My Girlfriend's a Demigod

I Was Paired with My Favorite Classmate

            I stayed away from Helena as much as I could, like everybody else. I took her warning seriously now: "Don't interrupt again." It took three days of hot and cold compress before the black eye she gave me at Gym class disappeared. Our English class didn’t help me with the stay-away-from-Helena plan. Ms. Banks assigned us a research about our topic in Literature. And this was done in pairs. She had the names randomly picked and I ended up being paired with Helena. Everybody in class gave me a sympathetic look, like I’m about to die, after her name was called next to mine.

As much as I wanted to complain, this research project was 40% of our grade. I’ll just convince her that I’ll do the entire research and put her name on the front page. She’d definitely agree, she’s pretty lazy with school chores, anyway. I approached her after class and she stared at me like I did something wrong. “I volunteer to do the entire research.” I held on tightly to my bag and prepared to use it as shield in case she gives me another punch. There were kids around us, some worried, some amazed, that I was speaking with her.

“Okay, genius. Do what you want.” She walked away and put her red headset on. Sigh. No scratch. Great.

               We had basketball practice that afternoon and Coach Daniel was just giving us the plan for the next game. The team was dismissed and the members went on different directions. Leila, the head cheer leader approached me and offered a towel. “Nice game. Want to go to the mall later?” She batted her eyelashes at me.

“Uhm. Thanks for the offer, Leila, but I have a research paper to do tonight. Maybe next time.” I declined politely. I couldn’t avoid these types of offers. Last time, it was Andrea, a Glee Club member, who asked me out. Sigh. Girls!

“Maybe you can delay that research for a night?” She moved her hand to my chest. I shivered.

“It’s a hard topic. I need to start early. I’m sorry.” I removed her hand off me and ran toward the showers.

              I was passing by the small gymnastics room after I took a shower and saw someone inside. The room had all the equipment gymnasts used for practice, there were bows and arrows for archery, spears and javelins. Helena’s holding a spear and was beating the practice dummy to death. Its head was already cut off and the body’s full of holes from consistent piercing. I pitied the dummy. She was very good with the spear. It’s like she’s a warrior from a Trojan War movie. I thought if its pure strength or she’s just driven by something that made her like this. Her cell phone rang and she dropped the spear. “Mom.” I heard her say. “Yes, I’ll go home now.” She picked up her bag and I ran away as far as I could before she noticed me.