SUNDAY
His warm tongue glided against his dry lips as he peaked his head around the corner of the empty hallway, checking if the coast was clear. He sighed in relief when he saw that no one was around.
He held the single rose between his fingers shamelessly, thankfully he had picked the thorns not even ten minutes ago, as he walked down the long and narrow corridor. The numbers '26-8-37' had become drilled into his brain from how many times he had repeated it to himself.
The boy's hazel eyes were always trained on her delicate hands in the morning before first period started. It had taken him several weeks to finally figure out the code to her beaten down, blue locker. A sleek iPhone was in his large hands and the notes app was already open. He watched her carefully, the way she mouthed the three numbers to herself as she put it into her lock.
The way she triumphantly smiled once successfully opening the locker made his heart flutter. The smallest things made her happy, she never took anything for granted.
Despite it being five in the evening on a gloomy Sunday, Ethan continued to speed walk across the squeaky tile until he reached her locker, in fear that someone would catch him here. He had just gotten out of football practice and he was positive that there was no one at the school right now.
Stepping in front of her locker, he wipes his clammy palms on his black jeans and slowly puts in her combination. His heart beats faster when he pulls the lock up and the door swings open.
He reaches into his back pocket and takes out the white envelope sealed with a sticker of a red heart. He also pulls out a light pink ribbon to match the light pink rose in his opposite hand. The boy sets the rose down in her locker and puts the ribbon through the hole that he punched in top right corner of the envelope.
Carefully he ties the note to the rose and rests the pretty flower against her Calculus book. He slams her locker shut and messes with the lock slightly. He looks around hastily, and nods when he notices he wasn't caught.
The tile that he's walking on squeaks as he drags his feet against it. He was in a hurry to get out of this school and go home, just so he could plan when to plant the next couple of roses in her locker.
Once exiting the double doors at the end of the corridor he bumps into someone a couple of inches shorter than him.
"Mr. Dolan! What are you still doing here, it is nearly six p.m."
Ethan's old and wrinkly Spanish teacher from freshman year was smiling brightly at him as he awaited a response to his question.
"Just had to make up a test in English, sir. I was just heading home now." He answers and shoots the man a timid smile. He simply shrugs and claps a hand over Ethan's broad shoulder, bidding him a goodbye. He was surprised that his question
A feeling of relief floods over Ethan as he thanks God that Mr. White had not entered the building minutes before.
He sighed at how difficult these next two weeks were going to be. He was well aware that pulling this off was not going to be a piece of cake, but he was not prepared for how hard it was actually going to be.
But, he was one hundred precent determined to pull this off.
