, stretched taut against his hidden muscular arms and sturdy straight shoulders.

My heart sped up and suddenly skipped a beat. WTF it literally skipped a beat! I’d better have heart arrhythmia or something because this is just too corny to be real!

Realising that he was beginning to realise I was staring, I schooled my expression to my normal cool and collected appearance as I wondered who this smokin’ hot nerd was.

“Um Hi, I’m Ryan. Ryan Haywood, your partner for this assignment.” Says adorkable glasses guy.

OH SHIT. I forgot I was supposed to be hating this Haywood guy, but hot stuff over here got me distracted.

“Oh um yeah, I’m –“

“Ava, I know.” He said smiling while looking down momentarily.  F*** my ovaries just exploded, his lashes were so long and thick and beautiful.  “You’re locker’s three down from mine.” He added, looking back up.

“Oh really?” I said awkwardly, thinking about how on earth I could have missed this guy if he was basically 10 feet away.

“Yeah but I always get to school early to do some stuff before class starts so you probably wouldn’t see me very often.” He replied with an even bigger smile that instantly melted the awkwardness I had felt for not remembering him.

DING DING DING DING DING rang the bell and everyone was gathering their books at the speed of light to get out of class before Mrs Jones chained them to their desks or something.

I packed up my books and was just about to get up from my seat when I heard a voice I dreaded “Not so fast Ms Maxwell, I’ve got a few things to talk to you about.”

I groaned and rolled my eyes while Ryan chuckled, bringing my attention back to him as he was about to leave,

“I guess I’ll be seeing you around then Ava,” A shiver travelled down my spine as he said my name with his soft, husky voice.

“Miss Maxwell, I take it that you’re not so devastated about my choice of partner for you?” asked Mrs Jones with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“Mrs Jones you’ve taught me for like 3 years now, can you just call me Ava!”

“Okay, okay, I get it Ava” she said with her eyes wide and hands up in mock surrender. “I just wanted to let you know that you and Ryan are my best students in American Lit and that’s the reason why I paired you together.”

Best student huh? That made me feel pretty good hearing those words coming from such a hard marker like Mrs Jones.

“It’s not because I wanted to punish you or anything by weighing you down with a partner that might not do their fair share, I actually purposely designed this task so that you guys could work together.”

I kept listening, intrigued and for once without any comebacks or retaliations.

“You two have a lot to learn from each other because while you’re exceptional at understanding the ideas and meaning of the books, you don’t work nearly enough with the language which is what Literature is all about. As for Mr Haywood, he’s a real genius when it comes to unpacking the language and its effect on the reader, but he lacks a holistic interpretation of the concepts and notions of the books; how everything fits together. “

She paused for a bit and I took that as my cue to leave.  But just as I reached the door, she called out one last thing:

 “Give him a chance Ava. I guarantee that he’ll change the way you see things, as you will change his perspective too.”

“I think you’ll make a great pair.” She said with a genuine smile that lit up her usually stern features.

And for some reason, I got the feeling that there was another meaning hidden intrinsically in her words.
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Ryan's such a cutie <3
Comment below if you like the story so far!
Cerise xx