I'm Not Quite Sure Yet

Our Friendship is a Practically a Telenovela

A tan hand waves frantically in front of my face, startling me out of my trance.

"HELLOOOO! Earth to Micah! Oh, and you were doing so well, too. What a shame," my too-enthusiastic-for-eight-in-the-morning friend practically screams in my face.

I throw a scowl her way before nonchalantly pushing her hand, or rather entire arm, down. "Stop flapping like a bird. You're never going to fly, Ava. Even if your name does sound like something that would.." I begin to zone out again, losing myself in a very interesting train of thought concerning all sorts of aviary animals.

Before I can lose myself too much, I'm gripped by the shoulders and shaken vigorously, almost to the point of being pushed out of my chair.

"Okay, ow?!" I wretch my shoulders back, out of harms way, and extend my arms out in front of me, facing my palms outward in a deflecting motion. "What the heck was that for? I was paying attention to like every word. You have no reason to harass me via shaking me like a fricking maraca," I whine.

"Every word my butt." Ava squints her deep brown, almond shaped eyes that I'm so jealous of in an accusatory manner. Can anyone really deny that almond shaped eyes just look so much better than round eyes (like my own) with winged eyeliner? Ugh, the makeup struggle. "You really should pay attention to me more often. Think of all the valuable insights into the commoners' life you could gain! I mean, where else would you get all of the juicy yet traumatizing goings-ons of this school at?"

I roll my eyes, leaning my elbow onto the desk before motioning for her to continue the flood of information, throwing a quick glance at our Chemistry teacher to make sure we still have a few minutes to spare before she starts today's lesson.

"Okay." Ava turns herself towards me dramatically, placing her hands in her lap before rattling off all of the news she acquired by casually eavesdropping on conversations in her math class yesterday. "Well, you know that Jordan's been dating Tierney, right?" I nod, encouraging her. "Yeah, so apparently they had this HUGE fight in the middle of lunch, like throwing chairs and everything!"

I raise my eyebrows. "Who threw them?"

"Uh, duh, Tierney. We all know that Jordan's too afraid of her to try anything like that.."

I continue listening to yesterday's drama, unpacking my folder and pencils from my backpack as I do so. I arrange everything in neat, parallel lines before zipping up my bag and turning back to Ava, who's switching topics.

"So anyway, what did you think of that math packet we had to do last night? Pretty rough, right? It took me foreeeeveeerrrr," she draws out the word for extra emphasis, as is her tendency.

I feel my face instantly heat up and my palms begin to sweat. "Crap. I don't remember doing that," I whisper nervously, my shaking hands struggling to open my backpack, pull out that class's folder, and rummage through it frantically. I can't believe I don't remember doing the packet. I let out a frustrated sigh upon failing to locate said assignment. Crap. This is going to look so bad to Mrs. Rhodes. I've never missed an assignment, so why does my forgetfulness start now? I'll never be able to finish it by period three.. Breathe, Micah, breathe. There's no reason to overreact.. Finally coming to a seemingly simple realization, I quickly set my head down on the desk in annoyance before leaning back up and punching Ava's arm. "How could you?" I seethe, fixing my worst death stare on her seemingly innocent face.

Her eyes crinkling in mirth, Ava chuckles before responding. "I couldn't resist. It's hilarious when you freak out over something little like that. I mean, how could you forget that we're not even in the same math class? There's no way I'd ever be able to take Advanced Placement Calculus BC." She puts on her most stuck-up expression and exclaims her last words in a pompous air.

I slap my forehead and drag my hand down my face in exasperation before reching over and swiftly shoving her notebook and pencils off of the desk.

"Hey!! What was that for?" She whisper shouts.

"I hate you." I reply, turning myself to face the front of the classroom. I see the kid in front of me quickly snap his neck forward in an attempt to avoid getting caught listening in to our mini-episode of The Drama of Ava and Micah. I really need to come up with a different name for our little spats. The current one isn't very telenovela worthy.

I press my tongue up against the back of my teeth and pull it back, producing a quiet tsk sound, maintaining my stony glare towards the board and neutral expression as I sound my barely-audible disapproval. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Layton's face redden slightly. Good. He heard. That bomb peripheral vision from playing instruments tho ;). Serves him right for listening to things he's not meant to hear. And being bold enough to stare the whole time, too. Tsk. "Kids these days.." I mumble, completely ignoring the fact that I am still quite a child, especially in the eyes of the law.

I can still hear Ava trying to suppress her laughter as Mrs. Lawson starts the lesson for the first class if all eleventh graders' favorite unit: intro to organic chemistry nomenclature. Joy.

Michelle Trachtenberg as Micah

Alia Bhatt as Ava