The Meaning Of Life

11:45 March 17, 2051

Ms Kevinson finishes her story like that. It takes me a moment to realize she's done and when I do I feel Lexi's hand loosen around mine. It was clamped tightly and firmly. I rub it with my thumb and I hear her exhale. She's crying silently, and so are most of the girls and a couple of guys. I let go of Lexi's hand, move our chairs closer together and slide my hand under her arm and around her waist. She smiles sadly, which causes more tears to join the stream down her face and she leans in to my shoulder.

"Right, homework," she sniffs, stands up and pauses. After a moment the bell rings and I grit my teeth together. I hate it when teachers keep us past the bell. "Oh just think about where you'll switch, that's all."

She sits down at her desk and stares at her computer monitor absent mindedly. I stand up and a piece of paper falls out of my pocket. I roll my eyes when I see Chris' phone number scribbled on the torn paper. With a worried glance at Lexi, who's still crying, I shuffle past the fleeing students and approach Ms Kevinson like a wounded animal.

"Excuse me miss," I start politely.

"Yes Eclipse?" She responds wearily.

I place the phone number on the table in front of her awkwardly and step back. Her face changes from sorrow to curiosity and she her eyes ask me what it is.

"My... guardian, Chris," I explain. "He wants to meet you."

I frown slightly and question my choice of the word meet. I always was the worst at finding the right words to use, and my grammar isn't any better. Regardless of my poor word choice, her face lights up and she gives the paper an intrigued grin.

"This... Chris?" She pauses and I nod. "Does he want to meet me for professional reasons?" She asks and I shake my head.

"No," I try. Of all the things about relationships Chris could teach me, being a wingman is one of the more useful ones he failed to mention. "If it helps, I have a picture of him."

I hold it up and her eyes widen. Chris is on the more attractive side. He doesn't turn heads when people pass on the street, but he is above average.

I look around the class and realize it's empty. Lexi probably left with one of her cheerleader friends.

"I'm seventeen," she warns but takes the picture. I have no idea what that has to do with anything so I just shrug.

"So is he."

I sling my bag over my shoulder, collect my binder and leave the speechless teacher smiling in amusement. To my surprise, Lexi greets me right outside the door. I go to hug her but her arms are crossed and she's glaring at me suspiciously. I raise my hands in mock surrender.

"What did I do!" I cry dramatically and a few people walking down the hallway glare at me. Lexi grabs my arm to get me to stop.

"You weren't asking her out, were you?" She practically spits in disgust at the word 'her'.

My mouth drops. Despite having Chris as a role model, I am not  him, I would never cheat on anyone.

"No!" I exclaim and she relaxes. "I would never do that to you- or anyone. Chris wanted me to set him up with her, I was just doing him a favour."

Lexi's white grin springs on to her face again and she throws her arms around my neck in a hug-like thing.

"You're such a nice person," she gushes.

I grin proudly and my back straightens. We walk out of the school in silence and down the street leading to the bus stop. Lexi lives a ten minute drive away from the school, but we still find time to hang out after classes. The spring breeze is nice now that the snow finally melted and is a nice change from the dry cold that winter brought. Living in Vermont, we get the worst of the winters and the summers. Spring and fall are the nicest times of year, and since they're so short everyone appreciates them.

"Do you have to go in to the studio today?" I stop when we get to her bus stop.

"Yeah, I have two songs that have to be written by next week," she grabs my hand. "They're the last two tracks on my album."

My face brightens. Her albums were always amazing. She has an amazing musical talent, and she manages to get along with her band members at the same time. Her alternative rock music is so much better than the meaningless pop songs, and I'm not just saying that because she's my girlfriend."

"Eclipse?" My entire body goes ridged whenever she says my full name. I look down at her and she laughs.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," she grins. "I was asking if you wanted to come watch the amazing exciting process of writing words."

I grin. I've never been inside her studio before, but I had located four escape routs on each floor in the event of a fire, flood, tornado or other natural disaster that could happen.

"Yes!"

"I'll go tell the band you're coming," she grins. "Be there in half an hour, then we can get lunch, captain enthusiasm."

I ruffle her dark brown, straightened hair and run away before she can punch me for it. She yells in protest but I can hear the smile in her voice. I grin at that and focus on running in a straight line. Not that I've been drinking, but the cops never hesitated to arrest someone underage for drinking.

I arrive at my house, run in, drop my bag and grab my wallet, hoping to escape again before Chris notices I'm back. He walks in to the kitchen, his hand on his phone just as I try to open the fridge.

"That's interesting," he nods. "Did he really?"

I groan as I realize it's Ms Kevinson.

"I can assure you, I'm nothing like him."

I look up and see his frustrated face glaring at me as he listened to her talk.

"I'm nothing like him because I'm way more fun."

I roll my eyes. Chris is smart enough to know when to make a save, but his ability to make good ones was questionable at the very least.

"Yep, okay," he grins and puts his fist in the air. "See you then. Bye."

He throws his phone on the couch and tries to give me a high-five. I leave him hanging and stuff my phone and wallet into my pocket.

"Don't you want to know where I'm taking your teach?"

I roll my eyes at his slang.

"I don't want to know where you're banging the woman I have to look at for the next month," I say. "So no thanks."

I open the door to leave but Chris is pressed against it in a matter of seconds.

"You and that door need to get a room," I remark and cross my arms.

"First of all, I am not going to diddly-do her," he counters. "And secondly, I will not require a room with this door, we're just friends."

"Okay," I give in. "Where am I not allowed to take Lexi?"

"The movies," he shrugs.

"You're seeing that lame movie you have one line in?"

"No."

I raise my eyebrows at him until he realizes.

"You're right! We should see Titan's Glory!"

I roll my eyes again and push my way past Chris. I love him like a brother, but sometimes he's a bit too much to deal with. Especially when it comes to girls.