Settling Slowly

Chapter 22 - Planning

"What about you?" he asked.

"What about me?"

"For your second and third year? Where are you going to live?"

I sighed. "I haven't got that far. Why?"

He shrugged.

"Ok, that means you have a plan. And I'm guessing I'm not going to like it."

"You still want me to tell you?"

"It'll bug me otherwise."

He sighed and leaned his head back on the rest. "I could move to somewhere between here and there."

"You're right. I don't like the idea."

"Isn't this what we're supposed to do for each other? Compromise?"

"Well, yeah, but... It's all so soon. And I'm only eighteen. Can we just not talk about it for now?"

He nodded. "We're home."

I sighed as I got out the car. "Good bye freedom. Hello an evening of history essays."

"My first years," Grigory said as he shut his door, "are so bad at essays I need to write an example. You're not the only one chained to a desk tonight."

I frowned. "You have a desk?"

He nodded. "In the spare room. I hardly use it, but with writing essays if I'm not chained to a desk they don't get done."

"When is yours in for?"

He chuckled. "It's not 'in' for any time. I'm doing this voluntarily."

"Good for you," I muttered.

"But I don't have that class for another three days."

I groaned and headed up the garden path. It wasn't much of a garden at only about seven feet long. "Mine are in for tomorrow."

Before I could step inside my house he tugged my arm and turned me around. "I'm sorry about the argument earlier."

"Good," I mumbled.

"And if I scared you with the moving idea."

"I want to go out with you on Thursday. Your turn to plan."

"My turn?"

I nodded. "I showed you to the supermarket when you first moved over, then I took you food shopping at the market, then you came to the cinema with us. Your turn. Surprise me."

He grinned. I felt like I'd just unleashed a monster. "Ok," he said. Then he grabbed my face with both of his hands and kissed me.

Just like last time it made my knees go week. Unlike last time, he was the first one to move. He hopped over the wall that divided our houses and disappeared inside his before I'd made it through the door.

                                                                          *     *     *     *

The first thing I did in the morning was slam the three essays I owed Mr. Rogers down on his desk with a look of triumph in my eyes and I so very nearly said "Ha! Boom Baby!" like Kuzko does whenever he enters a room in The Emperor's New Groove. But that would have been really weird.

Instead I said, "Booyah!"

The first one had taken two hours, the second has taken three and then I lost it and had to write it all over again, which took another two hours because I'd also realised that I'd read the question wrong and had to re think the entire thing. The third had taken forever because my mind was working too slowly meaning that I'd not finished until three in the morning and I did not function on five hours sleep. Six hours or no hours sure, but five? The number was poison to my blood.