Past and Present

School and Nerds

I hurried down the stairs with my phone in my hand and my backpack wrapped around my body. As I stepped off of the last step, the phone vibrated.

"Are you ready?"

I was Carl. We had been texting all night because Carl was terrified of the school that he would be attending the next day which happened to be today. His mother had refused to see that her son had been in an apocalypse for over a year and said that he needed to catch up or else he would be nothing in this world.

I hurried into the kitchen and grabbed two apples out of the basket that sat in the middle of the table. As I was getting ready to leave the room, my mother stepped into the kitchen with her hands up near her ear so she could put her earrings on.

"Are you heading out?" she asked.

I nodded and grabbed my phone off of the counter.

When I stepped onto the porch, I saw the brunette sitting on the steps. He sat watching that leaves blow across my lawn. As he watched the leaves, I watched his hair shift and thought about how relaxed and at ease he looked compared to the pain and suffering he had shown during the apocalypse.

I walked up behind him and wrapped my loaded arms around the boy's body and kissed his cheek.

"I brought you breakfast," he said as he leaned up to kiss me back.

I looked at the paper bag that he held and then glanced at the apples. His gaze shifted to them to.

"You know, I never thought that we would ever be in a situation where we had too much food." he said with a smile.

I smiled back as he took the apples and placed them into his bookbag and handed me the bag. As soon as I opened it, my nose was met with the scent of freshly baked donuts.

"Thanks,"I said as I handed him one and grabbed his other hand.

We stepped off of the porch and continued to walk to the nearby school, nibbling on the delicious donuts.

As we walked, I couldn't help but think about all the time that Carl and I had spent walking and searching for food during our time in the apocalypse. I looked over at the boy and tue nonchalant expression on his face. It brought tears to my eyes.

I figured that he had seen me looking at him because he turned and asked me what was wrong.

"I don't know. I guess I never thought that we would have this. That we would never be rid of the wretched world."

He grabbed my hand and pulled me close to him,"As long as I have you, I don't care what world we are in."

We walked like that for a few more minutes. As the sight of the brick building came into view, Carl's heart beat became faster.

I turned to face him.

"What is the scariest thing you can think of?"

Without missing a beat, he replied,"Losing you to a walker."

I ignored the fluttering that I felt in my stomach and continued with my little pep talk,"Then face the school day as if you were there and facing the walker that scratched me."

He took a deep breath and together we walked into the school building.

The day went by slow and it was like a slow form of torture. Carl and I had a few classes together, including lunch. When I saw him at lunch, he looked as if he was doing okay, but was slightly shaken up.

At the end of the day, when the final bell rang, I texted Carl and told him to meet me by the front doors.

He quickly texted back that he would rather have me meet him by the statue of the panther and I agreed.

I lifted me bag off the floor and started my journey across the campus to get to the panther. I had gotten within sight range when I saw the huge group of nerdy looking people standing around it. When they saw me, a huge whisper swept through the crowd. I knew that I would have to pass through them.

This must have been why I never noticed Carl. He was always with these people and that terrified me. They all looked at me with their freckled faces or their glasses covered eyes.

Carl thought that the only reason why I had never noticed him was because I was too busy with the popular crowd not to notice. That wasn't the case at all. Truthfully, the geeky people scared me.

The group had all turned in my direction and stared. I wasn't sure if they were looking at me. I checked behind me to make sure that they were definitely looking at someone popular behind me.

There was no one there.

I looked down at myself. There was no reason to stare at me. I had ninth period gym so I was wearing my gym clothes which included a t-shirt that read,"You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread man," and black leggings.

I took a deep breath and walked towards them,"Um, has anyone seen Carl?"

The whispers swept through again and I jumped back.

All of a sudden, I heard the shouts of a girls.

"Why don't y'all back up! Can't ya see you're scaring her?"

I silently thanked the girl with a slight nod. She smiled and told me that Carl hadn't arrived yet, but she saw him coming over when she arrived about a minute ago.

Eventually, he did come. When I saw, I let in a gulp of air.

The boy looked as dirty as he was in the apocalypse. He had scratches and bruises all over his face.

"What happened to you?" I asked as I walked over to my boyfriend.

"I was walking past a group of jocks they started talking about you so I listened. When they started to get dirty, I had to intervene."

I lifted my hand and placed it in the bloody cut just under his eye and he flinched.

"We dont live in the apocalypse anymore," I said,"You have to solve your problems with words."

He forced a smile and I watched as the blood ran down his face.

"We need to get you cleaned up," I said as I grabbed his hand.

"Wait, I wanted to introduce you to my friends."

I thought about it quickly and said,"Quick."

He led me to the boy with the freckles and glasses and I recognized him as the first person that I saw when I walked over here.

"Joce, this is Terry. Terry, Jocelyn."

Terry stuck out his hand and I took it ad he turned to Carl.

"Wow, dude."

I jumped back in surprise. The boy had a super deep voice. It wasn't anything like I expected. He picked up on it.

"I'm guessing that I'm nothing like you thought I would be. That's what Carl used to say about you. He thought that you were too good for him, but I can say that we shouldn't judge other people by the way they look. I mean, look at you."

I looked down at my clothes and burst out laughing.

"Understood."

Carl smiled and I noticed that his cheeks were bright red. Maybe it was because of the blood.

"Well, Terry, it was nice to meet you, but I have to get Carl home so that he can get cleaned up."

I grabbed my boyfriend's hand and waved goodbye to all the people that were chatting away around the panther.

As we walked, I looked at Carl and thought of his mother.

"You're going to get in so much trouble with Lori."

He squeezed my hand,"The troubles that we face mean nothing as long as we face them together."