His Sunflower

Chapter 41

Today is the first day of the spring semester, and I'm not looking forward to it. I haven't seen any of my family except for uncle Noah and his kids since Christmas, and it's January 24th. Almost a whole month.

And a bunch of my cousins go to school here, plus the dude I broke up with.

Oh, but my therapist Ms. Jamie works at my school, so I can see her daily, so that's nice. She's really nice and is really helping me. Ms. Jamie is awesome and rad. I love her.

Uncle Noah, leans over kissing my forehead. "Have a good day at school Zoe."

"I'll try." I say, grinning at him. "Peace out."

Uncle Noah snorts, laughing to himself as I hop out of his car and start walking to the school building.

I want to find my locker, because for some reason we can't just keep the same locker the whole school year. Which is lame.

My locker's happens to be on the second floor, which is even more lame because most of my classes are on the first and third floor, and I have second period lunch again. Good thing I brought a lunch with me.

I take out my phone, texting Ms. Jamie asking where her office is. She tells me where it is, so I tell her I'm coming to find her, because I don't want to run into anyone I know right now.

It would be too awkward.

"Ms. Jamie!" I say happily as I sit down on her couch.

"Hey Zoey. You excited for school?" She asks, tying back her hair in a bun.

"Sorta. I don't want to run into anyone I know. And I'm just ready to graduate already."

"Well, I'm sure your high school experience will pass quickly. When I look back when I was in high school, it seemed like a couple days."

"Eh, I'm still ready to be done for good."

Sadly, the bell rings, so I bid farewell to Ms. Jamie and go to my first period class, AP biology.

I take a seat, in the middle of the classroom, sitting too close to the front groups you in the with overachieving nerds, but sitting too close to the back groups you in with the juvenile problematic kids. But being in the middle groups you in with the wallflower kids who don't matter.

I doodle mindlessly in my notebook, ignoring the kid who sits next to me. Just because someone sits next to you doesn't mean you're required to converse with each other.

Class starts soon enough, and nothing much happens. Just going over the syllabus and expectations for this semester. Classic first day back stuff.

"Oh, and I've picked out your lab partners. So I'll just say your names and the person you're pared with will be your lab partner all semester."

"Cindy Awalls and Brian Pierce. Fiona Bufford and Ashley Dickinson. Ethan Boyd and Zoey Trone..."

I tune out the rest as I silently panic at the fact my ex, I guess that's what I'd call him because I broke up with him, is in this class, and that we're partners.

I look around, making eye contact with him as he sits on the other side of the classroom, a row in front of me. I break off eye contact, and I'm the first one out of the classroom once class is officially over.

I try and hide from any of my cousins and Ethan for as long as I can, but I have an art class with Mark and Ethan, another math class with Katlyn and Kaylie, Western Civ which is a full school year class with Ethan. And so far I have yet to see any of my cousins in the cafeteria so I think I'm safe.

I sit at a table in the car right corner of the cafeteria, with just a small group of people on the other end.

"This seat taken?" I hear a familiar voice ask.

I choke a little on my sandwich, looking up at Ethan. "Uh-" I gulp down the sandwich I had in my mouth. "Yes?"

"Oh? And who's sitting here if I may ask?" He asks tilting his head to the side.

"Here's the thing, no one's sitting there. But I don't want you sitting there." I say and take a bite of food so I don't have to talk.

I still very much like Ethan, but I can't exactly date him again yet. That is if he even wants to date me still. I wouldn't blame him if he never wanted anything to do with me again.

"Oh, then I'll just sit here." Ethan says walking around to the chair next to mine and sitting down. "My names Ethan." He says holding out his hand for me to shake.

When I don't move my hand, he grabs it with his other hand, making me shake his hand.

"Oh, your name is Zoey? Nice name." He drops my hand, and takes a sip of a RedBull.

He looks at it, then at me. "I see why people drink these now. It keeps you awake after you get no sleep. It hits different compared to coffee or tea."

Ethan takes a long sip, and runs a hand through his hair. "Want to hear a joke?"

I blink, still confused about what's going on.

"I'll take that as a yes. What happened to the cow that jumped over a barbed wire fence?"

I just blink, still confused on what he's even doing.

"Utter destruction!" Ethan laughs, shaking his head.

He looks at me, and frowns seeing no reaction. "Should I leave? I don't know why I came over here. I just thought that maybe- never mind. Want me to go?"

"You can stay." I say before I realize what I said. Then clear my throat. "Who else is gonna bare through your lame jokes? Also RedBull is bad, you shouldn't drink it." I whisper, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear.

"I haven't started drinking these until recently." He mumbles, looking at the cam before gulping down more. Then stares blankly into the distance.

I feel horrible. I broke up with him for no real reason at the start. I fucked it all up, and there's a chance Ethan might never want me back.

"Knock knock." I say, surprising myself, why do I keep saying things with being able to register what I'm saying?

"Who's there?" He mumbles, gulping down more RedBull, still staring blankly at literally nothing.

"A cow goes."

Ethan blinks, drinking more RedBull. "A cow goes who?"

"No no no! A cow goes moo!" I say, laughing at how stupid the joke was.

"That's a stupid joke. Try better." Ethan says throwing me a glance.

I frown. "I got the joke from you."

"My jokes are shit."

What's with his sudden mood change?

"What's with the sudden mood change?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.

"What does it matter, we aren't friends." Ethan drinks more RedBull. "Shit, I finished it." He looks into his can, frowning.

"We shook hands, we're at least acquaintances." I say, smiling softly remembering the first day of school, when Ethan and I first met.

"We're just merely acquaintances, you shouldn't care about things like that." He mumbles, leaning over to the trash can at the end of the table, and tosses his RedBull can in it.

He's right. I shouldn't care. But I do. Because I still like him, a lot.

I clear my throat, cleaning up my lunch trash. "I'll, uh, get out of your hair. Bye my acquaintance." I say throwing my trash away and going to find Ms. Jamie. I want to talk to her, so hopefully she's not busy.

I give Ethan one last look, hoping his wings will brighten up his mood. I don't like seeing him sad. I don't like it at all.

*****
Good morning/afternoon/evening tic tacs:)

For my one tic tac, I hate to say it, but you guessed correctly in your third guess. Meaning you win a point. 4 points me, 13 points my tic tac