Hope

Chapter 16

Isaiah 65:19 (ESV) -- "I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress."

Drew whispered gibberish into my right ear while I tried to listen to Kaitlyn's voice coming through my phone on the other side of my face. I elbowed him away from me, tilting the phone away from my face. Laughing, I asked, "Can you let me be while Kaitlyn goes over this paper with me? I need to make my revisions before I turn it in."

I focused back on the phone call. "Kaitlyn, what were you saying about the third page?" I asked, scrolling down to her location. I watched her highlight a sentence on the document.

"Okay, you see how you used a comma to separate your thoughts in this sentence? Since both fragments could stand alone, using the comma is–"

"A comma slice, I know," I groaned.

"Yep. You've got them scattered throughout the paper. I caught this one right away, but make sure you get the rest."

"How was my conclusion paragraph? I think it was short compared to the rest of the paper and even my thesis."

"Yeah, I agree." The call went silent as I imagined Kaitlyn rereading and mulling over my work. As I waited to hear her thoughts, Drew starts balancing my pens on his face, blindly feeling around on the floor where he dumped out my pencil bag. I grabbed a mechanical pencil within my reach and threw it at his face, knocking off two colored pens.

Drew frowned and whined, but I just stuck my tongue out at him. "You looked like a child."

"I'm not the one sticking my tongue out."

"Ryan, you there?" I hear Kaitlyn ask, and I look away from Drew, who started to toss the pens at me instead.

"Yep, give it to me straight."

"I'm glad you could summarize your information that concisely." I dodged a pen aimed for my head but kept listening. "The paper should end like that, but this is a time you can fluff up your conclusion some more." Kaitlyn gave me more advice on how I could incorporate more important findings while wrapping up the paper, then she wished me luck before we ended our conversation.

I tossed my phone down on my bedroom floor and leaped onto Drew, lounging back on his elbows. "You are such a nuisance!" I crossed my arms on his chest and rested my chin on top, looking up at his grinning face. "You know it too!"

"If I'm bothering you so much, ask me to leave," he teased. I rolled my eyes in response but still smiled. "So I must not be that bad, Ryan." The butterfly feeling in my stomach appeared as I heard him speak my name.

"Let me take you ouuuu-t," Drew begged. "You deserve a mental break from this paper. Please. Even just an ice cream run."

I groaned when Drew waggled his eyebrows at me. "It's not fair to tempt me with irresistible treats.."

"I know all the tricks to influence you, Ryan."

I reached up and poked his nose, then dodged his hand batting mine away. "You can't influence me. I only listen to you when I want to do the thing."

"So you admit you want to get ice cream?"

I thought it over. "A compromise. I'll made the edits now, turn it in, and then we will go."

"A deal. Seal it with a kiss?"

I pulled my body up to reach his lips and kissed him quickly. I rolled off of his body and picked up my laptop. I started to review the edits Kaitlyn suggested for grammatical errors and citation errors while Drew fiddled with my room speaker. A loud, pounding beat startled me, and I immediately wrinkled my nose.