With You, It's Bearable

New Problems, New Friends

You put a cigarette in between your teeth and are about to light it when Laura grabs it and throws it out of the window. "Baby, I know you don't like me smoking but those are expensive." You say with a raspy, just woken up voice. She responds only with a mischievous smile and a kiss.

Things like this remind you of what LaF said.. Laura doesn't do relationships. This seems like a relationship though. You think maybe you should just say fuck it and ask 'what are we?' but the other, smarter part of you knows that's the kiss of death. You want to date Laura, you want to be her girlfriend, but what if she doesn't want to be yours?

"Carm!" She practically knocks you into reality, "woah, you were so far in your thoughts I wasn't sure you would come out." She smiles her beautiful smile and starts dancing around the room in her underwear. You can barely hear the music coming from her phone but it sounds like something cute and indie. 

You lean down to put on a t-shirt but Laura pushes you back onto the bed. "As much as I love this, we have to go to school." She straddles you anyway and you admire her beauty. Her beautiful brown eyes and the fading dyed blonde hair is starting to reveal some of the brunette underneath. She has tiny freckles all around her face and you think you would love to count each and every one of them if time allowed. But sadly, it doesn't.

You give her a peck on the lips and roll her off of you and start putting on your clothes. As you look back she gives you a sad face and you just smile back. "Just put on your clothes, cupcake, please." She does as you say and starts putting her clothes on.

Within a few minutes you're both downstairs and you see that Mother has put out two bowls of cereal and a note in the middle. 'One for Laura ;)' you read and laugh at how cringey she is. You both eat as fast as humanly possible and run to the truck. 

"You left your phone in the car again." Laura says handing it you while disappearing into her own. You grab it and see an ocean of notifications but before you can read any of them, your phone dies. 

"Shit." You say and Laura gives you a tiny glance but nothing more. You pull out of the driveway and rush to school while still obeying the speed limit. You check the time and read '7:30', your eyes widen and try to find a parking spot. Once you find one you practically run out of the car and into the school holding Laura's hand. You kiss her goodbye and rush to your class.

-

You enter Marine Science and immediately look at the clock '7:35'. You missed the bell by one minute and now your teacher is giving you a nasty look. "Hi Mr. Mullane, how are you?" He smiles and rolls his eyes and motions for you to come to him. 

"Since you're late again, you have limited options for a lab partner. I know you usually partner with Will but since he's still sick, you're going to have to work with...." Oh no, don't say it, "Danielle Lawrence." You whisper fuck under your breath and hope he doesn't hear it. 

"I really can't partner with anybody else?" You ask looking around. Danny is giving you the stare of death that almost makes you shiver. You don't like to admit it but she's the one person who genuinely terrifies you.

"Uh.. you can partner with Theo? Yeah, it's either Theo or Danielle." He says after he finishes flipping through the pages on his clipboard. You weigh your options, someone you hate or someone who hates you. You figure someone who hates you is slightly better. 

You sit down next to Danny and you can feel her eyes digging into you like daggers. Under her breath she grunts you've got to be fucking kidding me. You want to say 'yup it's all a big joke' and walk away but you're stuck here now. 

"Okay everyone, these people will be your lab partners and fish tank buddies for the rest of the year, so you're stuck together." You drop your face into your hands as he continues speaking. "You will both be caring for and sharing a fish tank. You will name your fish, feed them, and clean the tank when needed. Go pick a tank and come back to me." 

You get up and walk to the back of the room where the tanks are located. You figure the tanks by the door have to be kept in pristine condition with little room for failure so you towards the ones with more wiggle room.

"Let's get this one." Danny points at one of them and honestly, you agree. Interesting, you actually agree on something. You nod and go tell Mr. Mullane which tank you want and he tells you to hose it off outside. 

You're holding the tank as Danny has the hose and is spraying half the tank, half you with it. "Listen, Danny, if you could get some of the water in the tank and not on me, that'd be stellar." She sighs and mutters out a 'sorry' moving the hose toward the tank more. "What? No witty Danny Lawrence come back?" 

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm done with this stupid banter or whatever we have over Laura. I only hurt you that one day because I was afraid of losing her, I guess I was always going to lose her whether it was because of you or anything else. So please stop trying to make me hate you because I don't and I don't want to." This hits you like a freight train. So Danny isn't actually a bad person and doesn't hate you which makes you feel even worse than originally thought possible.

"Hey, uh, I'm sorry too... what I did was shitty." You say after a long, very long, silence. She gives you a smile and you return it, continuing on with your work.