Frostbite

December 6th

I slipped the keys out of the ignition of my car. I got out and closed the door, leaving it to be frozen in the December wind while I spent the next 8 hours trapped inside a brick and mortar building. I hustled inside, regretting leaving my gloves at home.

The warning bell sounded as soon as I stepped inside, 5 minutes to get to class. I hurriedly twisted and turned my locker combination until the pop of the switch confirmed I'd gotten it right

"Open on the first try? Five whole minutes early? What a stroke of luck you're having this morning," my best friend Gracie popped up next to me.

"I know its crazy!" I replied.

"Okay listen, I'm not trying to be dramatic, but Jack is actually the cutest human being and I need you to ask him out," she said.

"Gracie, you have a boyfriend," I said rolling my eyes.

"Not for me, for you dumb ass," she replied as we started walking to class, "you guys would be a cute couple.

"I don't think so, I'm really busy right now. I've got yearbook, and I've got play rehearsals. Besides midterms are coming up. And also he doesn't even know who I am," I shooed her comments away with excuses. Yes, Jack was adorable, but I'd never even catch his eye.

Gracie sat down in her seat as the first bell rang and gave me the "we're talking about this later" look from across the room.

In third period English, our teacher gave us our midterm assignment.

"I'm pairing everyone up into groups and you all have to write a two voice poem which you will perform together. You may be thinking, why is he giving us this assignment so early before midterms? Because, my dear friends, our lovely English department here at Pennington High School has decided that the poem must have 100 lines for each character. Which means the entire poem must be, you guessed it, 200 lines long."

The entire class groaned in frustration.

He pinned the list of pairs up on the board. I scanned for my name and it was right across from Jack Lissing. Well, he'd have to notice me now.

"Hey, Devin!" Jack shouted. I walked over to him.

"This is going to be next level hellish, but at least we have a month do it," he said. I nodded in agreement.

"Here give me your number so we can start working on this soon," he handed his phone to me and I put my number in.

"Text me so I know its you," I said. moments later I got a text that said 'heyyyy its jack!'

So many 'y's, so much grammar! Maybe this wasn't going to be a complete shit show.

We made and shared a google doc and both proceeded to sit and stare at it for the rest of the period. By the time class was over all we had was

'Brainstorm???? ughfuck'

"You're not going to be able to guess who I got paired up with for the month long English project," I said the second I saw Gracie.

"No fucking way," she replied, "Jack??"

"Yeah," I said, grinning. I turned to go to the newspaper room, which was really more of a large closet.

"Where are you going?" Gracie asked. "Can you come and actually eat lunch with us for once please?"

"Nope, sorry," I said, "I've got to get this column out so it can be printed in this week's edition of the paper."

"Busybody," she mumbled as she walked away. A new swarm of girls surrounded her as soon as I left her side. Gracie was the most popular girl in this school, and for a change it was simply because she was such a nice, genuine person. She got stuck up in the jock squad, which is something I didn't want to be a part of. She and Jack were on junior prom court last year if that gives you any idea how high they are in the hierarchy of Pennington High School.

After I got home from school I got a text from Jack.

'want to get a head start on this project?'

'yeah sure' I replied. I went up to my room and opened my laptop to the mostly empty google doc and stared at it for a minute. I'm a pretty good writer, I really enjoy it, especially poetry. But 200 lines was a lot even for two people.