“You okay, Trist?” Lance asked.
He meant well, I know he did. But sadly, I was not okay. I was far from it. I couldn’t sleep very well after the nightmare I had last night, and my body still felt groggy from not getting enough hours.
I leaned over my desk and heaved a heavy sigh. The repeated dreams about Zoey were only rubbing salt into my wounds. After all, as much as I loved to entertain the fantasy of looking into her life and playing the superhero who saved her from Ben, it didn’t change the fact that she had a boyfriend.
And that I even entertained that night’s dream as anything but was just proof of how obsessive I had become over her. Getting over her was becoming more and more important by the minute.
“Good going yesterday, by the way. We made decent gains, and you played pretty well too! I’m feeling confident about the next week.”
I wasn’t in the mood for Dota talk, so I decided to ignore him.
“Glad you stopped playing Techies too. Dogshit hero, honestly. Valve really needs to do something about him.”
I did need to get over Zoey though, so perhaps having one of those abstract metaphysical conversations that Lance loves so much wouldn’t be such a bad idea. My thought process was that it might help me to forget about all of those complicated things.
“So hey, do you remember that thing you were talking about yesterday?”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Thing? What thing? We talked about a lot of things yesterday.”
“You know, about having sex in heaven or whatever.”
“Huh? Oh, that. What about it?”
“So, I was thinking. Maybe it wouldn’t be that kind of hedonistic sex, but maybe you could make love to your lifelong partner in heaven? You know, since dedicating yourself to one partner is a very Christian thing.”
“Huh? I was just joking man. Heaven’s pleasures are completely spiritual. Physical pleasure has no place over there.”
“Lance, what the hell. Why’re you being such a downer, suddenly? Are hypotheticals only fun to entertain when you’re the one starting the conversation?”
“What? Ugh, okay listen dude. If we’re talking about what Heaven actually represents in the bible…” His sentence abruptly ended as his focus diverted to someone approaching us from the class doorway on my right. The expression he was wearing was a cocktail of curiosity and clear confusion.
“Hey, mind if I sit in?” And as a familiar voice appeared out of nowhere, I immediately understood why.
“Huh?”
I turned around to find Zoey Brahm standing right next to me.
“You… wanted help with your paper, right?” She looked around, as if to signal that people were listening.
“Oh? O-oh, yeah. Yeah sure. Yeah, take a look.”
Without thinking, I gestured for her to take a seat at my desk, then opened my notebook up to the page where I had most of my plans for the paper. She accepted the invitation with a smile by pulling a chair over to the desk and taking a seat to the right of it. The faint scent of cinnamon filled my nostrils as she drew closer, and my eyes focused in on the strands of her hair that hung over her face as she leaned in to study my notebook.
“The French Revolution? Kind of a clichéd topic for a paper, no?”
“You think so?”
“Little bit.” She quietly perused through my notes for a moment. She seemed to be gathering her thoughts while examining what I had put together so far.
To be honest, I had only been giving that paper the bare minimum of attention for the sake of my grade, so it was kind of embarrassing to have her go through it so studiously. But I wasn’t complaining. I didn’t care why she had suddenly decided to come follow through with the excuse she made yesterday. I was just glad to be able to spend some time with her.
“Mmm. Okay so, here’s my opinion. If you’re going to dissect the story of the French Revolution, you need to do it through the framing that it’s really just the climax of the Age of Enlightenment. And so, in that sense, I think I’d start by looking into the French thinkers of the time like Rosseau, Voltaire, Diderot and Montesquieu. Nothing too detailed, just enough to get a general idea of the thought that set the stage for the new era of Europe. Then, I’d talk about how some of those ideas led to an increase in education among peasants, and how that birthed medical and industrial advances around Europe, which led to population growth and increased standards of living. Then, I think for the final point to drive home the issue, I’d talk about how all of this growth bottle-necked under the feudal system. This stunted growth led to the general, more educated populace deciding that, in order to fully embrace these ideas of enlightenment, a great change was necessary that could only be enacted through violent revolution against the noble class.”
