Past The Mistakes

5 | for you and oreo millshakes

Make me your umbrella; let me protect you from the rain.

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"LAYLA, can you please submit your essay?" Mrs. Carter asks me, her kind dark eyes looking at me through the laptop screen. I sighed. I hadn't finished it yet and I think even she knew that.

I turn on my camera, knowing that she would feel more sympathy for me if she saw my dejected face, maybe gifting me a well-needed extension.

"Oh, how lovely it is to see your beautiful face, Layla," she greeted me warmly and I give a shy smile. "Anyways, you still having difficulties with your essay?" She asks me before flipping her pin-straight blonde hair over her shoulder and adjusting herself in her chair. 

"I was having difficulties gathering evidence," I mumbled, my eyes expressing my internal conflict.

"It shouldn't be that difficult, Layla. Refer back to your novel and search for where you see gender stereotypes ruling and dictating Julissa's life. Maybe think back to if you ever saw any gender stereotypes coming into play between character interactions or anything. Once you gather your evidence it should be easy to piece together the analysis," she explains making the gears in my brain turn. Wow, somehow that was actually helpful.

"Okay, thank you Mrs," I smiled at the webcam. 

"I'll give you the weekend to work on your essay, Layla, on Monday I'll check back on you," Mrs. Bethany Carter says giving me those kind eyes.

I seriously liked my teacher, it was just the content of the lessons I didn't like. And with that, I say bye to her and leave the Google Meet. I sighed and opened up my Google doc knowing the contents were all mediocre sentences paired together to make paragraphs. I wasn't good at essay writing I thought of creative writing to be something I was slightly better at. 

"I hate school," I muttered as I leaned back in my chair, making my long hair drape behind me.

Suddenly I hear a loud thud by my window. My eyes snap over to the window, seeing a familiar silhouette.

Oh my gosh.

And then again I hear some loud knocking against my window. I gape at what seemed like Kayden's silhouette, scared that my window was going to break.

I pull back my curtains and meet Kayden's worried eyes. He mouths for me to open the window and I just sit back and glare at him. I secretly admire the way he had dressed today; a thick black sweater with some designer logo on it, black jeans, and some Nike sneakers with white soles. The silver chain that he always wore was dangling from his neck, and he looked hot as usual much to my dismay.

I grimaced internally knowing that I looked super messy sitting on my bed with my pyjama shorts and black oversized tee. My dark long hair was messy and untamed, falling messily and framing my face in a way that probably made me look super unprepared for his company.

Why was he even here?

I open my window sliding it up just a bit so that I could hear him talk, but not big enough so that he could jump in.

"So glad that your house is only one story," He chuckled, a bit breathless for some reason. He ran his fingers through his hair, my eyes following his movement.

"What do you want, Kayden?" I say wanting to get straight to the point. I don't give him any extravagant tell-tale signs of my emotions. I was keeping it blunt.

Do I know why? Also no. 

"You didn't come yesterday to The Edge," he frowned at my distant behaviour.