Willow's Tree

6

The last class finally arrived, but throughout the whole day, Dog refused to leave me alone and kept me distracted. I eventually got used to his teasing, and didn't even bother to tell him to back off since I knew he wouldn't listen anyway. However, when he knew I was on a thin leash, he would use his whiny-doggy voice to dim down my annoyance and we would go back to the usual.

My last period was English and I had it with both Isaac and Rebecca. I even sat right next to them since we were allowed to choose our own seats.

I quickly found out that English was also the other class that I had with Trey Crawford. After all, he walked in late as usual and it was hard not to notice. But I also found out that I saw Trey often the rest of the day as well and not just in our two classes.

It was strange that I never noticed before, but we walked by each other in the hallways a lot and we even had the same lunch time. What was even stranger was that I noticed him in the first place. I didn't notice him before, so why now?

Also, whenever we passed by each other or were in each other's line of vision, we would make eye contact until one of us looked away.

It was...weird.

"Okay, class." The English teacher Mrs. Carlson said, "To start off, I'm finally assigning the essay I talked about before winter break." A lot of kids groaned but she simply chuckled. "Oh, don't do that. I'm sure you'll all have fun with it."

She quickly reviewed what the paper was about. Basically, it was about us. We wrote about our families, our jobs, our pasts and history, what we wanted for our future and even some things as simple as pets.

The pet part reminded me of Dog. Was he considered my pet? Now that I think about it, he hasn't bothered me in a while.

"What was that?"

"I spoke too soon."

"For the rest of class, go ahead and start brainstorming and writing down some rough drafts on paper. I'll pass out the rubric, and if you have any questions, go ahead and talk amongst yourselves or come up to me. I'll be glad to help."

And with that, she let us loose.

The classroom was immediately filled with conversation as she passed out the rubric before sitting at her desk to flip through sheets of paper.

"Great. Another essay. And right after winter break too." Isaac sighed.

Rebecca nudged him with her knuckle. "Stop whining. It's not that bad of a topic. It's easy! It's about you!"

"I don't like talking about myself." I muttered as I tapped my lead pencil against my notebook. I didn't know where to start or how to begin.

"You just love talking about yourself, don't you, Rebecca? That's why it's easy for you." Isaac used a sarcastic tone. Rebecca threw her pink eraser at him and he clutched his left eye where he was hit. "Dammit! You got me right on the eyeball!"

"Good." She replied flatly, but still leaned close to him to get a careful look of his eye to make sure he was really okay.

Isaac blinked a few times as Rebecca observed it. "Is it turning red?" he asked, but then he blinked a lot more and glanced at me and then back to wherever he was originally looking. "Why's Trey Crawford staring at you?" he asked in a quiet voice.

I turned my head and saw that he really was, but it wasn't obvious at a first glance. However, it wasn't like he was trying to make it a secret either. He was laying his head above his arms on his desk, and he was facing my direction. His hair slightly covered his eyes, but I could see that they were on me.