Two Of A Kind

Chapter Eighteen

"No, you can't! Are you out of your mind!? I don't care if you wrote it!" I exclaim, staring at him bluntly in the yes. He couldn't just demand such a favor, and expect me to simply agree. But he continues to beg, as if suddenly it was his right to demand it. And I was just that one obstacle he'd found hard to rag away.

"It won't even feel like I'm there! I just want to see how well you read it" He explains with jazz hands, as he'd trailed his way behind me. I sighed, continuing to ignore him, as I'd stomped hard in my pumps, once I reached the doors of Mrs. Anne's classroom.

"Listen, I'm not sure what made you think we're suddenly friends, but I am not about to let you join my class for some ego- reinforcement" I make it clear poking at his shirt with my school purse. I didn't want him there. He'd written the assignments for me, end of story. I hadn't read anywhere on the deal that it came with an overall assignment observation.

If anything, he was trying to sabotage my presentation, not cheer on for it. So, it wasn't a win-win situation. There wasn't anything for me.

"I'm honestly just here, to see everyone's reaction to it" He shrugs pushing past me into the classroom, before I had the option to even protest. If Mrs. Anne was that oblivious, he'd get to sit through the whole presentation, and probably find a way to incapacitate it.

Exasperated, I'd chosen to ignore his appearance in the class crowd. I couldn't cause a scene in my AP English class. Let's just get this over with, I thought.

I walked in, head held high, and sat in my usual front seat.

"Sadie, would you like to volunteer to come up first?" My English teacher called out, as I'd suddenly raised my head from the paper, that I hadn't even read at least once yet. Standing up, I nodded at my teacher, and prepared myself, for the class to see.

Suddenly I was nervous. Why I was nervous, I wasn't sure, but I usually had no problem reading a paper towards the class. Yet somehow, I wasn't even able to move my feet.

I took a deep breath analyzing my surroundings, and held the pages between both my hands. Before I parted my lips.

"When I firstly decided to start the assignment, I didn't really want to read the book. I thought it was hugely biased on the illusion that human beings replicated over the concept of love. What lesson would it teach? That love was worth dying for, when some of us weren't even sure it actually existed?" I'd paused, suddenly feeling rather uneasy with the paper, but I couldn't stop as Mrs. Anne was keen to hear more.

I personally found it absurd, and some people had found it absurd that I had found it absurd. But though it was but a contradicting issue, I was also being graded by it, and so putting my personal opinions aside, I'd done it for the A. Since my grades and the perception, the society had over me had always mattered than it all. So, I opened up the papers and began to read them. It took me a while to finish it, I wasn't a slow reader, but since my time was very valuable and I had too many school responsibilities that I refuse to give up on, plus all the high school parties I get invited to that for some reason I think I have an obligation to attend, because I think I'm that important. But since I was very good in the lying department, I decided that I could masquerade that I'd ditched a party for a book that I hadn't prized the least bit. Till now.There were times, I won't lie, where I'd given up, decided this book wasn't for me. Decided I was already perfectly walking on a fine line, and Romeo and Juliet were everything I'd didn't believe in and just walked a different road. Sometimes, I get stuck in the middle of the road, sometimes leaning towards that road I never wanted. But I was always pushed to take the one that presumably was laid out for me since the beginning of time. Here's the tea though, if there was one thing, I'd learned from this, it is that no one is perfect and no one ought to be. Because if you cared enough about yourself, whatever people say about you didn't matter. Because they weren't you, only you make the choices, for your life. So, wash off your make up, take off the large hoodies, put down your phones and your forced smiles, because that will never define you. You are not defined by your past mistakes or the things that people say about you, you are defined by how your mistakes shaped you. When you are being someone you're not, you're not one of a kind anymore, you've split yourself in two and sometimes you'll do things you don't believe only because you think you'll belong if you do. Romeo and Juliet loved each other to death. I begun to understand, that what Romeo had done for Juliet and what Juliet had done for Romeo was the act of free will and love despite the societies point of view. It wasn't influenced by today's humanity, and that's exactly how it should be now. Don't do it for anyone, but yourself. Because you are special, and much more than that you're one of a kind..."