Read His Mind | ✓

Chapter 8

"What did you say?" He couldn't possibly know something that I've only just found out recently. I must have heard him wrong.

"I didn't say anything," he said nonchalantly with his emotionless eyes.

I couldn't help but feel relieved to hear him deny it, but at the same time, I was skeptical. "You really didn't?"

"No, I didn't." He showed no signs that he was lying.

Was it his thoughts that I heard then? I tried to read him to see if it was, but just like all the other times, there was nothing to hear. I'll just have to believe that he was telling the truth. "Oh sorry, I must've imagined it."

"Well we should get started on the project." Benson took out a laptop of his own from his backpack and turned it on. "Didn't you say that we had a time limit?"

"Oh shoot!" What I thought I heard him ask totally made me forget that we were given only 3 hours. "So what was our idea again?" I remember that it was something about going back in time or something?

"You suggested that a guy falls in love with a girl in the past," Benson said, looking at his laptop. "What do you want to name the characters?"

"Just give them our names. Mrs. Park did say that we were the actors for the story. No need to waste time picking names," I said as I typed in our names.

"How should we start it?"

"Um..."

He placed his laptop carefully on the ground and sat down next to me. "Don't use Microsoft Word. I won't be able see what you're typing," he explained before I could ask.

"I'll create a new Google Docs then and invite-" I started to say when he interrupted.

"You don't need to. I can just sit over here and work beside you."

"Fine, do what you like." I scooted over an inch or two away from him because he was too close. I felt really uncomfortable around guys. It took me a few weeks to get comfortable talking with Calvin before we actually dated.

To my disbelief, he moved scooted along with me.

"Why are you doing that?"

"Doing what?" he asked.

"You're in my personal bubble." I gestured wildly around me, pointing at how there wasn't a distance between us.

"I need to sit close to you or else I won't be able to see the screen."

"You hold the laptop then." I lifted my laptop off my lap and handed it to him. "You good now?"

Benson nodded.

"Okay let's continue. We should make the main guy find a magic coin and when he flips it in the air, he'll find himself transported into the past. It'll be in the 1900's. The girl will be...."

We diligently worked on writing the script for the next hour.

At 4:30, we were finally finished. I clicked for 2 copies and pressed "print" with a wide smile on my face. The Samsung printer beside my desk made a whirring sound before a paper was sucked inside. It came out a few seconds later with typed writing on it. I grabbed it and handed one to Benson. "We don't have enough time to rehearse. We need to begin recording." I walked over to my bookcase and took out a silver camcorder from a box. I was a bit worried if it would still work since it was pretty old. Fortunately, the small screen lit up when I pressed the power button.

Another hour flew by as we recorded our scenes. We both had some NG's but it was still pretty good. It was pretty awkward doing the romantic scenes, but I still went along with it without complaints because we were already running out of time.

"Done!" I turned off the camcorder and stretched my back. Man, I was so tired. This was even harder than doing my homework. "Since we're finished, you can go now. I'll edit the video and put it on a flash drive for next Monday."

"Okay." He packed his things up and I walked him down the stairs and to the front door. I opened it and we exchanged our goodbyes.

I couldn't help but stand there and watch him as he walked away. I would've stood there longer if my mom didn't suddenly pop up from behind me.

"Do you have a crush on that boy, Abbie?" she asked, watching Benson leave too. "He seems like a nice boy. If you were to date him, I'll agree."

"Mom!"

"Let's go in, dinner's ready." She left me standing there and headed to the kitchen. I shut the door and followed behind me.

  ◈ ◈ ◈  

Next Monday- day of presentation in Creative Writing class...

I walked into 1st period nervously. My hands were sweaty no matter how much times I wiped it on my jeans. Even though we weren't presenting, it still made me anxious. I sat down at my desk and took out the flash drive with our video on it. I closed my eyes and prayed that we would do good on it. That nothing bad would happen.

"Okay class, today is the due day!" Mrs. Park announced brightly. "If you are doing it live, I will choose a scene from your script and you'll only act that out since we only have one class period to do this. If you're playing a video, we'll just watch the first 5-10 minutes of it," she explained.

The class didn't say anything due to their nervousness I guess.

"We'll start off with... Samuel and Lucy!"

3 pairs later, our turn came. "Benson and Abbie," Mrs. Park read off from her clipboard. "It's your turn."

We got up and walked up to the front of the class. I could feel their eyes on me. It was so nerve wracking.

"Are you guys doing it live or is it pre-recorded?" Mrs. Park asked.

"Pre-recorded," Benson and I said at the same time.

"Do you have a flash drive?" she asked. I went over to her podium where she was sitting and handed it to her. She plugged it into her MacBook and I watched her open my flash drive's folder. "Where's the video? I don't see it," she said, looking at me.

I tried looking for it, but it really wasn't there. I clearly put it in there last night though, why wasn't it there?? "I-It was here, I put it in there last night," I stammered.

"You two will have to perform it live then otherwise I have no other choice but to give you both a 0," she frowned. "What do you choose to do?"