Norah entered the food court and smiled on seeing Andrew and happily skips over to him. "Hiya, Andrew!" She sits down in the same chair that Jaime sat in.
Andrew didn't need to look up this time to know who it was. "Hi, Norah."
"What are you doing?"
A light smirk comes on his face.
"My math homework."
Norah leans forward to look at the paper he's working on, and her eyes widened.
Those were hard questions that he's answering.
"Whoa." She whispered.
"Andrew, you are a math genius!" Norah gushed.
"Not really, this is just the power of studying." He says.
Norah rests her elbows on the table, sighing, "Math is not my best subject." She pouts.
Andrew looked at her and back at his paper, "Maybe, I can help you study. If you want?"
She grinned.
"Yes! I mean- please, yes, I do need help." Her cheeks tinted red, she's used to embarrassing herself and stuff, but for some reason embarrassing herself in front of Andrew felt kinda painful.
Either way, she ignored the feeling and continued to smile.
Andrew chuckled at the flustered girl.
"Give me a call or text when you want to," he said making her frown. "I don't think we ever exchanged numbers." She says, on realization.
"Oh, then we can do that now." He took out his phone and she handed him hers.
After he finished putting his number in the phone he gave it back to her.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. Uh, earlier today at school- I heard what happened to your father from Royale." Andrew told her cautiously.
The smile on Norah's face dropped.
"O- oh." She didn't know what to say.
"You might be wondering why I'm bringing this up."
She remains silent and looked down at her lap.
"I- I wanted to know if you're, okay?"
Andrew paid close attention to movement and reaction.
Norah felt awkward, but put on a bright smile, "Andrew, that happened when I was twelve. Yes, it was traumatizing, and I mourned... don't need to bring up the past."
He raised an eyebrow, "Norah, all I want to know is if you're okay."
"I'm fine." She gave him a tight lip smile and stood up.
"Um, I'll see you later." And with that he watched her walk away.
Andrew sighed. "Royale was right," he said to himself and went to pack his math homework in the folder since he was done.
"I'll check it when I get home."
____
Norah came home from the studio and is now lying on her bed staring up at the ceiling.
"Jesus, why did I react that way?" Norah doesn't know she feels, she thought she was fine, it's been four years but after reading her old diary, emotions started to resurface.
"Am I not fine?" She continued to ask the Lord.
Norah lightly smiled. "Jesus, I know that I'll always be fine since I have you with me," she closed her eyes and takes in a peaceful breath, "You will forever be my lifeline." A scripture came to mind making her smile grow.
YOU ARE READING
The Stage Is Set
General FictionNorah has been dancing for as long as she can remember, the first time she started dancing was beside her mother on the big stage. She was three years old and Samantha saw potential in her daughter. Norah first took interest in dancing at the age of...
