CHEMISTRY [MICHAEL JACKSON]

01.

"Grab a textbook from the corner of the room and turn to page 62," Demanding the class to open our books and read over the next unit, Ms. Irving stood behind her desk and watched us as we each took a book from the shelf and back to our seat to follow her instructions.

At this point, class had already been in session for almost 15 minutes when two guys came walking into the room late.

One of the guys was Michael.

Michael Jackson.

"Sorry teach," Eric, Michael's buddy, snickered. "Had to take care of business."

"Do you have a pass? Any of you?" Ms. Irving questioned them, taking her glasses off and staring at them sternly.

"Nah, nah." Eric nudged Michael before answering. "It's cool though. It's not even five minutes after the bell."

"Stupid asses. It's almost 20 minutes after the bell." A girl named Sahara called to them from across the room.

"Shut the hell up, Sahara." Eric glared at her from across the room as he signed Ms. Irving tardy log.

"Language, boys and girls. Language!" Ms. Irving warned, causing my classmates to snicker and curse anyway.

"I'm 18. This," Eric motioned to himself. "Ain't no boy. I'm a man."

"You're far from a man, E." Sahara snickered.

"Sahara, back to work." Ms. Irving scolded before taking a seat at her desk as the rest of the class finished their warm up.

I, on the other hand, couldn't keep my eyes off of Michael. I could blame him for my bad grades in this class. I could blame him for my short attention span in this class. I focused on him more than I focused on anything we did in that class.

I continued to watch the two classmates of mine sign their names in the tardy log. Michael took his turn to sign his name right after Eric finished.

I watched Michael sign his name.

Although I couldn't see his signature, the way his hand moved in writing motion was perfection to me.

Michael carried himself with such ease. He gently set the pen down on the desk along with the tardy log. When the pen rolled off of the table and fell to the ground, he instantly went back to pick it up and place it on top of the tardy log where it wouldn't roll off.

"He's perfect," I didn't realize I made that comment aloud. I usually spoke in a low and whispering tone of voice, so I was fortunate that no one heard me.

Then there were times like these, where I wasn't aware of anything.

"We're going to be reviewing the warm up together in class today." Ms. Irving informed us, starting class and taking the last bit of attendance.

The only thing I heard in that class was mumbling, grunting, and teeth sucking.

"Oh okay. I see we have an attitude today. I'll be calling on you all today to answer these questions. If you refuse to answer, like most of you usually do," Ms. Irving looked at certain people in the class who would do such a thing. "You will get 10 points deducted from today's assignment. If you give the wrong answer, you will also receive a 10-point deduction. This is going to be counted as an assessment."