Unfinished Love

Chapter 1 - High School

8 years ago...

First thing in the morning the school P.A played a song to signal students to start making their way to class followed by a fast playing musical which upon the end of it, you were later. Followed  by the music came the morning announcements along with the national anthem. At the end of all of this, she was sitting in the bottom corner of the bleachers, avoiding as many people as possible. She turned her head to admire all of the banners that were plastered at the top of the gymnasium showing the many accomplishments of the school sports' teams. Hey homeroom teacher introduces herself followed by the dreadful request for everyone in the class to go around and introduce themselves, it was the first day of high school for them all anyways. Red Hawks Academy was a prestigious school in Toronto, drawing students in from all over the city to attend their highly respected leadership and arts programs. 

Followed by her second class, she had to return to the gym after clumsily walking around the school lost. She followed her classmates and went into the change room to get changed. Upon returning in her gym uniform she was surprised with what she saw. Boys. Lots of boys, cute ones too. "Don't look so surprised. You're still in an all girls class but there is also an all boys class during the same time. You might make some more friends" her gym instructor Ms. Deklin playfully winked at her.

As she sat down and one boy in particular had instantly caught her eye. Well actually he caught her ear, he was so confident and loud. "Bet you I can jump higher" he yelled to the other boys in the class. She looked over to find a tall, slim boy stretching. He had silky black hair and wore glasses along with a sweet smirk on his face. He had a similar skin tone to her so she assumed his parents were also from Guyana just like hers. 

Just as he bent his knees to jump, his teacher blew the whistle and yelled "all in". Leaving the mysterious boy with a disappointing look on his face while jogging towards his teacher with the other boys. I carefully listened as their teacher went through the attendance, hoping to catch his name. "Emanuel" "here", "Joesph" "here", "Zachary" his hand shoots up "Zack for short sir" he replied. "Zack it is" his teacher replied.

"Zackary, I'll definitely remember that one." she whispered to myself.

The lunch period came after her gym class and she hadn't made friends yet so she sat in front of her locker on the bottom floor and ate her burger. She couldn't stop smiling at the thought of Zack, would she see him again today or would she have to wait until her next gym class?  The rest of the day seemed to fly by and she left the school as soon as the final bell rang. 

"Thank you!" she hollered back at the bus driver after hoping off and running home as fast as sh could. She ran into herroom, signed into Facebook and looked up the name "Zachary" in the search bar. First one at the top of the list, "Zachary Hernandez". Within a few minutes I got a notification "Zachary Hernandez has accepted your friend request. Send him a message or poke him.  "Haha. Indeed I will" I giggled to myself. So I started the conversation and he continued it. We chewed over our interests, previous school experiences and our friends. Which was when he popped a question.

"Would you wanna go out for breakfast tomorrow before school? Because my brother has to go to school early for a class so I'll be there early too. "

Ecstatic with his suggestion she quickly replied "Yeah, sure! I'll tell my sister I have something to do so I have to be there earlier. Uhm we should probably exchange numbers though, just in case." She threw it out there because she wanted his number, plain and simple.

"Sounds good" he says as he gives her his number then says "If you get dropped off at school, wait for me at my locker. I'll pick you up and they we can walk there."

Trying my best not to sound to excited I message back saying "Okay, can't wait! Night! :)" Way not to sound excited Esme. 

"Good Night Esme! Sweet dreams! :)" he messaged back. She closed the chat and threw her body back onto her bed. She stared up to the ceiling with the biggest smile on her face. Her first real date on the second day of school, who would have known. 

"Wake me up when it's all over, when I'm wiser and I'm stronger. All this time - " Her short arm reached over to her night table and felt around for her phone to hit the snooze button on her phone as her morning alarm came on. She laid back down hoping to catch a few more minutes of sleep when she jumped up squealing

 "Oh my gosh!" she giggled, remembering that she is actually going out with Zack before school and that it wasn't just one of her fanatical dreams. She ran to the bathroom and plugged in the straightener before she started to brush her teeth. She starts peeling her clothes off while rinsing her mouth out. She hops in to the shower, singing and dancing under the warm water, Her loofah makes little bubbles on her skin with a sweet smelling mango body wash. She stands nakedly in front of her bathroom mirror straightening her brown hair with blond highlights. The ride to school was quiet, she rehearsed in her head how she would say hi to Zack when she saw him. 

"Hey" he smiles as he approaches his locker. Esme's suddenly become mute, she fiddles with her warm hands to try to find words to come out of her mouth. 

"Hi!" He opens his locker and tosses his bag in the bottom before re-locking the lock and looking at me. The sun has started to peak from behind the clouds as they leave the school and enter the brisk morning breeze.  They make small talk about how they were as they walk to Tim Hortans but it was when they arrived that the actual conversation began.