While She's 15

Chapter Dix - The Silent Star of The Room

   Elodine is complaining. It’s seven o’clock at night and we’re dragging her to our late night study session. If it were up to us we’d be going on our own but because Ashton’s parents decided to eat out last minute they defaulted to us as babysitters

  I’m sure Elodine would rather be at home watching television with Manny or gossiping about whatever it is fifteen year old girls’ gossip about on Thursday nights but sadly she’s stuck with us.  Which I feel shouldn’t be a complaint for her because well, I’m here…and she loves to be around me

  Our study group is composed of about fourteen guys from our Astronomy 101 class, we all meet in room 104A every Thursday night and crack open our textbooks and white boards.

   Ashton and I proposed the idea of a group study every week to our class and most of them show up. It actually shows in our grades, whereas the people who don’t show up are always trying to peek over our shoulder at out answers because they don’t have even the slightest clue of what was taught 

  Should we blame their test grades on our rather harsh teacher, or is the problem just lazy students?

  We take our study sessions seriously, that means no cell phones, no food and no girls. It’s a quiet, studious environment so Ashton made Elodine bring along a book to read while we’re studying. I’m hoping Elodine isn’t distracting to the guys, I mean…I’m sure they won’t want her there but it’s only for a night so it shouldn’t be a big deal

   When we get to room 104A we turned on the lights and started to unpack our bags waiting for the guys to arrive. Elodine sits down at the table in the middle, “I’ll sit here so you can guys can sit on either side of me” she rambles that cute way she always does

  Ashton nodded “okay, good thinking” he gave her that ‘just for Elodine’ smile. It’s a nice smile…resembles the same smile he gave her when he first held her squirming little body as a baby and he’s given her that same smile for years

  Fifteen minutes pass and Ashton and I are caught up talking to Mason about republicans and democrats and why we feel Obama is in office right now

  At one point we notice how progressively quiet the room has gotten. When we turn around the table only has three seats left, none of them anywhere near Elodine.

  We sit down at the end of the table. Ashton has a bitter look on his face as he watches the guys sitting around Elodine look up from their papers to watch her. Our first concern was that they’d think of her as a nuisance but the way they’re looking at her you’d think she was the star of the room

  The silent star of the room

  Whatever she’s reading makes her smile and she laughs a little, holding her hand over her mouth to muffle it. I feel myself grinning at how frickin cute she is all the time but I soon scowl when I realize that most all the guys at the table are grinning at her

  She looks up from her book “what?” she asks softly

  Ashton looks up, oblivious to what just happened

  One of the guys, Max leans forward a little “what was funny”

  All the guys lean forward and she’s just sitting there blushing at all the attention she’s receiving. “I uh, well uh...” she stutters. It’s something she does when she gets all shy…she used to do it around me all the time. “You see, uh...” she sinks into her seat “you know…Romeo and Juliet…it’s kind of funny”

  Max makes a face “Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, how is it in any way funny?” his tone is challenging and I can see Ashton twitching with the nerve to tell him to back off but he doesn’t. He knows Elodine can stand her own ground and he seems willing to let her try

  She sets her book down “are you…challenging me?”

  Max smirks, “just asking the pretty lady to defend her point”

  She sits up “Romeo and Juliet is actually really funny. Have you ever thought about Tybalt’s character? His life is practically a joke, he’s a short little man who walks around always poking his head into trouble” she clears her throat “we start of the book with Tybalt getting into a fight with Romeo’s friends. You know, the whole, do you bite your thumb thing…” the guys all nodded “and out comes Prince Escalus to put an end to the fight telling them that whoever starts anything next will be killed” she shakes her head “but Tybalt doesn’t care! He’s all gun-ho on making sure that everyone’s afraid of him, but no one is because again…he’s a short little man”

  One of the guys nodded “okay, but what’s funny about that?”

  She shrugged “I just think Tybalt relates to a lot of people you meet in real life. Everyone wants to get a long but they have to be that one person who instigates al the fights and makes everyone uncomfortable” she smiled a little “Tybalt is like that one guy at the party who has to get noticeably drunk and try to start a fight when everyone else is focused on getting that girl to say yes to undress”

  All the guys start to laugh and I see Ashton fighting with the urge to laugh at his little sister

  “Who are you?” Max asks

  “My little sister” Ashton says

  All the guys look at Elodine and at Ashton and then they grin “so cute genes do run through your family” one of the guys said

  Ashton grinned “ Ha, ha really funny”

  When the study session is coming to end all the guys hug Elodine probably longer than they should and from the corner of my eye I see most of them trying to give her their number. She keeps blushing and slipping the pieces of paper in her coat pocket.

  Note to self, throw every piece of paper in her pocket away when we get home…

  A rather charasmisict Elodine returns to Ashton’s side and he wraps his arm around her shoulder and presses a kiss to her cheek