We Will Be Together For Never

[9] Journalism Project

After lunch, I headed to psychology class. I honestly had no idea what to expect, having never taken the class myself.

Bea was also in the class. She smiled shyly at me from across the room. Glad to see a familiar face, I started toward her, but she shook her head slightly and pointed to the SMARTboard. I inwardly groaned at the seating chart that was projected onto the screen.

Finding my place, I sat down seconds before the teacher entered the room and began setting up her laptop. For the rest of the period, we took frenzied notes as she worked through a Powerpoint about a handful of mental disorders. She moved so quickly through the slides that when the bell rang, I was fairly confident that I had missed at least half of the necessary material.

Maybe Bea and I can compare notes later, I hoped anxiously as I headed for my journalism class. After all, the poor girl had been stuck in this hellish class for months - she had to have some kind of survival strategy, right?

I entered my journalism class and took a seat in the back of the room. I wasn't exactly looking forward to the period. After all, didn't journalism involve interviewing people and taking pictures? The teacher, a balding man, was already seated behind his desk, straightening a stack of papers.

Just as the bell rang, Jordan entered the classroom. I froze when I saw him, eyes widening. What the hell?! Was he following me or something?

He's had this schedule for months, I reminded myself. You've only been here a day. If anything, you're the one following him.

He sat several seats away from me, instantly slouching over and starting to etch something into the surface of the desk with a bit of wire from his pocket. At least he took out his earbuds. Seriously, what was with this guy?

The teacher - Mr. Pollik, I remembered - stood to address the class. I saw his gaze flick to Jordan and his frown deepen. I winced slightly, awaiting whatever punishment Jordan was surely about to receive.

Mr. Pollik, however, merely sighed in resignation and began, "I've been hinting at a rather large project for quite some time now. Today, we'll be starting that project. This is something that past grades have loved and I hope you will as well. Now, I don't want you guys to be thinking of this in the normal sense of a project, with a set due date. Instead, I need these by the end of the year. There's your deadline."

I glanced around me at my suddenly smiling classmates. A deadline that isn't due until the end of the year? Easy.

"I will be assigning your partners," Mr. Pollik continued, and the class groaned in unison. I stared at my desk, trying to stem the irrational flow of hope in my chest that my partner would be Jordan. Why would I want to be partnered with such a useless student?

Mr. Pollik passed out thick packets. I skimmed the front page of mine and was able to discern that the project was to create a multimedia project best encompassing our school as a community. My heart sank. Among the list of requirements were the words "videos," and "interviews." What was I supposed to do for those? I could only hope that I was paired with one of the students who were excitedly flipping through the packet, which held organizers and idea sheets. They seemed to be all for the project.

"Now, for partners," Mr. Pollik announced. He crossed the room to his laptop, opening up a random pairing generator website. All of our names were already entered into a list, so he just clicked the "generate" button. There was a tense silence in the room for a second as the screen loaded.

Once it did, the room was filled with chatter, groans, and shouts of joy. I could only stare in shock at my partner.

Of course, it was Jordan.

I fought the strong urge to facepalm and looked over to Jordan. He was already looking at me and smiling slightly. I returned the smile hesitantly. His lips instantly fell back into a frown and he looked down to his desk.

Fine. Be that way.

"Find your partners and get to work!" Mr. Pollik ordered over the chaos. When I had determined that Jordan wasn't going to move, I grabbed my stuff and moved to the desk next to him, which was vacant.

"Hey," I said quietly, nervous all of a sudden. Damn, he's cute.

Shut up, brain.

"Hey," he replied.

The awkward silence lengthened. I puffed out my cheeks and released the air as I flipped through the packet, trying to look as if I was busy to avoid talking. Finally, I asked hesitantly, "So...do you wanna start on the outlines?"

Jordan shrugged noncommittally. "Sure." He sounded as unenthusiastic as was humanly possible.

Sighing, I flipped to one of the interview outlines. It had spaces for us to write questions we thought to ask the interviewees. "Do you have any questions in mind? Anything?"

Jordan shrugged again. "I dunno."

In an attempt to break the ice, I lowered my voice and said, "Knowing teachers, I'm pretty sure he'll just want us to throw together some sickeningly sweet video about how amazing our school is."

This got a slight smile out of Jordan, which felt like a great victory. I grinned in accomplishment, turning my attention back to my sheet. "Okay. How about..."

For the rest of the hour, I dragged Jordan into the idea-making process until he was quietly suggesting things and responding to my questions with replies that were a couple of sentences long. By the time the bell rang, I felt like I had finally reached a place where trying to talk to him was no longer like pull teeth.

As I left the classroom, I tried to stifle the warm, glowing feeling in my chest. I felt like I had done something good for Jordan, even if it was just actively including him in the project he should have already been a part of. I was sure most of his partners just did the work themselves. After all, it would have been easier to work on my own. But for some reason, I hadn't wanted to give up on Jordan.

As I walked to my art class, I made up my mind about one thing:

I would befriend Jordan by the end of this year. I would make something good come out of this shitty year, no matter what it took.