The Nerd and The Jock - LT Fanfic

20: Bae's Problematic Groupie

20: Bae's Problematic Groupie

Mom always told me that you reap what you sow. This applies to about all facets of life, whether the consequences of your decisions be negative or positive.

Examples of positivity:
If you sow love, you reap love.
You sow contentment, you reap joy.
You sow perservation, you reap eventual success and satisfaction.
You sow kindness, you reap friends.

The kindness thing worked for me. Candice Amy Moore and Sharon Cooper were kind to me when I first met them in elementary school. Candice was ten and Sharon was nine at the time. I was ten. I saw the Can and Shay together for the first time while I was on one of the playground swings. Candice and Sharon were walking past as I swung, innocent and all. They were friends and I knew this because they talked to each other. That was the criteria for making friends in those days: all you had to do was say hi to someone, and you and that person became friends. No strings attached. Easy as pie.

The swing I was on was not, however, attached by strings. Instead chains on either side of me supported my momentum as I soared above kids' heads, feet kicking back and forth. Now the only way to slow down back then was by digging your feet into the sand underneath -- hoping that your feet eventually stilled all motion -- so there was always a pit of sand under the swings for kids to do just that. The thing about swingsets with sand under them is that if a girl didn't pick her feet up when she swung down, she could kick the sand underneath on her way up, and that sand could fly everywhere.

That's exactly what I did when I'd swung back down toward Can and Shay, the two unsuspecting friends. Little fifth-grader me accidentally kicked sand as they passed by, and the sand hit Can and Shay like a minuscule barrage of bullets.

They weren't upset with me -- thank the heavens. We probably wouldn't all be best friends today if they had been. Sharon was always placid and Candice would develop her fiery attitude much later in middle school, so I was spared from any real confrontation. Only ten-year-old me didn't know I was spared. I was horrified. I hadn't meant to get sand in their hair, to trouble them. Way to go, Mara, was what I recall thinking. Way to ruin someone's day.

I dug my feet into the sand and grinded to a halt. I was getting off the swing to say sorry, to hurry and make amends before they turned against me, or something. After getting off and apologizing I helped them brush the sand out of their hair (back in the day everybody wore pigtails and these two were no exception, so it was a lot of slapping sand out of round puffballs). I kept apologizing, trying to atone for something that actually wasn't that bad but seemed so diabolical to me at the time.

"It's okay," fifth grade Sharon told me easily. She invited me to play with her and Candice the same day and we eventually became friends. Easy as pie. And the rest was history.

So there. A perfect example of reaping friends after sowing kindness. The type of morale to tell your kids some day.

Examples of negativity (because sometimes things happen and it sucks):
Sowing meanness, reaping no friends.
Sowing impatience, reaping stress.
Sowing laziness, reaping no weekly allowance because, well, chores.

And my new favorite:

Sowing not doing your homework the night before and instead attending your boyfriend's soccer game... and reaping less-than-satisfactory grades.

Hurray for poor grades. Ugh.

I experienced that one when I arrived to school the following day.

My first period teacher was a substitute who was bent on getting our homework turned in as soon as we walked through the doors. There was no 'Goodmorning, students,' no 'Hey I'm Mr. So-and-So and I'm here because your teacher's sick.' Nope. There were no pleasantries with this one.

I was looking forward to doing my homework before the bell rang. Doing things right before its due date was not something I did regularly, but I was trying to do just that because I'd been too lazy to do it the night before. After arriving home from Blaze's game, I was too energized to just sit and do homework. And who wouldn't be, after spending an evening with friends?

All I hoped to do was cram into first period, finish the work, then turn it in without a problem. Too bad that plan was no bueno. I gave the substitute my homework -- and a frown, if I'm being honest -- as I walked into class. First period, as far as I was concerned, went quite sucky.

Unfortunately second and third period passed by in a similar fashion. My teachers collected my unfinished work without amusement. I was through with myself. Hadn't I finished more work than that? Hadn't I thought to, I don't know, do some of it on the ride to school?

Agitated hands stuffed the books into my locker, shoving them into place before I took out other ones. Passing period. At least they didn't suck as bad as the actual class periods.

"Look at her struggle." Someone had the nerve to laugh behind me. "You need help with your books, nerd?"

Oh, for crying out loud!

"Go to class, Vanessa." I knew it was Vanessa even before I turned around to see her sneering face. To see her crossed arms and her tapping foot. Suddenly, I was ticked off. What's she impatient for? Tapping her foot like that. I'm the one who's waiting for her to leave me alone, not the other way around. I also knew, though, that she wasn't going to.

"Why? Are you my teacher now, Temara?"

"Back off."

"Everybody listen to Ms. Lansing now, she's a teacher!"

"Just back off, please! Vanessa, seriously." I took hold of my backpack straps and tugged on them, trying to steady myself. What a day for her to pick to harass me! All I wanted to do was go to English, hopefully see Blaze, and turn in work that I had actually finished. Nothing more, nothing less. "Not today, okay?"

Agitated hands shut my locker closed, having already gotten the books I needed.

Slam. "You can annoy me tomorrow, I promise."

"What?" Vanessa queried, and I hurriedly brushed past her into a sea of flowing kids. "Temara? Temara, GET BACK HERE I WASN'T FINISHED WITH YOU!"

Soon her voice was lost and I escaped into Advanced English alive and unscathed.

---

Hey hey if you're following my newest fanfic (I Didn't Foresee This) and if you're wondering why it's gone, the reason I took it down was because my friend was lurking my fanfic and I knew that she could potentially see the X-Rated stuff I wrote on there, and that I didn't need her to see that. So I took it down for that purpose (hiding it from her lmao). It'll be back up real quick though.

That's Vanessa above btw, giving Temara sass.