Dear Grandpa

The Night After

The bell rung as kids shuffled out of the classrooms and into the bustling hallways. I was walking with Chris, still trying to process the pairings for the project.

"This sucks." I complained as Chris walked beside me. "It's not fair that I'm going to have to do all the work for this stupid project, and he'll still get an A."

"Chill, you have a whole week to do the project." He said, scanning the hallways.

"Easy for you to say. You got paired with Samantha. She's funny and nice." I said. "Think about it; maybe she could be your next girlfriend."

He looked at me and scoffed. "Don't get your hopes up. I can't even go on a half decent date. Plus, she'd never date me."

"Oh, shut up. Just be happy you're not paired up with Connor." I joked.

The bell rung as we arrived in front of my next class.

"At least try with Samantha." I said.

"Fine. See you in physics." He said while walking to gym.

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After another boring and work-filled day at school, I headed to the parking lot, ready to be welcomed by the warmth and comfort of my car. Currently, it was winter in Seattle, meaning standing outside for more than 20 seconds would land you a free trip to the hospital with a severe case of frostbite. I know, because it had happened to Chris this one time. Of course, I was laughing the entirety of the time we were in the hospital, but damn it looked painful.

I swung open my car door and flung my backpack on the passenger seat. Feeling desperate for some sort of heat, I immediately turned on my car, along with the seat warmers.

After allowing myself to warm up a bit and queuing a few songs, I headed home to get started on my mountains of homework, which included a certain project I was dreading to begin.

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It was a few hours later, and my alarm clock read 7:18 P.M. Despite school having ended a couple hours ago, it felt as if I had been sitting at my desk for days. I was buried with homework, and school had only just started a few months ago. I knew junior year was supposed to be difficult, but this was borderline abuse.

In desperate need of a break, I stood up from my desk and landed face first on my bed. About a few seconds into my attempt at relaxation, my phone rang.

"God, what is it now?" I groaned, picking up my phone to see Chris' contact on the screen.

I hesitated, then decided to answer. "What?"

"Damn, why so grumpy?" He said. Although I couldn't see him, I could hear him smiling through the phone.

"Come on Chris, what's up? You just woke me up from a really good nap." I knew I wasn't actually napping, but I was in desperate need of a break.

"Fine. How much of the physics homework have you done?"

I glanced over at my desk, cluttered with unfinished assignments. "I've started, but I'm stuck on question 11."

"Great. Would you mind sending that to me?" Again, I could almost hear his stupid smile through the phone.

"Not so fast, how much of the assignment have you done?" I asked skeptically.

Silence resided on his side of the call for a few seconds.

"Chris?" I asked, knowing I was about to get the exact answer I was expecting.

"Ok fine, you got me. I haven't started it yet." He admitted. "But I haven't been completely useless!"

"And what do you mean by that?" I asked with a smile on my face.

"I've been working on that English project. You know, the one with Samantha." He started. "Turns out your advice worked pretty well. She's really nice, and I wasn't expecting her to be that smart, but she is. I mean, she's practically done the whole project already..."

Chris continued blabbering on the other line, while my mood immediately faltered for two reasons. First, I had completely forgotten about the project and who I had to do it with because of my mountains of homework. And secondly, a small part of me hated myself for encouraging Chris to go for Samantha.

"Yeah, that's great." I said, snapping out of my trance. "Look, I don't know about you, but I still have a bunch of homework to get done by tomorrow and I'm not making a lot of progress."

"I see, I see..." Chris sighed. "Ok, well, see you whenever. And don't forget to send me the physics!"

I smiled. "Whatever you say." I hung up the call and put my phone down.

Deciding I was too tired to continue working, I shuffled closer to the upper half of my bed and rested my head on a pillow.

Did Chris really like Samantha? Of course I would be happy for him no matter what, but he was probably the only real friend I had, and I didn't want to lose him. On top of that, did I really have to do this project with Connor? I'm not sure why I'm even complaining; I'm going to end up  doing the whole thing by myself anyway.

Intrusive thoughts continued to pop up in my brain for the next few minutes, when I decided that I didn't have enough energy for this, and would just deal with it tomorrow.

I got up to turn my lights off, headed back to bed, and drifted off to sleep in a matter of seconds.