Something About Him

-17-

Christopher Brown

"We missed the two of you the other day," Mr. Davis speaks to Layla and I at the start of gym class.

"I wasn't feeling good.. The nurse sent me home," Layla lies which makes him nod his head.

"Well how are you feeling now? Need to be excused for the day?" He asks surprisingly and I look down at Layla expecting for her to say yes.

With a raised eyebrow and an almost unnoticeable smirk, she says lowly, "Well..."

"She's good," I answer for her and grab her wrist to pull her away from near him. "Right?" I ask still looking down at her.

Layla blinks at me multiple times with a pout on her face but then agrees to what I say. "Right."

When we get away from him, we sit at the bleachers waiting for the rest of our group to get here.

"I was contemplating on sitting out," Layla says to me. "But noooo you just had to speak up."

"Cause if I gotta do this gym shit so do you," I respond with a small smile.

"Excuse me," she speaks in a preppy tone which told me that she's probably about to joke around. "I run back and forth on a soccer field every week. That's all the work out I need."

"And I walk up and down these long flights of stairs in this ancient ass school and the stairs that lead the way from the refrigerator to my room," I argue back.

"You're greedy for that."

"I'm greedy? Yet you told me you're a fat girl stuck in a skinny girl's body," I respond bringing up what she'd told me one of those days when we were on the phone or hanging out.

She bursts out laughing and then covers her face attempting to prevent me from seeing her blush.

"Man, whatchu hiding for," I grab her wrist trying to stop her from covering her face. "Those words came out ya mouth, am I right?"

"Maybe but that didn't mean repeat it," she mutters in between giggles. 

"Too late now."

The sound of a loud whistle not far from us makes us stop talking and instead look in the direction that it came from.

"Let's go people!" Mr. Davis speaks loudly even though we're already all looking at him. "Ten laps, thirty minutes."

Groans come from people just walking in from the locker room and people sitting in the bleachers.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Mr. Davis mocks us. "Get used to it. Second quarter is half way done. Then you have me again for third marking period and fourth is back to health."

"I have a question," some girl says as she raises her hand.

"And I have an answer," he responds.

"Why do we always have gym in between two marking periods of health?" The girl asks and then adds, "Why can't we just have half a year of gym and the other half we have health?"