Mona

Rafael smiled and waved at me, heading back the way we came down the hallway. It was so sweet that he wanted to walk me to class, even though we both knew it was a little out of his way, but he insisted, and of course, I’d take any excuse to stare into his gorgeous green eyes for as long as possible. 

Those are the kind of eyes I always wanted-- green. My older sister has these really light blue, almost grey eyes. I always thought I wanted that, but there was something so warm about having dark eyes, and the deep green he had was just the perfect shade. He looked over his shoulder to me once more before rounding the corner. I could feel the butterflies rumbling in my stomach a little, but it was time to get back to reality and head into class.

It was the first day of a new semester, which, for me, meant new electives. I always struggled a bit with deciding where my passions lie. If I had actually stuck out “Intro to Art” freshman year, maybe I could be in “Advanced Painting” or “Ceramics 3” by now, but of course I had to jump around from art to theatre to journalism to film and so on. At this point, I was sure I was just committed to learning a little bit about everything than being good at one thing, which is why the second semester of junior year brought me to the door of Mr. Howard’s creative writing class.

The door was swung open, and as I entered, Mr. Howard had a stack of syllabuses on a stool to grab and a seating chart projected on the white board.

The room was arranged in two semi-circles with trapezoidal desks interlaced to form an outer and inner curve, all facing a single podium at the front. This was definitely a class designed for presentations.

I scanned the board for my name which was at end of the outer curve, in the front corner of the room opposite the door. I readjusted my shoulder strap on my bag to sit a little more comfortably and headed to my seat, glancing around to see if there was anyone else familiar in the class. It didn’t seem that way. This was one unfortunate side effect of taking a new class every semester-- new people, and more often than not, classes filled with freshman and sophomores because they, well, these were introductory classes after all.

I settled into my seat, resting my copy of the syllabus on the desk in front on me and looked at the open chair beside me. I wondered who would sit there, or if whoever my deskmate would be had already dropped the class.

Grabbing a pencil from the front pocket of my bag, I looked back up, that’s when I noticed. A thin character, with brown hair curling up and around his ears, and a pair of thin wire framed glasses casting a glare over his eyes. Sam. 

I’d done a particularly good job of avoiding him since the kiss two years ago in Leta’s basement. I told him, in no uncertain terms, that he absolutely had to delete the post. He said he did, and I couldn’t see it anymore, and that was about it for us. I started taking my lunch with another group of friends, we stopped texting all the time and by the time summer came around, we were as good as strangers. That’s not to say it wasn’t an adjustment. It definitely was. It’s hard to lose a friend that way, but it was for the best and I’d been doing well since then. I wondered if he could say the same.

It wasn’t until he excused himself and turned sideways to slide behind my chair that I realized he was going to be my deskmate. I glanced back up at the board, and glimpsed my name, Desdemona M., right next to Tafelski S.

There was a brief moment of silence in the shuffle as Sam took his seat beside me. He set his syllabus down as well, and uttered, “Hi, Mona,” just as the bell rang.

Mr. Howard was an insanely tall man, of course, most people were tall compared to me at only five feet tall (maybe add an inch on a good day.) His hair always seemed to skim the top of the projector mounted only a few inches above the whiteboard. He gave the typical “cool teacher on the first day of school” speech about how he hates reading the syllabus and how boring this day is, but he has to do it. I followed along, flipping through the pages of our syllabus packet, and by the time we’d reached the end, there were about fifteen minutes left in class.

“Now,” Mr. Howard began, shuffling through some papers at the podium, “We’re going to do an ice breaker.” The class groaned in response, and Mr. Howard chuckled as he dropped a counted stack of papers at the end of the inner circle, and then dropped another counted stack at me while continuing his direction, “You’re going to pair up in twos with the people next to you, and using this questionnaire to get to know each other, you’re going to write an acrostic poem about your partner. Acrostics, if you don’t know, are something you’ve probably done in the past.”

He clicked his clicker, and the slide adjusted to an example of two acrostic poems, both spelling out his name. “The one on the left,”, he began, is probably something you’ve seen or done in the past. One-word descriptors for each letter.”

Honest

Opportunist

Wacky

Artistic

Robust

Dorky

“On the right, however,” he continued, “We can see something a bit more complete. You can stretch the lines as long as you need to tell the class what you’ve learned about your partner.”

