Alex & Joan

Homework Buddies

The next time he did was the first time you really saw him – a boy with bright brown eyes and a crooked smile. Maybe it was the soft light that's illuminating his face or the disgruntled sighs he makes as he continues to write the essay that made him quite endearing and caused an unsettling sensation in your stomach. He was a fine boy alright, but that's all there is to it, isn't there?

You busied yourself with your own geometry homework when you felt him staring at you. You stared back.

"I'm in love with you," he said. He was now so sure of his words that it almost scared you.

"And what are you gonna do about it?" You asked while scribbling random numbers in your paper just to hide the fact that your hands were trembling.

"What do you think?" he prodded.

"Nothing," you replied, taking a deep breath because you needed the courage to say the following words.

"You will do absolutely nothing and then you'd go back to writing that essay that's hopefully not as messed up as your feelings."

And then he chuckled. He laughed the way you had laughed when he first confessed to you. He laughed to fill up the emptiness of the words still left unsaid.