Letting Him In

Chapter-2

"We'll find out what we're made of
When we are called to help our friends in need
You can count on me like one, two, three
I'll be there"

-Bruno Mars, Count on Me

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Elijah

Twenty-one laps in seven minutes; not the best, but certainly better than many of the others who had appeared for the try outs. For those seven minutes, Elijah had been able to overcome his anxiety due to his adrenaline rush, but now that coach had announced that the list for the team would be up by the following morning, it was coming back in full force.

After a quick shower, he changed out of his swim trunks and tank top, and into regular skinny jeans with a black v neck. As he walked out, Kaeden appeared beside him. "That was way better than I expected," he whistled.

"Jeez, thanks for having so much confidence in your best friend, Kade," Elijah said blandly.

"Moody," scoffed Kaeden. "Well cheer up, because we have Psychology now."

Elijah made a sour face. Please let the teacher not give us some stupid project on the first day, he prayed. Though knowing Mr. Elling, he'd probably assign them some task that he thought would help the students 'bond with one another and give some insight into their classmates' lives'. The man absolutely loved those for some unknown reason.

"Stop overthinking, mate. We're gonna have to do enough of that in about five minutes," said Kaeden.

"Wasn't overthinking. I just don't like that class," muttered Elijah.

"You hate all classes. Maybe except gym– understandable– and Math, for some reason."

Elijah just rolled his eyes as they entered the classroom and found a seat by the back window. He did like math, which usually caused his friends to tease him about it and to tell him to join a math team or something. Elijah just shrugged them off and rolled his eyes at them.

They didn't have time to talk as a few moments later, Mr. Elling walked in.

"Good afternoon, everyone; for those of you who're new to this class, I'm Mr. Elling," he did his usual annual introduction. "Now, lets get started with today's lesson.

Since it's the first day, you'll be focusing on getting to know one another better and at the end of the week, each of you will be preparing a short project file based on your understanding of each others' lifestyle. It'll include the basics- likes, dislikes, hobbies, personality and whatever else you deem necessary. I'll be dividing you into groups of three and these will be your groups for the rest of the year. For any projects that'll need more group members, we can merge the groups."

The class let out a collective groan upon hearing that the groups would be assigned to them, and not chosen by them. Why do teachers absolutely love to torutre us? We haven't even done anything to them that demands constant mental torture in response, wondered Elijah.

After they had quietened down, Mr. Elling continued, "For this project, you'll have the entire week to get to know one another, so utilize it well by working on tasks outside of school as well as in between lessons. I'll be providing you with a list of simple tasks you'll be performing together. Your experiences regarding these must be added to your files too; and each group will integrate their projects into one file before submission. You can approach me with any doubts after I have assigned you your groups and task lists."

Elijah found himself losing focus while Mr. Elling began listing off names, until he heard his name. "Elijah Jacobs, Kaeden Gray and Allen Smith," he said.