 

Happiest

Objectively

When students

Arrive to class

Ready to

Dive into learning.

 

Mr. Howard seemed proud of his little joke, and I, along with a handful of others, gave him a half-pity, half-serious chuckle. I could tell I was going to like him, but I just wasn’t sure about the Sam of it all.

“Let’s get started! You have about twelve minutes, feel free to write in whichever style you feel most confident in, and let me know if you have any questions!” Mr. Howard began a slow stroll around the room, which I watched briefly before turning my head to Sam who had already begun filling in the answers on the questionnaire.

I noticed he seemed to be avoiding eye contact with me. I knew I was doing the same, but also… man this was awkward. Our classmates in the inner circle in front of us were talking and laughing and working diligently. My only other option seemed to be to talk to the wall on the other side of me. That class was going to be really uncomfortable if one of us didn’t start talking pretty soon.

I guessed I just had to bite the bullet. It had been years, after all. People change, and really, it had been a while since I’d thought about it. Maybe he was over it too, and we could just move on? Wouldn’t that be a lot more gratifying than asking for a change in seat or switching out of the class entirely? Wouldn’t that be the mature thing to do?

“You know,” I started hesitantly. He stopped writing to focus on my words while   I milked the long pause between us. “It’s been almost two years.”

Another pause stretched out my phrases. It felt almost too long as I waited for him to finally look at me.

“I know I’ve changed a lot, and…” another, smaller pause, “I’m ready to move on from whatever happened in the past.”

Sam’s eyes finally met mine. I held his gaze for a long moment, it was like he was analyzing me, perhaps checking that I was sincere?

“I don’t see any benefit in holding a grudge, Sam,” I said, earnestly. I felt myself holding my breath, waiting for his reply. It came so quickly, I almost missed it. He averted his eyes quickly and gave a single nod.

“Yeah,” he said with a small smile, “Let’s move on.”

I felt a sigh of relief in my gut as the threat of confrontation ebbed away. The olive branch was accepted. Was now a good time to joke around? The clock on the wall read that there were about seven minutes left in class.

“Well, I think we already know a fair bit about each other, so I’m thinking something like this?” I scribbled his name out on the back of the questionnaire.

 

Super

Amazing

Mind

 

“I thought about going with “Smart” for the S, but this killed three letters with one stone,” I offered a weak chuckle as I attempted to ease a bit more tension.

Sam smiled a little bigger, looking a bit more genuine, and began filling in my name. I watched as he carefully picked his words until the page finally read:

 

Marvelously

Open.

Newly

Appreciated.

I couldn’t help but smile as well.

“Alright class, we have only two minutes left to wrap up. Don’t lose these, we’ll present them tomorrow to get to know the rest of our classmates.”

I felt my cheeks flush as I looked down at the lazy writing in front of me. I made a noise of distaste and confessed, “I’m going to have to rewrite this. Yours is way better.” I breathed a self-deprecating laugh.

“Don’t worry about it,” he answered, “It’s the first day, no one’s can be that good.”

I nodded, “Still, I think I can beef up the vocabulary a little.”

Sam shrugged, and the bell rang as I began erasing the three words.

“You know,” he started, almost mimicking the way I’d spoke only a few minutes earlier, “If we’re going to be friends again, or,” he scrambled to think of another way to phrase it, “at least, “cool” again, or whatever…” he trailed off, not certain how to finish.

“You want to hang out sometime?” It was partly a guess, and partly an offer.

“Yes, we should hang out sometime. Or at least get lunch and catch up?”

“I actually just got moved into sixth period lunch if you want to eat together?” I offered.

“Me too! So, lunch tomorrow then? I eat in cafeteria two,” He explained as they packed their bags and headed out the open doorway.

“I’ve been eating in cafe one, but I’ll find you in two tomorrow,” I said. “Where are you off to now?”

“Math,” he explained.

“Ah, gym.” I answered the question he didn’t ask.

“Then I guess this is where we separate,” he noted as we stood outside the door.

“I guess so,” I nodded, “But we’ll come back together tomorrow.” I said with a pleasant tone. Maybe people do change, and things could be better. It felt so good to reconnect with an old friend, and truly start fresh.