Her class has already started for a while when there's a knock on her door.
"Come in." She says, turning her head.
She forces her mouth to stay closed when she falls into those deep blue eyes. Her outfit is something else and, God, this dark red lipstick fits her so fucking well.
She doesn't really know how, but she manages to stay calm and she tilts her head to the side.
"Miss Keyes! Glad you decided to join, but maybe you should consider waking up a little earlier, because I remember you being late last week too. Next time it'll be detention, sit down and open your book."
She watches as Alma sends her a glare and goes to sit down in front of her while she goes back to her lesson.
As usual, Alma spends most of her time looking outside the windows and Lauren feels like she has to make her understand.
"Alma? Can you repeat what Lea just said?"
"What?" Alma flinches and looks up.
"What did Lea say?"
"Uh... I don't know."
"Yeah because you weren't paying attention. Focus on the class or I'll make you move again."
Alma just nods, and Lauren looks away.
To be honest, Alma doesn't really know what's happening right now. One second Miss Jauregui is the nicest person ever in the gymnasium, and two days later she's the worst bitch? Alma isn't having any of it and she doesn't care if she has to become a mean person too.
She's seen enough things in her four years in this school to say that nothing and no one scares her anymore, even if she has to admit that Miss Jauregui is terribly intimidating with her dark black hair and gorgeous emerald eyes.
When she stares at you, you just fly into another dimension. Or maybe it's just her feeling that way about her teacher... Okay, that's weird. She thinks, and she goes back to listening to whoever is reading right now.
She has read this book so many times already that she almost thought of skipping English classes until this chapter is over but she realized that that's not really how school works, so she woke up and went anyway.
She looks at her book, but something catches her eyes just behind it. A pale, bare, bouncing leg. She looks at it, then slowly looks up. Miss Jauregui is looking down at her book, so maybe if she's careful enough, Alma can keep watching and it won't get awkward.
Why would you wanna keep watching her?
Nevermind.
She goes back to her book, and soon enough, the bell rings and Miss Jauregui dismisses her student as she sits down at her desk.
"Can I talk to you for a second?" Alma says, making her teacher look up.
In this exact moment, Lauren wants to say no, but obviously she can't.
"Sure Alma. What's up?"
"I just wanted to ask um... I just... You know that assignment you gave us?"
"The one you have to do in front of the class?" Lauren puts her pencil down and looks up at the nervous teenager.
She softens a little when she notices her fingers nervously tapping on her desk.
"Yeah, that one. Well I... I didn't really understand what you're asking for and I'm also kind of... Very nervous to, like, go in front of the class so..."
"Yeah, I understand, that's fine. What we can do is um... Well I don't want you to be late to your next period so you can come back at lunch, or when you finish or whenever you have some time and I'll help you out. And you'll present it for me after lunch on Wednesday, that's okay with you?"
"Yeah," Alma's face lits up a little as she smiles, "that's cool, thank you."
"No problem, you should get going though, you're gonna be late."
"Yeah, have a nice day, bye."
"Bye, Alma."
"Fuck it." Lauren says as soon as the girl closes the door.
She runs her hand through her hair, letting her pen fall on her notebook, and she looks out the window.
It's okay. We still have a chance to get over her. She thinks, closing her eyes and sighing. Yeah but we're about to help her. We're going to spend time with her... Have you seen her??
Lauren sighs again.
It's like there's no issue. She thought she could do this, but she's already slowly realizing that she can't, and it's going to be a huge problem.
At least she has the rest of the day to talk herself through this whole getting over Alma thing.
But it fails.
It fails because now it's 9 PM, Lauren's in bed and she's watching Alma's Instagram account again and at this point she's pretty sure that she belongs in jail.
She wishes she would've been that hot when she was eighteen. Actually, she just wishes she was eighteen right now.
In a second, she locks her phone and closes her eyes.
This is unhealthy. Not only is she making her crush worse, but she's also hurting herself for no apparent reason and she's feeling her heart burning in her chest everytime she thinks of her.
When she arrives in her classroom at 7:30 AM the next day, she doesn't expect Alma to show up literally five minutes later.
"Oh, hi Alma. It's early, you know we could've done this in the afternoon, right?" Lauren chuckles and Alma shrugs.
"It's fine with me." She answers, sitting in her usual seat right in front of Lauren.
"So. What do you not understand?" Lauren asks, and Alma takes her notebook.
Working with Alma turns out way more fun than Lauren thought it would be. She's full of joy and funny jokes and it's just nice to be around her, especially this early in the morning.
It makes the fact that it's 7:30 AM not so lame anymore.
They spend more time laughing and chatting than actually working but that seems to be okay for the both of them.
They slowly stop laughing as the bell rings, and students start arriving for their first class of the day.
Funny enough, Lauren is now in a much better mood than she was when she first arrived.