The 7 Year Endearment. √

Chapter 1.

She slammed the attendance register on the teachers table and thumped herself on the chair, scraping it quite noisily towards the desk and muttering incoherent words under her breath.

Mrs. Smith was our homeroom teacher for Junior year, and whenever she would be in a bad mood, everyone in the class would go dead silent. Even though, the anger wasn't directed towards us, it was sure that she would vent out all of it over us. If given the opportunity, she would give detention to those who even breathed.

It was a sight to see that students would suppress their sneezes when it would come rushing up when it was least invited and others would cough under their bags, so that it wouldn't overpower the silence that loomed over the classroom like a grey cloud.

Now we weren't worried about the detention she would give us, but the impossible and unbelievable punishments that followed.

Lily, who shared the same homeroom class as ours, was once  whispering to her friend, who instantly ducked her head when she caught Mrs. Smith staring at them furiously. Poor Lily was oblivious as she kept nudging her friend that she hadn't finished, and then Mrs. Smith cleared her throat and shouted, "DETENTION." The punishment that followed was impossible; she told Lily to write 'I am sorry, Mrs. Smith.'  as many times till she finished the ink of five pens in the process.

And then Peter, got detention for sneezing so loudly that Mrs. Smith stopped mid- sentence and clutched her heart and the edge of the table to keep herself from falling. She stared wide - eyed in Peters direction and literally growled at him. He was given to write a 50 page essay on 'Manners' and had to hand it over in three days time.

However, we safely made it through the class without any punishments and we all audibly sighed in relief when the period bell rang.

Mrs. Smith took no time to collect her things and storm off the class, before making sure that every student was out of it.

"I'm so glad Junior Year will be over in a few days." Bethany said and I nodded in agreement, "I'm looking forward for a civilised homeroom teacher, thanks." We chuckled and shouted, "DETENTION"  together.

Although, Mrs. Smith was scanning the classroom slyly for an excuse to give someone a scolding, it didn't stop me to steal a few glances in Jason's direction and see what he was doing. I whispered to Beth about him, who was sitting quietly and subtly nodded that she heard what I was saying.

Jason was never the one who craved for attention but he didn't even mind when he got it. He had two best friends, George and Aaron, and they were close since elementary school. Both of them were in the football team, the former being the quarterback.

Me and Beth manoeuvred our way to the exit, when a blur of raven hair came forward and pushed past me, making me stumble backward and almost fall if I hadn't grabbed onto the front desk.

"Are you okay?" Beth asked with concern and I nodded distractedly as I searched for the person who did that.

And that's when I noticed her. We were still inside the classroom, and Rebecca was walking towards Jason and George who were still seated, as they always were the last ones to exit. She deliberately swinged her hips , and her raven hair bounced gracefully with every step of her heel clad feet.

Jason's face lit up when he saw Rebecca, his other best friend I failed to mention earlier, stop in front of them and smiled at her. She was touching Jason's arm with an excuse of puking every response, to whatever he said, with feigned excitement. George talked to her about something and she kept laughing in intervals, which made him exchange a look of disbelief with his friend, who raised his own eyebrows questioningly in response.

And I rolled my eyes.

I held Beth by the hand, who was gorging my expression on seeing the scene unfold, and took her outside.

"El," she began as we walked towards her locker, and I knew she was going to talk me out of crushing over Jason for the umpteenth time, "I respect your feelings for J and will listen you rant about the dreams you have about him, but don't just act in this way okay."

I was rummaging through my bag to check if I had the book for next period and came across my rough book, which had Jason written inside heart bubbles all over the back pages and Rebecca drawn in a stick figure with no hands and legs.

Feigning confusion, I scrunched my eyebrows and asked, "What way?"

Beth responded by rolling her eyes. "Just don't act like you date him, okay?" She said as we stopped by her locker. "Its time you get over the toxic love you have for him." She shaked her head as she punched her code on her locker door.

"Hey! Its not toxic!" I threw my hands in exasperation. "Atleast I'm not lusty and fake busty like that raven over there."

She still looked serious but I noticed the ghost of a smile on her lips which made me grin myself. "Speaking of the raven," she spoke again and half concentrated in finding something in her now wide open locker, "if the crow is so oblivious about the ravens intention of laying eggs with it" she stopped rummaging and looked at me, "how do you expect it to notice something so far-fetched like you?"

"Crows and ravens don't mate." I narrowed my eyes, "Infact, crows are happy to evict them." I said triumphantly.

Beth removed the book she was searching for, slammed the locker shut and softly banged her head on it. "It's impossible arguing with you." She muttered and I couldn't help but laugh when the other students threw incredulous looks in her direction as they walked up and down the hallway.

She realized it, stopped her action and combed her auburn hair with her fingers if in case they got messed up and playfully glared at me.

"El, el" she slung her arm over my shoulder as we made our way to the next class, "All I mean is that junior year is about to get over, and Senior year begins. So take an initiative and do something!!!" She shaked me up a bit and I rolled my eyes. "Start a conversation with the crow, the topic doesn't have to be love, you know. There is so much you can talk about."

"Its easier said than done, Beth." I said defeatedly.

"You only have one year in hand to tell him." She lowered her voice a bit as she continued, "Even if you face rejection, at least you wouldn't regret for the rest of your life that you couldn't muster up courage in your ass and said how you felt."

And I definitely began to reconsider it for the rest of the day.