Forever & Always

Chapter 3 - Alessandra

The bell rang. Finally out of Geometry. It's not that I don't like math, I actually do. But it was hard to do my assignment when the dickhead sitting next to me kept poking me with his pencil and the teacher shot me death glares the entire time.

After hearing the name, I couldn't focus. It brought back every memory from that night. I went to my locker and looked at my schedule. English was next. I know everybody thinks that if you like math, you can't like English, but I love both. I have always liked to read; Caleb and I would sit in the window seat for hours at a time reading. When we would do something wrong, Dad would always confiscate our books as punishment because he knew how much we liked reading.

I walked into the English classroom, but there was only one seat left open. "Hey." Asher smirked at me. I rolled my eyes and sat down. "You can't ignore me forever, Lessie."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I have told you once not to call me that. I won't say it again." My voice sounded cold and hard. He must have heard it too, because his eyes widened just slightly, and he sat back in his seat.

"Good morning," the teacher said. "I hope your day has started off as well as mine has." Yeah, it's been great. "I hear we have a new student. Ms. Dario, would you like to introduce yourself?"

Everybody turned to look at me. "Not really," I said. They laughed. All of a sudden, Asher stood up.

"Everybody, this is Alessandra Dario." My eyes widened. What was he doing? Asher smirked down at me. "She prefers to be called Al, and--."

"Mr. Jordan, take your seat," the teacher said. "I'm sure that Alessandra is capable of introducing herself."

"Sorry, Mrs. Sedwick," Asher said, but he continued to smirk.

I stood up. "Um... Hi. I'm Alessandra. But my friends call me Al. So all of you can call me Alessandra."

As I sat down, Asher gave me a weird look. "What?"

"Nothing. You just reminded me of someone."

I rolled my eyes and looked back up at Mrs. Sedwick.

"For this project you will be working in pairs. I will assign your partner, but let me first explain the assignment. You are to collaborate with each other to write about a topic. One person from each pair will chose a topic from the hat. You will write about the topic you choose. It can be a fictional story, a definition, or a small skit. But, no matter how you choose to explain your topic, it must be at least a page long. The pairs are Will and Ashley, Wade and Katie, Bethany and Isabelle, Simon and Alyson, Reagan and Lauren, Alessandra and Asher, and Cash and Emily. One person from each pair can come up and pull a topic from the hat."

Asher stood up and walked to the front. The girl in front of me turned to face me. "Have fun with Asher," she said sarcastically.

I gave her a tight smile. "Not exactly my idea of fun, but thanks."

She grinned at me. "I know the feeling, girl." I smiled weakly back and she stuck out her hand. "I'm Emily."

I gave her a weird look, but took her hand. "Alessandra. And who gives handshakes anymore?"

She laughed. "Blame it on my parents. 'Back in our day we didn't meet over Facebook. We met in person and gave eachother nice handshakes,'" she mockingly said. "And that, my friend, is my parents in a nutshell."

I forced a smile. "Sounds like my dad."

She chuckled. "Nice introduction by the way."

"Thanks. I just didn't want to talk in front of people."

"Understandable, really. They say to imagine everyone in their underclothes, but that makes everything ten times more frightening."

As she turned back around, Asher walked to our table and sat down. "Do you wanna do the honors?" He held the slip of paper out to me.

I took it from him and opened it. I groaned and put my head down on the table. "What is it?" Asher asked. I held the slip of paper up to him without looking up.

I looked up to see him looking at the paper and laughing. "Love?" he asked nobody in particular. "Our topic is love?" He started laughing again. I snatched the piece of paper from him and walked it up to the trash can.

"Now if you're done acting immature," I snapped. "Can we please get started?"

"Don't call me that," Asher muttered.

"What?"

"Don't call me that."

"Don't call you what?" I was confused.

"Immature. I'm not immature." He had a hard look in his eyes.

I furrowed my eyebrows and sat down. "Um... Okay. Let's get started."

The look left his face almost as immediately as it had arrived. "What should we do?"

"I don't know," I said. "I don't really want to do a skit, because that would require acquiring good actors and actresses that don't completely ruin the parts."

"Fair enough. And I don't really want to write a fictional story. I'd rather write about a love that is actually real."

"Alright," I concluded. "That leaves definition. We could use examples of real love in our definition and we could explain what love means to us."

His eyebrows furrowed. "But it's different for everybody."

"We could put that in."

"Sounds good," he said. "And we could explain that there are different types of love, too. For example, between a mother or father and a daughter or son, and between two people who are a couple."

"How long do we have for this assignment?" I asked.

"Two weeks, but if we finish early, we get another topic to explain."

Mrs. Sedwick stood up. "Class dismisses in three minutes, so you can start getting your stuff ready. While you do that I have news. When you finish your assignment, I will read through every one of them. I will then choose two to be entered into a writing competition for the state of Oklahoma. If one of the selections wins at state, it will go on to a national competition. From there, it could go to a world competition. I expect you to work very hard on these. They are graded, but think of the possibilities ahead of you. At state you could win five thousand dollars each, national you could win ten thousand, and at worlds you could win fifty thousand. I suggest you try your best."

The bell rang. Asher looked me in the eye. "We are winning that competition."