Falling All Over Again

4.0 | i wish you were never born

NOAH SITS DOWN beside me in the only spare seat, in my first class of the day, causing an involuntary reaction from me; "Not you. It's too early to deal with this." I'm groaning in annoyance as I bang my head back down onto the table.

"You don't hear me shouting for joy on my end either," he replies sarcastically, devoid of any emotion.

Mr Krine walks into class at this moment and immediately begins the lesson.

"Today is a fantastic day, students! You'll be beginning the first of your projects all year," he pauses dramatically, "The baby project."

Groans reverberate throughout the room. A group project? Never a good thing.

A couple of things could go wrong with this - one - your partner doesn't care about a good grade, or two - you end up doing all the work.

I'm still recovering from the news yesterday, and a group project? Not a way to uplift my spirits.

Mr Krine thrives on this project. He sees himself as some little matchmaker, as at least one relationship each year seems to come out of this at the end.

He puts all the boys' names in one hat, and all the girls' names in the other, since for some reason, we have to be paired with someone of the opposite sex. Great rule, I know. He calls names in roll order, but to make it special this year, calls them from the bottom up.

A few people have gone up, some squeal with excitement, others look like they'd rather be run over by a truck and have the ground swallow them whole afterwards.

"Standard."

I slowly walk up to the front, dreading who I'll get. I don't like anyone in the entire class, so either way, I'm going to be the one looking like they want to be run over by that truck.

I grab the first piece of paper I see, wasting no time. Unfolding it, I see the one person in particular, I do not want to be paired with.

"Nope." I quickly try and shove the name back into the hat, but Mr Krine is too fast and whips the hat back towards him. "Now Lola, we don't swap partners, you know the rules. Who have you got."

"I refuse to work with this person." I'm scrunching the paper into a ball, and aim for the hat, throwing it back in. I smirk at Mr Krine. "Oops. Guess I'll have to pick someone else."

He smiles back, and then mimics me, "Oops. Only one piece of paper is rolled up into a little ball." He retrieves what I know is my paper, and unfolds it. "Noah Richmond." My smirk fades into a frown.

"Mr Krine! You know that there's no way in hell a relationship will come out of this. Just give me someone else."

"A relationship? Nonsense, now you can work together as friends," he feigns confusion, but we all know his true reasons for this.

"We aren't friends," Noah groans to Mr Krine.

My eyes narrow at him, "Shut up."

"I was trying to help!"

"Just shut up! You aren't helping."

"Come on now Lola, Noah, I hoped we wouldn't have any issues between you two," Mr Krine tries to reason with us.

Hearing Noah scoff at the back of the class, I turn my glare to him, "I'm not the problem, it's her," he pouts sullenly.

"Excuse me? You've just caused a problem, therefore making you the problem!" I shout.

I turn back to face Mr Krine exasperatedly, who has the smallest of smiles on his face. "You two will be perfect together. There's no changing. Here's your baby, you can take a seat, Lola," he says as he plonks a heavy plastic thing in my arms.