fruit salad

3

every day that first week i looked forward to my art classes. not just for the usual reasons of getting to see ms carrot and having the chance to display my immense artistic ability, but because i had been very conveniently been placed next to toes. ms carrot was although a great teacher,  lowkey a drug addict and had positioned jason next to her desk so she could make drug arrangements with him without arousing suspicion from her co-workers.

i knew i should have been focusing on getting into Squishford University, my dream school, however i was still eighteen. i had needs and necessities, and one of them happened to be linking up with the mysterious new addition to the school who went by the name Toes.

it had only been two days since we were paired up for an art project about trees and their intricate leaf shapes but i felt like i had known him my whole life. conversation was relaxed and it didn't feel like a struggle to come up with topics we could talk about. we both had a passion for chess and i had encouraged him to join the club (which i was the president of, of course).

"can you pass the dark green please y/n" he uttered in his oh so silky smooth voice. i could listen to him saying 'dark green' for hours on repeat and still get butterflies flitting around in my citrus stomach each time.

i passed it to him, and by the way his wobbly finger grazed mine ever so slightly i could tell he had fallen for me just as much as i had fallen for him. it felt like electricity when our fingers collided. i could practically hear the fireworks booming around us, couldn't he?

"hey Toes, i don't think we're gonna be able to finish this project in class. should we meet up today to get it done?" i asked casually, despite my heart flailing around my chest as if it were in a bouncy castle. if we picked up the pace and stopped discussing our favourite chess pieces we would definitely have the time to complete the project, however i liked Toes. asking him out on a date that wasnt really a date seemed like the move.

"it's tobes by the way, and sure. i'll see you at Dusty Coffee around 7."

"sounds like a plan! :D" i gushed, feeling ecstatic at the thought of seeing him tonight. i thought it was kinda odd he made sure to repeat his own name every time i said it, but regardless,  that night was without a doubt going to be one of the best of my entire pineapple existence.

once art finished, i didn't  have any classes with him and since i memorised his schedule (triple science? who did this guy think he was, einstein?), we wouldn't even have the opportunity to give each other a flirty wave between classes.

i was pondering this when i ran into none other than Ralph Strawberry. he was rumoured to have slept with every member of the student council and i wasn't an idiot, i knew he was after me next. to him, high school was like pokemon. 'gotta catch em all!'

however, i thought Ralph was kinda crusty. he was meant to be some kind of stud heartbreaker straight out of Grease but his hair reminded me of an onion and he had a constant faint smell of cheap strawberry toothpaste.

"hey there y/n. heard you were going to history next ;)" he said, very obviously trying to sound seductive. he even included a little wink at the end and it took every fibre of my being to not lay down on the ground and die of cringe right there in the middle of the hallway.

as the president of the student body however, it was pretty important to keep a pleasant front with everyone, even if the smell of artificial strawberries was nearly gagging me.

"that's right. and i really should be getting there now. bye ralph." and with that, i flounced up the stairs to my history class.