numb.

keisha: ezzy-mack

I always get to class early, for multiple reasons. For one, I don't like detentions, at Heston detention is two hours long, you can kiss your evening goodbye if you get one. Two, I like being alone for a bit before everyone comes in, gives me a moment to catch up on a bit of homework, study for a few minutes, or even take a quick power nap. With that little run-in with Ezra, it cost me a few minutes and I wasn't the first to class, a group of student had gotten here before me, Ezra included. I sat in the row behind the first row, Ezra sat two rows back and one to my left. As usual, he locked eyes with me as I came in, now that I think about it, Ezra may have chosen that seat to get a good view of me. I flashed him a quick smile and then took a seat. I sat my bag on the floor pulling my laptop out of my bag as I got a text from Veronica.

Veronica: You going to the party later?

Me: you know parties aren't my thing...

Veronica: Oh my god sis! have some fun for once, you work way too hard.

That's true, I do work very hard, my GPA was a 3.67, I worked my ass off for it, and I can't let any distractions get in the way of that. Nonetheless, I thought I'd toy with her, leave her hoping.

Me: Okay, I'll think about it.

I put my phone on silent as our teacher, Mrs.Foley walked in.

"Good evening to all!" she said with a huge smiled, "welcome, welcome, welcome, I would ask that all phones be silenced at this time, please and thank you." She paused for a moment as the class as a collective turned off their phones. "Let's get straight into it!" She passed the attendance sheet to Victor, a short Latino kid who sat closest to her desk so that he could start it off. "Today, we get into the details of the final project." She pulled a stack of packets out of one of the drawers in her desk, "I'm giving it to you now in early September because of how long this project will take, I know this is an elective class, nonetheless you all chose this class because you wanted to figure out something new about yourself, or maybe even change yourselves, nobody is ever going to know you better than yourself, but this project will give you an insight on who you are towards others, that being said, this is a group project." About half of the class, including myself, groaned.

"Oh come on, the only social interaction that you have with each other shouldn't be just social media." She began to hand out the packets, "by the way, don't even think for a second that any of you will be picking partners." She handed me a packet and walked back to the front of the class, which was odd because the people behind me didn't get a packet. Mia, another friend of mine who sat at the end of my row raised her hand. "Yes, Mia?" Mrs.Foley asked with a smile. Mia frowned as she flipped through the packet.

"Um, my packet has Christopher's name on the back." Mrs.Foley's smile grew even wider.

"I'm glad you pointed that out, Mia, you've probably noticed that I only gave out a packet to half of the class, for those of you who do have a packet, please open it up to the last page, it will be blank, the person whose name is on that page is your partner." I sighed, that was so fucking lame the way she just did that, I just hoped that my partner wasn't a complete idiot. I flipped to the last page and looked at the name. I smiled.

Ezra Devereux

I slowly turned and looked back at Ezra, he was hanging on Mrs.Foley's every word, he soon locked eyes with me and I smiled at him turning back around.

"I'm going to dismiss you all after I give you all a run-through of the rubric and how everything will go." She picked up a rubric and began to read, I stopped listening because I already had the packet I could read it later. As of now, my mind was on Ezra, what would he be like as a partner? His grades have to be good, I know that for sure because from what I heard he was a student who had the most scholarship money awarded to him for academics. Now whether he would pay attention and not gawk at me was the question, only time would tell.

          "That being said," Mrs.Foley said, "you can find your partner, and then you are dismissed." The sounds of the hustle and bustle from the students walking over to their partners began to fill the room. I gathered my things and walked over to Ezra who was playing some game on his phone, he looked up at me with wide eyes, the same look he gave me at the cafeteria when I smiled at him.

"You're my partner?" He asked, his voice raising an octave as if he didn't believe me. I smirked.

"Is that a problem Ezra?" He bit his lip looking up at me and then stood up gathering things, all while keeping his eyes on me.

"Not at all Keisha." His voice had gotten much lower, and if I'm being honest, it made my knees week. I pushed one of my locs behind my ear, he watched closely as I did it then stared at my hair and then frowned. Before my hand that moved the loc went back down, he grabbed my wrist holding it up. "What are those?" He asked while he ran a finger across the scars on my wrist, I snatched my arm away and pulled down my sleeves.

"None of your concern," I said defensively, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and took a picture of every page in the packet. "Turn on your airdrop." He stared at me sadly for a moment and then did as I told. I waited for his name to pop up and when it did I raised an eyebrow. "Ezzy-mack with the fat gat?" I sent it and then looked up at him as he shrugged.

"Well, I didn't make up the nickname." I rolled my eyes at him.

"Well, I'll let you know when I'm ready to work on this thing." Without waiting for a response I turned away from him and walked away from the classroom. I sighed and looked down at my wrist. That was too close.