Meant to Be

Chapter Eleven

A few days later, I walked into English to find that the room had completely changed. Instead of neat, orderly rows, the desks were paired in groups of two, kind of in a circle formation. Mr. Walters's desk was now at the back of the room instead of the front, but he had one single desk at the front of the room, facing the rest. I sat down at one of the empty desk pairs. As more people came in, Mr. Walters announced, "Please sit with your partner for the research project!"

"Hey, there," Collin greeted me as he sat down.

"Hey," I replied.

The bell rang, and the class became quiet, waiting for Mr. Walters, who was standing at the front of the room, to begin talking.

"Today, I'm going to give you all some time to finalize your topic. You will need to select a topic by the end of the period because at the end of the period, I'm going to write down your selection. If you pick a topic before everyone else is ready to share their selection, start brainstorming for your PowerPoint," Mr. Walters said. "All right, go ahead! I want to see creative thinking and brainstorming!"

I turned to Collin. "So," I said awkwardly.

"So," he answered.

We sat there in silence for a moment, not sure what to say.

"Overpopulation," Collin said all of a sudden, interrupting my thoughts.

"What?" I asked. 

"We could do overpopulation as our topic. The solution could be adoption," Collin explained.

"That's an option, but..." I drifted off.

"It's not very interesting," Collin finished.

"Yeah. What about high gas prices?" 

"And you're calling my idea of overpopulation boring?" Collin countered. "How about... well, my dad talks about the 'ever-lowering value of the U.S. dollar.' Maybe that?"

I smiled. "Some people may not be...bright enough to understand that," I answered, and looked pointedly at Zoey.

"You're right," Collin agreed. "To some people, a million dollars is a million dollars, no matter what it can buy." We laughed.

We tried idea after idea, from standardized testing to weather, but we had no success.

Suddenly, Mr. Walters stood up from his desk at the front of the room. "Okay, class, I'm going to start writing down the topics," he announced. "I'll just go around the room. Let's start with Zoey and Olivia."

Zoey smiled and said, "Fashion unawareness."

Mr. Walters raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure you want to do that issue?"

"Mr. Walters, it's a serious issue in today's world," Zoey explained.

"If you don't know how to dress right, you have a smaller chance of getting hired for a job than if you know how to dress right," Olivia added.

"Well...okay," Mr. Walters agreed, but I could tell he was trying not to laugh.

"'Fashion unawareness is a serious issue'!" Collin mocked Zoey as Mr. Walters went on to the next group. 

I smiled, but then realized the reality of the situation. "At least they have an issue. We still have to come up with one!"

"Split ends?" Collin suggested with a smirk.

"Collin..." I began, but was interrupted by Mr. Walters.

"Rylee and Collin?" he asked. "Do you have an issue selected?"

We didn't say anything.

"Rylee? Collin? What is your topic?" Mr. Walters prompted us.

At that moment, I got an idea. "What about cancer?" I mouthed to Collin.

A funny look came across Collin's face, but he quickly changed his expression and shrugged. "If that's what you want," he whispered. 

I turned back to Mr. Walters. "Cancer," I told him.

Mr. Walters wrote that down and went on to the next group. Collin started writing down ideas for our project, but I couldn't stop thinking about the look that passed over Collin's face. I couldn't identify it. It wasn't like he didn't like the idea, just that it wasn't what he was expecting.

I decided to forget about the look on his face. If there was a problem with doing cancer, he could tell me, and we could pick a different issue. Honestly, I was just happy we had a topic picked, no matter what it was.

The bell rang, and everyone started leaving.

"Don't forget to start working on your project!" Mr. Walters called after us.

Collin and I walked to the door together.

"See you later," I said.

"Bye," he replied.

Then he turned left and walked away. I stood there for a second, watching to see if he was okay, if there was something different about him. I couldn't tell if there was any change in Collin. Besides, if there was, he would tell me.

Reassured, I went to my locker to get ready to go home.