The Search for Rebecca

Chapter 6:

Peppa sat in disbelief; her breathing became short and fast. She looked around and realised she was blending in with the whole class, each person with the same shock painted across their face. Peppa slumped down in her seat and pursed her lips, her eyes darted across the room, refusing to look at him.

Miss Badger stood up, and dramatically exclaimed, "Boys and girls today we have a new student, some of you may know him, his name is," she gestured towards Pedro, waiting for him to finish her sentence, when he finally caught on he finished,

"Pedro, I'm Pedro."

"Yes, Pedro, what a lovely name, are you Spanish? I love tacos, do you? Ahaha, we already know so much about you, hm? Good, good...well why don't you go and take that seat next to Peppa, the one in the red dress next to the window?" She stared at him, eyes wide and eyebrows raised, and gently pushed him to Peppa.

Peppa avoided eye contact, while listening to his footsteps get closer. Pedro reached out and touched her arm but Peppa flinched at his touch; she looked around to meet his gaze. He broke their stare to sit down then flicked one of his honey locks out of his eyes. Peppa couldn't stop thinking about their past, he just left her, didn't care at all. She knew why she was feeling this pain, but all she wanted to know was if Pedro was hurting as well.

She let her lips part and carried on staring at the grass.

[Peppa]

I let my mind drift, I start to think about little things in life, a break from the usual big questions I ask myself, the basic 'what is the meaning of life?'. I think about the clouds and waves in the sea, then a sudden thought comes into my head, so I jot it down. I draw a sketch of a big monster, then erase the harsh lines and add soft edges instead, I label it cloud monster and smile. Why is this important? It isn't but I've been thinking a lot about the cloud monster today. 

I feel a warm and somehow pleasantly clammy hand rest on my knuckles, I don't have to turn around to know it's Pedro, but if anyone were to see his hand on my hand then I could be in trouble, so I snap my head around and look at him.

"Sorry I didn't disturb you did I?"

Yes, you did but that's ok, it's a good disturbance like rain when you're trying to sleep,

"No, I was just thinking about..." I look up at the front of the classroom to figure out what had just been said, "...about stuff." He leant his head down and shook it, it was only when he lifted his head back up again that I saw him laughing, "What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing...well, it's just that we both know you were daydreaming, probably about monsters, or clouds- or maybe even cloud monsters?"

I narrow my eyes, questioning him with my gaze, he sends me a 'you don't know?' look back, pulling my cheeks up- No, he didn't make me smile, he just made my cheeks lift a little, that's all. He lets out a tiny laugh, "Peppa, that's a really cool sketch."

"Oh," my cheeks feel slightly hotter, "I didn't realise you'd seen that."

[Peppa end]

Peppa ripped out the small chunk of paper, which the sketch was on, crumpled it, and threw it in her bag. Pedro was smiling at her, apparently still amused by the drawing. Peppa rolled her eyes before saying, "Ha ha, very funny, no honestly, Pedro, you're hilarious." She turned her head away from him and pretended to sort something out in her bag, so he couldn't see her smiling. 

"Sorry, Peppa, but I wasn't mocking you. I'm actually surprised you carried on drawing, I always loved those little thumbnails you'd send to me, best part of my morning." Pedro widened his eyes, in anticipation, hoping she wasn't upset at him and that she was getting the hints. He wanted to address- well, everything! But he wasn't going to be the one to bring it up.

Peppa bit her lip, demanding the grin to go away; Pedro began to speak again in a higher pitch, "Do you do them for Danny?". She raised her eyebrows: 'Is he jealous?' she thought. 

"No, I don't"

"Oh...You know I even printed out some of them that you drew, this one's similar to the thunder god you did. Wow, I always forget how often it rained when I moved away." All she could let out was a small 'yeah'. 

The obnoxious bell rang, and Peppa was the first out of her seat, and the door; she practically ran to class, where she hid in one of the seats at the back of the classroom, took out her workbook and started to draw in the margin. Although the conversation with Pedro had been brief, it left a lasting impact, making Peppa question what his true intentions were. She was unsure whether he had been flirting with her or not, and if he was how she'd even feel about it. 

For the rest of the day she thought about those couple minutes in the morning, but every second she reminisced it was like she was remembering it wrong, like her mind had decided to romanticize it. She kept reminding herself that she didn't live in a romantic story, but that made it worse, like it was some sort of forbidden love, or the kind of romantic story which makes the reader shout at the character for not realizing that true love has always been right in front of their eyes. 

But life isn't a fairytale, she thought, life is shit, and besides they had most of a dream romance, it was just the ever after that was flawed.