Room 206 - Luke Hemmings

eighteen

Before I had even realized it, Christmas break had come and I was heading home back to my parents and away from Professor Hemmings and all of my problems for a little while. My parents were excited to see me, and hounded me for a few minutes about my English grade but overall tried to make Christmas a fun break for me, and I needed it a lot.

I went back to the school for New Years with Alex and the girls just a few days before school was supposed to start up again. They always do a party that usually goes until about 2 in the morning when all the teachers are grumpy about partying teenagers, which gives the perfect opportunity for some students to sneak into empty classrooms and get laid because all the teachers are too tired to go around monitoring anything.

Considering there weren't many students there when I first got back anyways, the teachers that were there were still watching everyone like a hawk, and unfortunately Professor Hemmings was one of them. The afternoon I got back, he stopped in the hallway to stare at me for a moment before offering to carry my bag up to my dorm for me. I said yes but only because I didn't want to lug it all the way up the stairs.

"Hey Daisy," Alex pulled me in for a tight hug when I met up with him at dinner that night, considering we hadn't seen each other in about a week and a half. He gave me a quick kiss on the lips and sat with me since the girls were supposed to get back the following morning.

"Do you want to go get breakfast tomorrow morning?" he asked me as we sat and ate our dinner, chatting a little and for once not arguing.

"Sure," I said. "What time?"

"Does 9 work?" he asked, and I nodded.

"Perfect," he smiled, leaning in and kissing my cheek.

-

I spent a little extra time in the bathroom that morning, making sure my hair looked nice before I went to meet up with Alex. I walked out and made my way down to the main hall, where we decided we would meet up before we walked out to breakfast together. He held my hand as we walked, in a good mood already, which put me into a better mood.

"How did you sleep?" he asked me when we sat down and had ordered our food. I ordered pancakes of course, I'm surprised I'm not fat because of how much I love pancakes.

"I slept really well, actually," I said. "I've had a lot of trouble sleeping lately but I fell asleep right away and I slept right through the night."

"That's good," he said. "Are the tutoring sessions with Hemmings getting any better?"

"I don't want to talk about him," I said. "He's such a dick, and he isn't important. This is about you and I right now."

"Okay," he smiled. "Well, how about I talk about how cute that sweater is on you. Is it new?"

"Yes," I said, looking down at it. "My parents gave it to me for Christmas."

"I like the color," he said. "It brings out your eyes."

I felt my cheeks heat as I smiled at him across the table.

The majority of our breakfast went like this, plus a whole lot of laughing and having a genuinely good time together, which we hadn't done in a really long time. I was laughing and really happy for the first time in what felt like years, and I even had to wipe away a few tears from laughing so hard. I had just finally had the faith restored in our relationship that I'd been needing, and it felt so amazing until once again something had to stand in the way.

"Hey Alex," a girl with shoulder length hair that honestly looked a little bit like me except that her hair was brown, not red, came and stood at the table looking between Alex and I. His jaw immediately set and I grew confused at what was going on.