Wild Life

Five

"Do you have last night's French homework done?" John elbows me lightly trying to get my attention as I stared out the bus's window.

"Uh, yeah, let me get it out." I scramble through my notebook, turning to the needed assignment. "Knock yourself Lennon!"

"My god Val, your handwriting is fucking hieroglyphics! How the hell are you such an amazing artist, but your writing's complete shit!" He laughs at my scribbled notes. I feel bad that my handwriting is shit because with John's vision it's useless for him to use. I look back out the window, silent and unaware of my surroundings.

"Hey, Valerie, you feelin' alright? You've been really off since music yesterday. I hope that pervy teacher didn't make you feel uncomfortable with all that damn staring he did." John looks concerned which meant he was actually worried about me.

"What? No, yeah I feel fine! He wasn't bothering me at all, and he's not pervy, John. I guess I've just been stressed with all the art portfolios I've been making for schools." I lied to him, and he knows I lied. I have this burning feeling inside of me. I really want to tell him what's happened with Paul, but he'd freak.

"Ok, well if you need any help or inspiration, you're more than welcome to use my beautiful face as your muse!" He strikes a sassy pose and puckers up his lips. I start laughing so hard, my stomach hurt.

The day goes by extremely slow that I begin to think that maybe yesterday was all a dream, that I really didn't have Paul as my teacher, and that he was just some guy I met at a bar.

The bell for the last period of the day rings. This will determine whether my mind had been playing games with me or not, hopefully not. I walk down the hall slowly, trying not to rush time and maybe that would give me a couple minutes to think of what to do. I'm suddenly stopped by George, just halfway to the class.

"Hi Valerie, how are you today?" George smiles, and I couldn't help but smile back. He begins to walk with me, shoulder to shoulder.

"I've had better days, but overall not bad. How are you?" I look at him, and he seems nervous, almost like he's about to take the biggest test of his life.

"Oh, um, I'm okay too. Y'know, I've been meaning to ask you something Val for quite a while now." He licks his lips and rubs his hands frantically together.

"Hey, hey, are you okay?"

"I was wondering if you'd like to go see a movie with me, maybe this Saturday?" He exhales deeply, like a weight had been lifted off his shoulder. Fuck. I'm supposed to have a date with Paul, but god knows if anything can or will happen between us. So, I guess why not go out with George?

"Yeah, you know I thought I had plans this Saturday, but they'll most likely get cancelled. I'd love to go with you to the movies!" I smile at him, and he gives me his hand as we walk the rest of the way to class.

We walk in, hand in hand, and the whole class was already there, including Paul. Everyone looks at us, wide-eyed. Some gasp loudly enough for Paul to look up from his notes. I clench my teeth as we both made eye contact and his eyes look down at mine and George's hands intertwined together. His face goes down, and a look of sadness washed over him.

"Okay George!" John cheers, high-fiving him. "Finally you fucking did something, took you way too long mate!" He pats George on the back, and George blushed in embarrassment. They both sit down in their seats, and I take out a notebook to doodle in. Without moving my head much, I look up at Paul who was sitting at his desk, obviously bothered by me and George. I don't really know how I feel about going out with George, but I couldn't be alone if I can't be with Paul. I feel so horrible, but it's not like there was much me and him could do about our relationship. I had to move on from him, as much as I really didn't want to.

"Okay, ahem, class today we are going to study some poetry. All the lyrics to a song, believe it or not, is a poem. Lyrics are composed in an intelligent way, so that the listener can connect with them and have their own intake on the song. What we are going to do is take these poems and put a melody to them." He passes out sheets of poems to each student. As he hands me mine, I glance up to him, and I tried to show how sorry I was without saying anything. He looks at me, but with no expression at all, like he was looking right through glass. I felt devastated; he doesn't want anything to do with me.

"Val, ya wanna work with me? You can sing the lyrics and I'll play the guitar to it." George asks after Paul hands me the poems. I think he overheard what George said.

"I will assign partners and this project will be due this coming Monday." I scoffed loudly at his instructions. This is ridiculous, he cannot control who I'm partners with just because he's jealous.

I get paired up with one of the girls I overheard yesterday that called Paul cute. I swear to god if all she starts talking about is how cute Paul is, I'm going to fucking freak. It was hard enough seeing him and having a shallow girl like this one gush over him, on top of him being mad at me now. George and John get paired up together so I felt sort of left out. I could hear them talking about me and George. Seemed like Paul was overhearing them talk because he told them to get to work. He is being unbelievably rude.

Much to my surprise, of course the girl wouldn't shut up about Paul. I looked at George once in awhile, then at Paul as well. George would always smile back, but Paul wouldn't show any emotion. I wish I could talk to him, but that's not an option anymore, I suppose.

This was the slowest hour of my life, but luckily the bell had rung and now my torture was over. I walked over to John and George.

"You okay, Val?" George asks. He puts his hand on my shoulder with sincerity in his eyes.

"Yeah, it was just a long day but a good one." John, George and I were just about to walk outside of the classroom when someone calls my name and I feel my face go pale.

"Ms. Hollaway, uh Valerie, may I speak with you for a moment? It's about umm, your project and your guitar playing, I just have some suggestions that's all." I stopped in my tracks, completely stunned to hear him call for me. I thought thank god he called for me but I knew nothing good was to come of this