I was at the outer wall with Apple. I know I should have feel guilty making her, well us, late for Natural History class (we got a bunch of classes together, actually). I saw Apple's furious face looking up to me. Well, I'm one of the few boys who are taller than her (well just by 3 cm I could count as very taller than her).
"What?" Apple said.
"You look nice." I said.
"You made me late for Professor Grapefruit's class just for THAT?" Apple said. I just had started to laugh.
"You are a total nerd, you came to the class way too early in the evening to study up right through the night. You don't have to get your pointer to 4.0, again, just to feel approved. You are just trying too hard." I said as I was staring at her, fixing her octagonal-ish glasses.
"Flip off." Apple said as she forcibly left me. I just wanted to avoid arriving with her, I used the lecture room shortcut.
Yes, I know my efforts could be, well must be, in vain but Apple loved science/maths nerds before. In 7th grade, when we're in AMO together (well, for starters, American Maths Olympiad), she was dating Aubergine, my old best friend who was obsessed with Chemistry that he would fall disappointed if he fail to recite the whole freaking periodic table. (The reason he broke up with Apple was that she was able to recite it faster.) And when we're in 8th grade, she dated Leek for awhile and became partners in our campus' Higher Level math enrichment programme, and Leek stayed as her friend. I remembered being smart enough for those stuffs Apple got, well apparently 7th grade. But why should I care? At least I have one of the best foundations in maths for Professor Apricot's class which Apple was in.
*
The bell already rang for recess and everybody rushed out from their respective classes. I walked out the last from Natural History, in which Professor Grapefruit has taken leave. I found my friend, well the only close friend I had, Lettuce. He was unusually tall and wore round glasses.
"Lettuce, let's go get some frappe." I said. For closed campus we have, it's been a traditional rule that only seniors could dine in instead of eating at the cafeteria.
"Won't it be weird if a pair of nerds be dining out at McDonald's this hours?" Lettuce shrugged me.
"Ey, Carrot. You are tad weird today. Are you trying to join the populars again?" Lettuce said, anxious. I was staring still at my bicycle that I parked at the populars' lot.
"Stop it, Carrot. Or maybe it's Strawberry that you did this? Oh, stop it about Strawberry, sometimes we set dreams that are possible. I'm being downright honest, Strawberry is not the old Strawberry in 7th grade that you know. She has a boyfriend. City boy, popular." Lettuce said as he opened his lunchbox.
"Yes I know. It's about the Physics period." I said, and I knew that Lettuce won't have any clues what happened.
"Don't say to me that you fancy Aubergine's ex-girlfriend, vice-president of our school's HL Maths foundational committee and last semester's Dean's Special Respect Student. She is unpredictably bad at love. You saw what happened to Cucumber right?" Lettuce said as he offered me his lunch, carrot stew.
"Well, no, I'm not eating my namesake. But that was he was a popular kid and she never liked him." I said. Lettuce put up a smile.
"Are you saying that you really liked her?" Lettuce said and laughed.
"Well, no, but if yes then why?" I said.
"Try your best, but she loves the obsessives and somebody who understands her obsession." Lettuce said.
"How do you know much about her?" I said.
"I was with Aubergine when he called Apple at night." I said.
"Aubergine has changed a lot. I bet they were happy with each other back then. It was just because of the periodic table." I said and Lettuce continued eating again.
"But I don't like Apple." I said, monologuing.
