Priceless / l.h. (Hiatus)

chapter six

October 2008

I hurried into my math class just as the bell rang. I took a seat at my desk at opened my book. I hated math. I used to be good at math, but once middle school rolled around, that changed.I glanced up to see why the teacher hadn't started to see her talking to a girl I haven't seen before. I took the time to quickly finish up my math homework. 

"Everyone," She said, making me look up at her again. 

The girl she was talking to walked past me and took a seat a couple rows behind me.

"Brooklyn is new here," She said, motioning to the girl who sat behind me. "She'll need help catching up, so I expect you all to give her that help."

No one said anything and the teacher took that as a cue to start teaching. I thought for a minute. Brooklyn, that name jogged something in me. Did I ever know a Brooklyn? I did. In elementary. But I only knew her for a short amount of time. 

I turned my head to glance at her. He face was facing down as she was scribbling in a notebook and he hair was falling down onto the table. When she glanced up to look at that teacher, I knew that face. It was Brooklyn from elementary. 

Her hair was a lot longer than it was back then. But then again, it was four years ago. Her face was now clean. That's how I remember her, she always had a smudge of dirt on her face and I never knew why.

Her clothes seemed a lot newer now though, she wore a pair of light wash jeans and a hoodie. I shook my head and looked forwards to thinking about it, it had been four years, obviously thing have changed.

I made the thoughts leave my head and tried to focus on math. I could really use the focus anyways. I did the worksheet and started the homework. The faster I finished my homework, the faster Calum could come over and we could plan my birthday party.

The bell rang and instead of getting up and walking out the door, I walked to the back. I walked up to Brooklyn's table.

"Brooklyn, right?" I said like I didn't already know

She nodded, getting out of her desk and collecting her stuff.

"Hey, I don't know if you remember me but I'm-"

"Luke," she cut me off, looking up at me.

"You remember me?" I asked, picking up her bag that was right by my foot and handed it to her.

"How can I not? You were the only one who actually talked to me," She spoke softly.

"Right, yeah. I don't know what everyone was thinking but-"

"Ah, Luke. I see you met Brooklyn. Why don't you help her with filling in the notes?" My teacher said to me, catching me off guard.

"Oh, uh," I stammered.

"It's fine, Ms. Garner, I'll manage," Brooklyn said, putting her books into her bag and heading for the door.

Ms. Garner gave me a disappointed look and I started heading for the door too.

"Are you sure?" I asked, causing Brooklyn to stop and look at me. "I'd love to do it."

"Really? Because back there you didn't seem too excited," Brooklyn said, looking at her feet.

"Sorry about that, she just caught me off guard, I'm serious, I'd love to do it. When's your free period?" I asked.

"Right now, actually," Brooklyn said.

"Really?" I said and forced out a chuckle. "Mine too."

"Okay, cool. We can do it now, I guess," Brooklyn said with a smile.

I nodded. "Cool."

***

"So why did you just suddenly leave?" I asked Brooklyn as we sat down at a table outside.

She looked at me like she didn't know what I was talking about.

"School, I mean," I added.

She pressed her lips together and pulled out her notebook and pencil. 

"My mom got really sick, me and my siblings had to be pulled out of school so we could afford the costs, we were all homeschooled by one teacher for the past four years," She explained, putting her bag down on the floor.

"Wow, is your mom okay now?" I asked, pulling out my notes.

"Yeah, I think so," Brooklyn nodded.

"That's good," I said sincerely. "Now, I'm not the best at math, but I do happen to have all the notes."

I slid my notes over to her and she looked up at me. That's when my eyes met hers and I felt my eyes widen.

"Your eyes," I said softly. "I never noticed them before."

Brooklyn quickly looked down at her paper. "I know, it's weird."

"No, no it's not weird," I said quickly. "I think it's cool."

Brooklyn smiled slightly. "Well, a lot of people seem to think that having two different coloured eyes is weird."

I shook my head. "Not at all. I wish I had one brown eye and one blue eye, Brooke."

I paused for a moment and so did she.

"Can I call you Brooke? I'm going to call you Brooke," I said.

She giggled causing me to smile. "I guess so."

It was quiet again while she read over my notes and started copying some down.

"Wait, you said you're bad at math?" She asked, looking up at me. "But you were so good at math in fourth grade."

I chuckled. "Yeah, but think about how easy that math was."

"Right," she nodded. "Did you end up winning more prizes for our mad minute?"

"No!" I yelled, getting angry at the memory. "Mrs. Gaskin put the slowest kid on our team! He couldn't even finish the damn thing in a minute!"

Brooklyn laughed. "That sucks."

"It really did," I sighed. "But we had a good year with indoor soccer, do you still play?"

"A little with my brothers," Brooklyn nodded, not looking up from her notes.

"How many siblings do you have?" I asked.

"Four," She said. "Two older brothers an older sister, and one younger brother."

"Wow, that's a lot. That must mean you have a lot of commotion in your house," I chuckled.

"You don't know the half of it, and we all share a room too!" Brooke said, pulling her attention away from the notes.

"Really? Damn that sucks," I said.

That really did seem to suck. I mean one room for five kids? They must really have a small house.

"Do you still live in the same house?" I asked her.

"You know where I live?" She asked.

"No, but my dad uh said you moved in on the left side of town, I was just wondering," I explained.

Brooklyn nodded and sighed. "Yeah, still the left side."

Idk why but I just feel like I should end it here. I was going to continue on but I changed my mind. :-)