London's Guard Is Falling Down

𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐏𝐔𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

[𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐍]

𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐌𝐘 𝐁𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐘 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃, 𝐈 𝐇𝐀𝐃 to talk with my teacher, Ms. Noreen, about things the class already covered. She told me that I should get my notes from Paris since we were already living together.

Paris came in with a tall girl who had long dark curly hair, Shannon, was her name. She had her name on her necklace.

The two sat in the back row, two tables down from mine. Paris took out her Bio textbook and hid her phone behind it.

I approached her for the notes while students walked in, standing in front of her table.

"Paris?"

She looked up from her phone at me. "What?"

"Can I borrow your notes from this class?"

"Oh, yeah, sure." She put her phone down and rummaged through her bag. "Hold on just a second."

"Your name's London?" Shannon asked me. I turned to look at her.

"Mm-hm."

She nodded. "Mm, that's cute."

"Here you go." Paris held out a thin spiral grey notebook, that still had the Five Star tag on it.

"Thanks," I said, taking it from her.

She gave me a quick small smile then looked back down at her phone.

I went to my table and pulled out a notebook to take notes in. When I did that I opened Paris' notebook.

I looked through the whole notebook only to be disappointed. There weren't really notes in here, just some drawings and her name written in different styles.

I felt that I couldn't even be sure that her notes were accurate.

I went back to her table to give Paris her notebook back.

I held it out for her to take it. "Here."

"You write fast," she said, glancing up at me for a second.

"I didn't write at all," I admitted.

She looked back up at me slowly, a like menacingly, too. "So then why did you take my fucking notebook?"

"Because I thought you had notes in it."

"I did."

"Barely."

"Just wasted my motherfuckin' time," she muttered harshly. "Give me my shit back." She snatched the notebook out of my hand and held it under the table.

Abruptly, I reached over and snatched it back from her. The notebook being her's didn't give her the right to snatch it from me.

"The hell is wrong with you? Give me my notebook." Paris reached for her notebook, when she did I held it away from her.

"What're you snatching it for?" I demanded.

"It's my shit, I can do whatever I want." She got up and started walking toward me.

"Excuse me, what's going on over there?" Ms. Noreen inquired.

Paris snatched her notebook back from me and side eyed me while walking backwards to her seat.

"Okay, London, please go to your seat," Ms. Noreen directed.

"Right," Paris agreed. "'Fore somebody knocks ya ass out." She muttered that so Ms. Noreen wouldn't hear.

"Oh, I wish you fucking would. Speak up," I said, walking back to my table.

"Clearly you heard me so I don't need to speak up" she retorted.

"So ugly."

"Now you know good and goddamn well I'm not ugly."

Paris wasn't ugly, physically, at least.

"Your attitude says otherwise," I replied.

"Your attitude says otherwise," she mocked in an obnoxious voice making an obnoxious face. "You been here for two days and all of sudden you think you know so much."

I couldn't even be mad, the situation was funny. Paris seemed to get so angry easily. She was funny to me. She was a joke.

I couldn't hold back my laughing.

"I think he's laughing at you," I heard Shannon say to Paris.

"I really don't give a fuck right now," Paris replied. "The nigga is fucking weird."

"Um, Paris," Ms. Noreen chided.

"Oop! My bad! I'm sorry, Ms. N," she apologized.

We watched a video and took notes for the class.

I didn't run into Paris for the rest of the school day, but I knew I would have to go through a car ride with her. So I waited for her by Diane's M3, Sean tagged along, trying to convince me to go somewhere with him and some other people.

"Where are you guys going again?" I asked.

"We're just going to the coffee shop down the street," he said.

"Yeah, I'm good."

"Come on, London," he groaned.

Paris, the boy who greeted me at my locker, and Shannon approached the two of us. The boy, Darion, had his arm around Paris's shoulder, Paris had her arm wrapped around his waist loosely, awkwardly.

Shannon stopped in front of Sean and hugged him tightly. He hugged her back, resting his head on top of her's.

"Okay, are we going or not?" Paris asked Shannon, annoyed.

"Oh, you're going with them?" I checked.

"Yes, I am," she said rudely and rolled her eyes.

"But are your parents okay with you going?" I wanted to verify this because I wasn't sure if Diane and Ezra wanted Paris to come straight home after school.

"What are you, her babysitter?" I ignored Darion's insignificant remark that no one asked for.

"It's fine. I always do this," Paris replied.

At some point Shannon and Sean stopped hugging. I could tell Paris was irritated with me.

"Okay, have fun," I simply replied.

She waved me off.

"See you tomorrow," Sean said.

"Yeah, see you."

I got into the M3 and watched the four of them walk off into someone's convertible, Darion's. For a senior, Darion seemed so close with juniors. I knew there wasn't a big age difference between juniors and seniors but the whole thing was weird simply because some juniors were still sixteen (like Paris) and he was eighteen.