Love Happens: The Story of Stella and Jose

Homework Time with Him, Let's Hang Out

CHP 10

Stella's pov:

At lunch, I'm sitting eating some leftover pasta from my house while listening to music on Pandora. When Come and Get It by Selena Gomez comes on, I begin to think of how good today has been for me. Paige hasn't bothered me because she's on a field trip out of town, and her crew isn't here either. So I've had no issues, whatsoever.

When the lunch bell rings, I throw out any trash and head towards Mr. Serento's difficult math class. Mr. Serento works with his students, and goes through the lessons thoroughly and all that, but I just suck at numbers. And once they mixed numbers with letters, life got a whole lot harder for me. I've worked with him on fixing my comprehension of certain concepts, but sometimes that's not enough to get me past a C+ on a quiz. 

After pushing through the normal hallway traffic, I arrive at the classroom. With two minutes to spare before the next bell, I take a seat near the back of the classroom (where I can charge my phone in peace). Once I get close to the seat, I plug in my phone and leave it sitting on the ridge of the chalkboard right by me. Then, before sitting down, I straighten my blue polo shirt, and dust off my legs.

From there, I got my books and worksheets together, and then readied myself to focus strictly on Mr. Serento's lesson. I didn't even pay attention to who sat by me, until I was tapped on the shoulder by them. And guess who I see? Jose, wearing a blue V-neck, dark blue jeans, and his Jordan's. And when I turn to face him better, I get a whiff of his cologne- and it's the perfect enough to make me faint, 'Self-control, self,' I look right at him and give a small smile.

"Um, Hi," I say to him, really trying to not look flustered or anything of the sort.

"Hey, Stella," He smiled back at me, "How are you doing?"

"Oh, I'm good... I forgot we shared this class." I admitted to him.

"Yeah, same," He replied honestly. I could tell since he looked a bit relieved that I had forgotten, too.

From there, I could hear Mr. Serento tap his pen on his desk in the front of the classroom. I readjusted myself so that I could pay full attention. From there he began class, "Good afternoon, class. I hope lunch was good for you, because I might ruin your day with this announcement."

The whole class didn't even complain, they were just silently waiting for him to answer.

"You all are gonna have a project based off of our 3D Geometry Shapes unit. You're required to make a board game type thing, and there will be more in the instruction hand-out that I'll give you in a minute. But, I think he best part is that you will be working in groups of 2!" He continued.

Murmurs and giggles erupted in the classroom as friends started to look at each other, and then Mr. Serento coughed loudly for the class to hear.

"I will be assigning the groups." He put an emphasis on the 'I' that way his point would be made, "Now, listen out for the groups. Alex and Jordan, Maria and Jayden, Teresa and Daniel-"

I started to catch a recurring theme very quickly in Mr. Serento's partner making.

"Lizzie and Michael, Miley and Zack, Peter and Harmony, Brenda and Joseph, Crystal and Leon, Angie and Freddie, Eddie and Damon-"

'Oh thank God, he stopped shipping people' I thought, filled with relief.

"Stephan and Carlos-"

'Wait... who does that leave...!!' I realize that the only students left are...

"And finally, Stella is with Jose. Those are the groups for our project." Mr. Serento paused, as a way to let everyone find their partner's face in the room. All I had to do was look right beside me.