His Lifeline

Chapter 42: I Become The Overlord Of Cookies

"Ok, remember the plan?" I asked as Annabeth walked beside me through the hallways. I squeezed her hand as she was freaking out.

"The plan, the plan, the plan, wait, we had a plan?" she said quickly. It was around ten minutes before zero period, the day of the finals, and she was freaking out a bit. Ok, a lot a bit, but irrelevant.

"Well, not a plan, but a reliever, right?" I tried jogging her memory. She just looked at me weirdly as the hood of the much too large blue hoodie fell over her eyes. I chuckled at her as she frustratingly shoved the hood on the top of her head out of her eyes.

"The hoodie," I said simply. Annabeth's eyes then cleared as understanding filled them. On Sunday, I figured out that since I couldn't be with her during finals to calm her down, I would give her the next best thing. My hoodie. I had worn it throughout Sunday and into the morning for her.

She said something about how it smelling salty calmed her down or something. I don't know. Anyway, the plan was essentially to wear my hoodie throughout the finals and meet up with her after every period.

We stood in front of her Architecture class, and she was constantly messing with the hoodie's strings. I took her hands and gave them a small squeeze. "You're the smartest person I know, don't even sweat this; you've been studying. I know you can do it," I said softly, trying to boost her confidence.

She smiled at me, albeit a bit forced. I sighed and pulled her in for a kiss. I moved my lips softly against hers and then pulled away. I leaned my forehead against hers and whispered out an I love you before allowing her to enter the classroom.

I smiled at her and walked towards my locker to grab my math notebook. Then I would return to her classroom and wait for the zero period to end. Of course, I wouldn't be waiting out in the corridor, no I've found that janitor closets work well for both lunch and in between class period breaks.

Quickly grabbing my notebook, I ran through the hallways into the nearest janitor's closet to Annabeth's class. I sighed in relief and opened my notebook, going over all the notes that Annabeth did while tutoring me.

I heard footsteps outside the door after about ten minutes. I froze. Please don't be the jocks.

"I heard he gets here super early. That means we get an hour before class to lay into him" shit, that was Jock #1, at least I think so; their voices all start to sound the same after a while. Honestly, I was kind of honored that they would get up so early just to beat me up, but I definitely didn't want to start the day off like that. I heard the scuffling of feet and quietly stood up. I had to lock the door.

"Where should we look?" one of them asked.

" I don't know! Ask some nerds, check the classrooms!" another yelled. There was the sound of footsteps leaving, and I quickly latched the door of the room. I saw the door handle jiggle not five seconds after locking it. Letting out a sigh of relief, I hoped that the jock would leave before zero period ended.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The plan to help calm Annabeth down after each period was a success. Most of the time, she just needed a hug. Once, she wanted me to switch her hoodies, saying that the sea salt smell was wearing off. I was happy to oblige to anything she needed.

Monday was the most stressful day of probably the year. All of our classes had finals. All of them. They didn't think to spread them out over the week. But since Monday was long and hard, they let everyone off around lunchtime for the rest of the week.