Beyond the Sun

08

Annie sat bouncing her leg up and down as she stared at the piece of offending paper on the desk in front of her. Tomorrow came quicker than she had ever thought. The morning lessons had whizzed by and before she knew it, it was test time. All the studying seemed to have been a waste of time as her mind went temporarily blank. She just couldn't think. There was nothing coming to mind which could help her out here. Inhaling deeply, she exhaled slowly. Calm, she said to herself, getting worked up and having an attack here and now was not going to help. Although...it would surely get her out of the test? But then she'd still need to take it another time, so all in all, it was pointless.

She could do this. She could do this. Annie resisted the urge to dramatically hit her head against the table. She couldn't do this. Sitting up and fidgeting, she finally picked up her pen and looked around, everyone else was so intent in scribbling away. Everyone looked so focused and so on it, and then there was her. Sitting here at her desk having some sort of mental debate with herself. Hearing a quiet cough, she looked over to the source and got a smile sent her way. Clark. Annie smiled, and felt herself calm somewhat. In times of trouble, there he was. With one small smile in return he had managed to calm her down and she had found herself more alert now than what she did moments ago.

Looking back at the test she frowned slowly, everything wasn't as hard as it seemed. She knew this stuff. She knew it. She'd spent two hours of her life the previous evening studying this stuff. She had lost two hours of her life on studying this, so she better damn well had remembered some of it! With determination, Annie placed her pen to the paper and commenced answering all of the problems which were before her.

By the time, she had left the class and realised she was before her locker, she had had enough; her head hit against the stubborn door and she shut her eyes. "You did fine." Clark's voice spoke quietly from her side, she tilted her head to the side and looked at him through strands of hair. "I'm sure of it!" Clark said happily, trying to invoke some sort of enthusiasm into his friend.

"Fine...sometimes fine isn't enough though, Clark...I spent the first half hour sitting there daydreaming, another ten minutes was spent drumming, then I finally managed to try and do some work. I see a fail coming my way." Annie said sadly while yanking at her locker door. "Come on you piece of crap! I don't need this in my life right now!"

"Calm down," Clark put a hand on her shoulder and gently coaxed her to the side. He looked at her worriedly before he simply pulled and managed to open the locker door with ease. Annie smiled at him sadly yet thankfully and took to pulling her things out and shoving them into her bag.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome," Clark said while they turned and made their way steadily towards his locker. Unlike hers, his opened easily enough without no problems. And even more unlike her own, it was clean and clear of rubbish. It only had the things he needed for school in it, unlike hers. Annie was rather sure there was an overdue comic book from the library hiding in the deep recesses of her locker somewhere...

Leaning against the lockers while Clark took to taking his things out and placing them into his bag, Annie looked about with bored eyes. Frowning suddenly, she nodded her head, as if to say: "What? What are you looking at?" While her eyes stared intently at Pete, who was across the hall staring at her with an odd look. Her natural defence to something so innocent caused the redhead's eyes to widen from being caught out, along with his cheeks suddenly tinting as he bowed his head and walked away.

"Weirdo."

"Who is?" Clark's head peeked out from his locker and he looked at her before looking about at the other milling students.

"Pete...he was just standing staring at me."

"I told you he likes you, why didn't you listen to me?"