Hope (Tyrelliot)

Chapter 23: I promise.

It's Thursday morning.
We have English as our first subject today.
I enter the classroom.
My body tenses up a little.
Something is off.
I look around.

Shayla is missing.

I sit down at my place, sure that she will arrive soon.

It's been about 30 minutes.
The class is boring, but I have to remember everything Mrs. Gordon says, or I'm going to fail the next test.
Not really a great concept if you ask me; Forcing information, that will eventually not be needed for anything after school, into peoples heads, just so they can get a full score on a test they will forget about a week later.

All of a sudden somebody knocks on the door.
Everybody's eyes go there instantly.
"Come in!" Mrs. Gordon says.
The door opens.
It's Shayla.
She has bags under her eyes.
Her Hair is messy.
"I'm so sorry, I was listening to my music at full volume and didn't hear the bell..."
She sounds incredibly tired.
I feel like she might be lying.
I think she was at home until about half an hour ago and left too late.
"It's okay, just please be on time next week, okay?"
Mrs. Gordon smiles at her.
Shayla smiles back.
Her eyes are starting to close slowly as she walks towards her seat.
She's crossing her arms on her desk and lays her head down on them.
"Now, where were we?"
The class's attention is going back to Mrs. Gordon, but my eyes stay on Shayla.
I really hope she's going to make it through the day.
I have something important to tell her.

The bell rings.
Shayla gets up.
She's going somewhere.
I thinks she's going to the garden.
I'll try following her in an unsuspicious way.
"Yo, Elliot!"
I stop.
I haven't heard that voice in a while.
I turn around.
It's Leon.
"H-hey Leon..."
"We haven't talked in a while, how you doin'?"
I have to admit; I really like Leon.
He seems to understand me and is just overall a really nice person.
But this is really not what I need right now.
"I-I'm good..."
"That's good to hear! Listen, I wanted to ask you somethin'; would you like to come over and start the project tomorrow?"
I don't have anything special planned for tomorrow, so why not.
"S-sure."
"Alright, that's all I wanted to know. See ya later!"
He wanders off around the corner.
Something about him seems off today too.
He was acting kind of nervous.
Maybe that's just my imagination though.
I have to find Shayla now.

I instinctly go to the garden.
The door is open.
That's a good sign, since she's the only one with a key.
I open the door.
As expected, Shayla is sitting under her tree.
But she's holding something in her hand...
"Whoa, Elliot!"
She exclaims, hiding whatever she had in her hand behind her back.
"H-hey..."
I don't really know how to react.
There's smoke coming out of her nose as she breathes out loudly, calming down from the shock I just gave her.
"A-are you smoking?"
Her head goes down.
She's half-smiling.
"Hey, why don't you close the door behind you?"
I do as she says and sit down next to her.
"You were very tired this morning, what's wrong?"
"W-well, I um..."
She's blushing.
Her face comes back up and she looks me in the eyes.
"You have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?"
"Of course."a
"No, you have to say it!"
I usually hate it when somebody says that, but whatever it is, it seems really important to her.
"I promise."
She smiles.
I smile back.
"Okay, so..."
She's coming a little closer to me.
Her left shoulder touches my right.
She pulls her hand from her back.
She's holding a lit joint.
"If the school ever found out about this, they will kick me out and I don't want that to happen, so please," she says, looking me in the eyes, "please don't tell anyone about this!"
I never noticed how red her eyes are. Maybe that's why she was holding them closed in class.
"Elliot?"
Fuck, I spaced out. Hate it when that happens.
"Of course not. Why would I want you out this school?"
"Thank you so much!"
She hugs me all of a sudden.
Then she backs off, with her hands over her mouth and nose.
"Oh I'm so sorry, I forgot the 'no touching' thing!"
"I-it's okay..."
I hug her back.
She let's out a surprised "Oh!"
as I do so.
She hugs back after a while.
We let go of each other after about
15 seconds.
"Well, that was... weird..."
Shayla says, smoking her joint a little.
"I'm sorry..."
"No no, it's okay!" She assures me.
"Look, let's talk about something else... Why did you come here?"
I look down.
"I-I don't want to give you the report on me and Tyrell."
"Oh yeah, that..."
"Huh?"
"I totally understand, I shouldn't've asked anyway. It's your and Tyrell's privacy and I'm sorry for intervening."
I just nod.
I honestly didn't really expect that from her.
"Ironically enough, I think I was high when you called!"
She chuckles.
"To be fair, you were quite giggly back then..."
She chuckles again.
So do I.
"Do you want some?"
She says, offering me the joint.
I just take it.
There's a first time for everything.

We end up smoking until the break is over.
The bell rings.
Shayla gets up and puts a mint in her mouth.
She gives me one too.
"To cover the weedsmell."
We go back to class and sit down.
I hope I don't have any weedsymptoms showing.