Secrets of Time

Chapter 1 - Cherry

I sat up, stretching my arms up, and yawning. Another normal day at school, I thought as I relaxed a bit more in my seat and looked up at the clock. Class was almost over and during the entire class all I did was slack off because of how boring it was. To pass the time away, I have been watching the soccer team playing in the field, as energetic as ever. I wonder where they get all their energy from? I sighed and took a small glance at the board to see the teacher had written, 'partner assignment.' Before I could react, the teacher clapped his hands together and smiled, "Alright guys! Partner up,"

"Hey, bro," I tapped the shoulder of my friend ahead of me, "Mark, want to partner up? If I fail this assignment I might not graduate high school," My friend, Mark, looked back at me with his ocean blue eyes.

"Sorry, but I already partnered with James," He brushed a hand through this silky black hair and pointed behind him to our third friend sitting in front of him, who had green eyes and brown hair.

"You can't be serious," I sighed, knowing I had no one else to partner with.

"If you want we can ask the teacher if we can have a group of three," Mark asked, leaning on my desk.

"No, it's fine," I stood up, sighing, "Besides, we've already tried that and he knows we are a bunch of trouble makers and refuses to partner us up," I rolled my eyes, "Be right back," Mark shrugged and turned back to James. I looked around the room to see everyone has already partnered up. Everyone but one girl with dark red, wavy hair and dark brown eyes, kind of like chocolate as she didn't bother looking up from her book. Now that you look at her closely, she was actually pretty. I itched my cheek with my index finger out of nervousness and approached her, "Hey, do you have a partner yet?" I asked her, putting my hand on her desk. Out of confusion she looked up at the board and realized we had to partner up. She looked up at me and then looked around for a moment and closed her book when she noticed no one else was free.

"Sure, sorry my book got interesting and I didn't realize.." She looked nervously around as if second guessing herself.

"Sick, I'm a fan of books too," That was a lie. I pulled up a chair and sat on it oppositely with my arms lazily on the back, "So, my name is Tyler but you can call me Ty, what's yours," I held out my hand to shake hers and she stared at it.

"Autumn," She said and turned away from my hand to continue reading her book. I sat there awkwardly, let out a small chuckle, and returned my arm.

The entire time until class ended, I had watched her as she read her book, sometimes glancing over her shoulder to read a page or two. When the bell rang, she stood up and slung her purse over her shoulder and clutched her book to her chest. Before she left though, I stood up and grabbed her arm. She jumped and looked at me, startled, "You were still there?" I felt a bit hurt she didn't remember but I brushed off.

"Yeah," I tilted my head in confusion, "Since this partnership is due in a week, wanna go to a cafe and learn more about each other?"

"But.." She glanced down, shyly at the book in her arms, before she could say anything else though, I could already tell what she was going to say and cut her off,

"You can read your book later, this is a huge grade so we have to do this," She hesitated at what I said and then sighed, nodding. She clearly wished she hadn't been reading so she would have partnered with someone else.

"Fine, but for only for an hour or two. It's not like we're doing work so no need to overstay," She agreed and I let go of her.

"Well then let's go," I nodded for her to lead the way and put my hands in my pants' pockets.

"Aren't you going to grab your bag?" She looked behind at me at my desk, as if expected to see a bag there but it was empty.

"It's senior year, why would I have a bag?" I shrugged, "Are we going or not?" She looked up at me for a bit and then sighed, turning around and leaving without saying another word, me following close behind.