His Sunflower

17.Study and Stupids

The dark circles under her eyes would not go away! I mean what does Elara think will happen if she stays up till three in the morning and wake up at seven in the morning again? 

Elara stood in front of the mirror, tracing her index fingers under her eyes, sighing that she would not get proper sleep this week like the other last two weeks. She had been so buried into her work and at the same time, school work decided to rain upon her. Teachers weren't going easy on students, they burdened them with homework as well as the SATs were approaching too.

Adnes had called thrice last week to ask her to come for dinner with Skylar and even bring Archer with her, but Elara had to cancel each and every time. Skylar had been acting weird too, once she was being sugar sweet and the next second she was ready to burn her. Mellisa hadn't stopped being her pathetic self and picked a fight with Elara for each chance she had. She wouldn't stop whoring around Archer. She warned Elara to back off in her ear-bleeding-shrill pitch and as a reply, she just got a bored "Or what ?" from Elara.

She had grown closer with her parents in the last few weeks and everything was running smoothly. She and Archer had been on their first official date, it was to a country-side carnival, and Elara absolutely loved it. They had been on one more date, the second one to a fancy restaurant, and the third one was a study date that was going to be today at Archer's place. Archer had also joined a clinic as an intern and was busy as hell as well. Her phone pinged and she dropped her hand from her eyes to look at her phone, It was a text from Jim.

Jim- What about a group of stripers?             

Ela- I don't think Jasper could pull it off..

Jim- Where are you? Let's meet up and discuss, what say?

Ela- Can't right now, have a study date;) tomorrow after the IT club?

Jim- Sealed Nov;)      

And yes, Halloween was next week too, so Elara had got a good scolding for not being serious about her Halloween costume. Jim and Romalda had been sweating more on this stuff, more than they should. Till today, hundreds of ideas had been discussed and even a group had been created. Elara's only contribution was a text saying," Hey, let us all be M&M's, what say?"

Besides Jasper and Percy, all others had disapproved of that idea and it had got some severe criticism. Jim was stuck on all of them being strippers while Romalda was persistent on the boys dressing up as players and Elara and her dolling up in cheerleaders' costume and this time Elara shook her head as well as the boys. Archer, Jasper and Percy were already on the basketball team and this idea was quite unoriginal. Elara slammed her head against the counter of her vanity in her bathroom after concealing her eyes with some foundation. She lifted her head and looked at her wristwatch, Archer would be here any minute to pick her up. He insisted on doing it since he saw how tired she was that she almost slept through Advanced Science.

" Hey" Elara said pulling Archer into a warm embrace which he reciprocated and pulled her into him.

" You have grown thinner in three days, have you been missing meals Sunflower?" He whispered into her ears and she shrugged before muttering a " No".

They sat and drove to his place discussing how hyped this whole Halloween costume chaos was. When he mentioned Elijah and Sebastian together, she almost jolted up her seat.

" What?" She asked in disbelief rubbing her eyes a bit. He looked at her perplexed and shrugged before repeating," Xandra and Elijah are going to Amsterdam with Sebastian and Clare."

She chuckled in relief and looked at her, removing her glasses," Wow! You mean everything is sorted in between them?".He said nothing just nodded looking at his place as they arrived.

" Let's start with chapter five, then we can move to chapter six and seven." Archer said setting his textbook in front of both of them. She nodded looking through each and every concept and absorbing as much as she could. Calculus has always been her thing as well as his from the start of high school. Time passed and the sun had said its goodbyes as the moon had started to peek from the horizon.

Elara did a stretch and smiled in triumph as she had solved the last problem and felt confident about herself for the test day after tomorrow.

Archer was still stuck on the third last one when there was a sound downstairs and they both looked at each other, his parents weren't at home and neither was her sister or Elijah. Before they could react, the door to his bedroom had flung open," Hey nerdy bitches!" Romalda sat on Archer's bed as the others followed behind her. Much to their surprise, Jasper was in his pyjamas and Elara looked at him scrunching her face.

" Yeah, this crazy woman dragged me from my sleep." He explained shaking his head violently.

" Any specific reason for the invasion, Jim? Rommy?" Archer asked twirling his pen in his hand. Elara relaxed in her seat and closing her eyes for a brief second anticipating what was going to happen.

" One word. Halloween costumes." Romalda slammed a large book on the study table where Archer and Elara sat.

" Actually they are two words Roma-"

" Oh shut up Percy! For god's sake! Halloween is tomorrow!" She exclaimed and Elara sat up," Wait a second, Halloween's tomorrow?" She asked checking the date in the calendar adjacent to her.

" Good morning Elara!" Jim chirped in sarcasm and rolled his eyes seeing Elara hold her head in her hands.

" Now, I have skimmed through each and every page but I can't even find a single good costume idea. Ane the strippers, it wouldn't fit!" She pulled her hairs and stomped her feet in rage as she turned red.

" That's what she said!" Elara said on reflex and burst into tears from laughter as everyone joined them. Romalda's eyes glinted as a smile crept her face, she rushed to Elara and hugged her and kissed her cheek.

" Brilliant! We can dress up as the characters of the office!" Romalda exclaimed and Jasper snorted as he said," That is not at all an original idea!".

And that was the last nerve he had gotten himself onto. Romalda lunged and launched herself onto him and started to attack him. 

After a long fight , both verbal and physical, they decided on being the characters from the office just with a twist, the female characters would be taken by the males and vice versa. Elara was going to Dwight Schrute, Romalda had chosen to be Micheal Scott, Percy would be Kelly, Archer would be Angela, Jasper choose Holly and Jim was Meridith Palmer. Elara couldn't wait to see Archer as Angela. Romalda was on the make-up while Jim and Percy were responsible for props and Elara, Archer and Jasper would see for everyone's costume. Little did they know what were they up for...

It was going to be one hell of a Halloween.........