Fate

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

If being friends with someone seemed like a long shot, then maybe it was. However, Zayn and I were one day in and doing well. At least we were talking as Alec had given us time to work on it in class. He asked us how it was going.

"You know you have one of the toughest genres in the entire classroom. Well, depending on how you look at it," Alec exclaimed as he stopped by our table to see how we were doing.

"How is it not?" Zayn raised an eyebrow.

"Well first let me acknowledge that it would probably be more difficult for a young man like you than for Ariel. There are some great male writers out there who write romance, but most are female. So naturally, it's difficult for you.
However, lots of people prefer writing romance to other genres like mystery or science fiction per se."

"I think I'd do better with those," Zayn continued.

"Well, when I first considered this assignment as an alternative to normal classwork for my first year of teaching, I considered letting you pick your topics and possibly work alone. Then I decided to do group work to prepare you to work with people you wouldn't normally work with. Prepare you for real-life out on the job.

Plus, I knew well most of you wouldn't be into writing or reading. However, I don't want to just focus on traditional teaching. I wanted to incorporate new principals into the curriculum and help you establish your creative minds."

"What if your mind isn't creative?" Zayn was just full of conversation today which was rare for him though I could tell he was being partially sarcastic though I could also tell he was at least slightly interested in the conversation.

"I believe everyone's mind is creative in some ways. It's about finding ways to open that up and having them embrace their creative side."

"Right," Zayn rolled his eyes.

I never thought about it but even a boring person had to have some creativity in them from time to time. The realization hit me that this novel did exactly that. It pushed us both to be creative when we wouldn't have wanted to. It also pushed us together. I doubted we would have otherwise.

It was almost like this project had done way more than just push two people together. It also brought us back together after so long from whatever history we had shared. So, Alec was doing much more with this project than maybe he even realized. So, he was right on the mark with this project, and maybe we all needed that.

"Keep up the good work," Alec smiled.

"Mr. Gray?"

"Yes, Ariel?"

"Are you going to read our projects?"

"I intend to. I'm excited to see what you've come up with."

"You shouldn't," Zayn remarked.

Alec turned to him. "Why not?"

"What gives you the right to read something we put our hard work into?" He challenged.

"He did assign the project, and this is his class," I commented, trying to warn him not to say something he might regret.

"He's not doing the work though, is he? Some writers put their entire hearts and souls into their books. Maybe they don't want others reading that. Maybe it's something private between them. So, what gives you the right to read something of ours. Seriously?"

I feared Alec would get upset that Zayn was questioning him, but he didn't. The tension in my shoulders lessened as the smile appeared on his handsome face.