long road home

Part 1: Girl meets boy

It's seventh grade, first day of school, Laila is sitting at her desk in science class, watching the teacher read the class behaviors.

Her mind wanders off and she lets her thoughts drift into space. The teacher has finished teaching and let the class have some free time before the next period. she looks around her new classroom and that's when her eyes meet his.

"You're new right? I'm Tyler," He looks at her with an energetic, content look.

"Yeah, I'm Laila," She smiled, not a big smile, just a small one, big enough to show it's a smile, but small enough to hide her braces.

"Hi Laila, you're my new bestfriend!!" He smiled back. "GUYSSS, this is my new bestfriend, Laila," She felt embarrassed, she doesn't like being embarrassed. He reached for a high five, she gave him one back, and put her head down again.

          The next day, science class, once again, Laila took her seat and waited for the class to start.

"HI LAILA," She tilts her head quickly toward the voice yelling her name.

"hi..." she whispers back. She tries to talk normally, to speak up, but something kept her voice tangled in her throat.

Tyler walks up to her and reaches for a high five again. "bestfrienddddd" he laughs.

"You don't need to give him a high five he's just being stupid," Nicole, a girl in their class, who's friends with Tyler, says to her.

She can't say no though, can she?
She high fives him and her head goes back down to her notebook once again.

And that's how the rest of eight period science in seventh grade at South Woodward middle school went.

———————

It's now eight grade. Laila and Tyler have no classes together, and maybe even never said even a word to each other this whole year, until graduation.

Middle school graduation went like this: ceremony, pictures, party.

The ceremony and pictures were boring, but then, at the party, Laila and Tyler finally spoke to each other again.

Not speaking to each other wasn't a big deal, it's not like they were really friends before, an occasional hi doesn't count as much.

Their mutual friend, Carlos, comes and sits with Laila and her friend group to ask if they got a gift card to starbucks. He's obsessed with coffee, his spare time hobby is going to starbucks, and if he's late to school, he's probably making or waiting in line for coffee.

Before Carlos sits down, Tyler comes to get him back to their table, because their friend found a gift card for him.

They accidentally overhear Laila and her friends' conversation about having a pool party for the last day of school and leaving early from the school's last day graduation pool party.

Tyler and Carlos ask to come too. Laila was the host, but she got a little nervous when suddenly about five people invited themselves to her house, including Tyler.

Since Laila has a hard time with saying no, she says yes, and secretly hopes they wouldn't make it.

Only Tyler and Carlos eventually came.

They don't talk that much during the pool party. Only when he asks her to show him how to do a split on her dad's TRX, and to ask when the pizza is coming.

That's when their new friend group started to form, and so did their relationship.

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Hey, this is my new story!! i was going to continue my old one but time passed by and that never happened and now i though of a new storyline.

I'll try to keep this one going!!

Thanks for reading!!
Vote and comment pls,

-M