Him and Me.

Him and Me- Forty Six.

The nervous energy in the room was so thick, it felt like I was drowning.

Mr. Cosner stood in front of the room, a pile of paper in his hands. He set them down with a thump on the desk, and his eyes scanned the class. Not a single person wasn’t fidgeting, or biting their fingernails, or breathing heavily. After all, today we would get our Spanish tests back. I knew that Mr. Cosner was a bit crazy to actually have us take a test on the second to the last day of school before Christmas break, but that was Mr. Cosner for you.

I had to say, it was hard. Harder than any other test I’d taken. Judging from the faces of my classmates, they found the test to be difficult, too. We all probably looked constipated.

Luckily, Colby had tutored the past week for this test, and he had been quite helpful. He was actually a strict tutor, and I liked and appreciated that. Sure, he might have snuck a couple of quick kisses in between lessons, but most of the time he was all business. At the thought of my boyfriend, I immediately felt at ease. Just thinking about him put me in some sort of dreamland, and I found myself smiling as I rested my chin on my hands.

“Lamentable,” Mr. Cosner said, his voice booming across the room, making my back straightened immediately. My heart started to beat faster. Did he just say pitiful?

“Los resultados son lamentable,” the terror teacher continued. He grabbed the papers from the desk and held them tight in his hand, waving it towards us. His eyes were sort of bulging, big and so dark they were almost black, and it was a pretty scary sight.

I felt like a balloon about to get deflated. I worked hard for this test. Colby also worked hard for it, staying up late with me to study, and now it looked like the whole class had done terrible. I felt terrible.

Mr. Cosner began to distribute our papers, and each time a student got his or her test back, his or her face crumpled and shoulders slumped. It was not looking good. Not at all. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear as I waited for Mr. Cosner to hand me my test, my palms getting all clammy.

“Sólo unos pocos lo hizo bastante bien,” Mr. Cosner droned on, just when he was about to reach my desk. He stopped in front of me, and I almost flinched when he slapped the paper, face down, on my desk. Face down papers were never a good sign. My shoulders started to hunch, and I thought of just crumpling that offending pieces of stapled paper and throwing it in the trash. My hand was already gripping one side of my test, ready to destroy it, shred it, and burn it to the ground, but then I heard Mr. Cosner spoke.

“Bien hecho, señorita Johnson.”

I repeated what he said in my head, and translated it, coming up with well done… wait, he just said I did well?

My eyes widened and I hastily turned my test around. A big B+ was encircled on the top right corner of the very first page. A wide smile broke through my face, and I almost did a victory dance. I settled for lightly clapping my hands as jealous eyes turned to me.

For a girl who didn’t mesh well with foreign languages, a B+ was pretty good.

I couldn’t wait to tell Colby.

*****

Parking lot.

I pushed open the school’s door and proceeded to the parking lot, after having read Colby’s text. I immediately spotted Colby’s red, shiny motorcycle, standing out in the midst of cars. He was leaning against it, and I took the time to admire how good my boyfriend looked. He was wearing standard clothing—a shirt, jeans and his favorite rubber shoes, with a thick jacket and a bonnet, but it looked a hundred times better on him compared to any other guy in school. It was a surprise how girls didn’t come flocking to him, but I wasn’t complaining.