Love is such a Tired Clichè

Chapter 1: The Box of Swords

I stare at my white ceiling, wishing today wasn't Thursday.

"Come on!" My mom shouts from the bottom of the stairs. "You have school!"

Like I don't know that! I heave myself out of bed and put on a pair of black shorts. Then I slip my black hoodie over a t-shirt, and grab my backpack. I let out a sigh and walk quietly down the stairs.

I'm ready to set out and walk to school, but a voice stops me: my mother's. "Did you eat breakfast? Did you brush your hair?"

I roll my eyes and reach for the door knob, but, again, Mom's voice sounds. "If you leave without eating breakfast, young lady, then no computer or TV time for a week!" she squawks.

"Fine!" I yell, heaving yet another sigh. "I'll just go and eat an orange or something! Jeez!"

I can tell Mom is about to say something along the lines of "don't take that tone with me," but I had already flung my backpack to the floor and stormed off to the kitchen. My hand flicked my sleeve out of the way before plucking a small orange from the fruit bowl. I peel the ripe fruit as an idea comes to mind. An idea that'll get me out of here.

"Mom, can I eat on the way to school?" I call.

"As long as you eat, dear," she responds. Her voice rains down from upstairs, and at this point I start to get annoyed. Back to bed already!

She may kvetch about me all the time, but in all fairness, I do occasionally (okay, perhaps frequently) complain about her as well. In fact, I grumble the whole way to school, and am in such a rotten mood I don't look where I'm going and trip over a stick. Lovely. I haul myself off the road, brush myself off, and keep walking (while simultaneously eating my breakfast). I finish my orange just as I was walking up to the doors. Now I get to wait ten minutes before the bell rings and lets us in, so the most interesting thing to do is hold doors open for teachers. Fun, right? At this point, I just hope on of my teachers might take pity on me (or just need help) and bring me in to help them out. I wait five minutes with no such luck. However, a bit of good luck comes my way in form of my best friend Aryn.

"Hey, bro!" I call to him as he steps out of his car.

"Don't be cheeky, or I'll write a lovely ballad about how you used to beat me," he warbles, continuing the song.

"I won't use your real name, Steve. Steve McGuffin. I just swallowed a thousand leaves!" I play along. "So, what did I miss from the last time we talked?"

It's not as if I missed anything, as he had called me last night. We are really close friends, have been for six years.

"Nothin' much. You?"

"Same. Just the usual: a nagging mother, clumsy limbs, et cetera," I say, kind of failing at inserting some humor into the statement.

"Why am I not surprised?" he jokes, cracking a smile.

"Gee, thanks," I grin, sarcasm and amusement dripping from my tone.

I turn to watch the parking lot, where I notice my English teacher slamming the door of her black Mercedes. She was carrying a large box, I assume for the play my class was doing the next week.

"Need help, Grewal?" I call, dropping the "Mrs." Maybe if I help, I can get inside faster. Besides, spending some time with my favorite teacher is no hardship.

"Sure, Peterson," she says back, using the same amount of formality with me as I did with her. That's what I liked about her: she cut the crap, but did it in an awesome way. "As long as you can persuade Aryn to help too."

"Sure, Mrs. Grewal!" he pipes up. "'course I'll help."

The two of us jog over to her car and took each end of the box. Mrs. Grewal reaches into the depths of her trunk to pull out her lunchbox and closed her trunk as we start to walk across the parking lot. She yanks open the door for us, and I nod a "thanks" to my English teacher. We walk in an awkward parade down the hall, and I'm relieved when we finally put the box down.

"Thank you, guys," Mrs. Grewal says, her amber gaze boring into mine.

I grin at her, then say, "So, what's even in here?"

"Oh, just some swords for the play. Amy needed to bring these, but she rides the bus, so she couldn't bring them. So, I picked them up from her house."

"Sweet. Spe-," I say, but the morning bell cuts the rest of what I was going to say. Grewal can be kind of mean to her students (like calling them "annoying," for example) but in reality, she really cares about them.

"Now get to class, man," she says to Aryn, motioning towards the door.

We walk out of the class to put our stuff in our lockers and Aryn says to me, "Well, now some quality time with good old Sanders." He's referring to our really old History teacher.

"At least you don't have him in the afternoon, when he's cranky, " I grumble.

"At least you don't have him in the morning, when he's still tired," he shoots back.

"Fair enough. He is not a morning person." And with that, we made some business deals with our lockers.

When I walked back into the classroom, Grewal was just leaving it. "Peterson, can you put the date up and turn on CNN Student News at eight?" she says, locking me with those deep golden eyes again. "I already logged into the computer."

"Okay," I reply, and go to do so.

A/N***

The song we refer to here is an awesome parody of Hello (Adele) by Barely Productions. Check it out! Also, hope you guys like the first chapter of our book! Just to let you know, it's partially based on real events.

-Ed & Betsy