We Could Be Dreamers

3

"The culminating assignment will be done in pairs," Ms. Rawlings says as she paces in front of the blackboard.

I feel Tyler's gaze settle on me from the seat beside me, but I pretend I don't notice, flipping through my notebook. 

One of the students already has their hand up. "Ms. Rawlings, can we pick—"

She cuts them off. "I will be assigning partners," she replies. 

I raise an eyebrow, tearing my gaze away from the notebook. 

Well, that's interesting. 

I find myself unable to focus on Ms. Rawlings as she goes over the details of the culminating assignment—something about essays and analysis and craft moves. My thoughts immediately stray to Brooke. What if I'm paired with her? That would be absolutely perfect. 

I drum my fingers on the desk, anxious and full of energy. Finally, finally, Ms. Rawlings prepares to assign the pairings. I hold my breath as she reaches for the red cup full of popsicle sticks with our names written on them.

It's kind of hard to believe that my actual and literal fate is going to be determined by a couple of popsicle sticks. 

She pulls out the popsicle sticks in twos, and I hold my breath as people start to pair up. I swear I can feel my heart pounding. Come on, come on, come on... 

Tyler gets paired off with someone else, and I can't help but sigh in relief. 

There are only a couple sticks left in the cup. Brooke and I are both still unpaired. 

"Adam Baker and Brooke Rojas," Ms. Rawlings says in a bored voice. 

Holy fuck. 

Brooke glances at me for the first time in ages, amber eyes locking with mine. She smiles a little, and I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to do, so I just kind of smile back. 

"Go sit down with your partners," the teacher says. "You've got the rest of the period to get started." 

And before I can quite comprehend what's happening, Brooke Rojas has pulled a chair up to my desk and is sitting down in front of me. 

"Hey," she says with a smile. "So full disclosure, I'm kind of really awful at English and I'm probably the worst person you could wind up paired with so I'm hoping you're okay at this kind of stuff."

The words come out in a hurried rush and I blink a couple times, trying to process it. I don't really know how I was expecting this project to kick off, but this is definitely not it. 

"Um, alright," I say slowly. "I'm not really great at English either. How do you wanna do this...?" 

She shrugs, fiddling with a bracelet on her wrist. It's one of those coiled memory wire ones that always snaps back into shape. Sam always wears them. 

"You got snap?" She asks, pulling out her phone. 

My eyes widen a bit. "Uh, yeah," I say, reaching for mine. 

We exchange contact information, and all the while my heart is fluttering in my chest. My eyes skim over the assignment rubric in front of me. 

"Where do you wanna start?" I ask, because I have no clue what else to say and we've spoken more in these five minutes than in the past ten years and this project is my excuse to spend time with her so I might as well use it. 

"I want to start..." she taps on the paper. Her fingernails are painted this bright, almost angry red. "Oh my god, I don't even know," she mutters. "Essays. We need to analyze and write essays. Uh..." she looks up at me, laughing weakly. "Read any good essays lately?"

"Um, no," I say awkwardly. 

"Spectacular. You know what?" She gives me a lopsided grin. "I think this is gonna go really, really well."

And that grin just about warms me to my core.