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She had put it all quite eloquently. Her intelligence was put on display before Lance and I with such grace, and yet I barely took in a word that she said. All I could think about was how attractive that intelligence was.
“Uh… wow. Yeah no, totally.” I could only mutter that response in awe as I tried to pretend that I followed along.
“Oh, sorry. That’s probably a lot. Here, I’ll just write the key points down for you.”
She leaned over and began writing in my notebook. Her hair drooped forward slightly, exposing the pale nape of her neck.
It was hard not to marvel at how casually attractive she is. Even though she was supposed to be helping me with my paper, my mind couldn’t help but drift into a fantasy land where the two of us were a couple. It would complete me if such a dream could become my reality.
“Oh man, what was that rambling about? You sound like a complete moron right now.”
Lance, however, did not seem to have the same opinion of her. He openly disparaged her interpretation of the events of the French Revolution. This, however, only seemed to pique her curiosity as she turned to face him with a playful grin.
“Oh? Did I say something wrong?”
“No, I think you mostly got it right. Your tone just annoys me. I mean, you’re talking about one of the bloodiest, most gruesome things to ever happen in the world up until that point and yet you can’t help but sound like you’re glorifying it like the second coming of Christ. Ever heard of the Reign of Terror? The Revolutionaries beheaded anyone who even remotely resembled what they considered an enemy of the revolution. I think they must’ve killed thousands of people for no reason, and yet the revolution is heralded as this heroic achievement that was necessary for the freedom of the people. What freedom? Since when is paranoia-fueled mass murder the act of a hero?”
At his words, she only sighed and recentered her focus back on writing cliff-notes for us.
“Whatever it is you think you heard in my voice is probably just your imagination. It’s a school paper. There’s no need to get this worked up about it.”
“Yeah? So you don’t think our education plays a part in our interpretation of world events? What happens when there’s another recession and all the morons out there who took World History in high school decide that they’d like to have their own “glorious revolution” against the US government? Do you think any of them will be prepared to face the bloody reality of war?”
“Maybe not. But that still has nothing to do with me.”
“You live in this country too.”
“Are you seriously upset about this?”
“I am upset. And you should be too. Kids spend 6 hours a day at school. If we’re all brainwashed into thinking that revolutions like this are a great thing, then of course we’ll be fighting another pointlessly bloody civil war somewhere down the road. And then what? This country will burn to the ground with nothing to show for it.”
She turned back to face him.
“And what are you going to do then? Are you going to change the system? Make it your life’s mission to get a job as a historian and rewrite history books so that people learn to appreciate this great time of peace more? Or are you going to become the Secretary of Education and single-handedly force accreditors to change the standards for history curriculums across the country? What kind of grand narrative have you written for yourself in that head of yours that justifies this anger, I wonder? I’m sorry, you can go ahead and chase that fairy tale for the rest of your life if it makes you feel good about yourself, but please don’t drag me into it. I’m just a high school girl. All I care about are cute boys and the As on my report card.”
“And I’m sure you’ll be clutching that report card tightly when the streets are covered in the blood of your own countrymen.”
She smiled and returned to my notebook. “Of course I will. I’m not going to hell with Ds in my report card.”
I tilted my head at the conclusion that she’d be going to hell, but I decided against saying anything. It seemed that Lance had grown bored of their argument, because he decided against pushing further and simply turned around to play with his phone.
Outside of the scribbling of the pen on my notebook, our little corner of the classroom fell completely silent.
“And… there, all done.”
She put the pen down and smiled at me once she finished. It was a smile like the one in the mirror of my dream, and it all but completely melted my heart. A girl that could hold her own with Lance’s annoyingly snarky tongue, with a smile that breathtakingly beautiful, seemed too perfect to be true.
“Thanks.”
“No worries.”
After saying those words, she took a moment to stare deep into my eyes, as if searching for something. I met her gaze for a few moments, deciding to appear confident to her, but the pressure was too much for me and I eventually ended up looking away.
Her radiance was too much for a guy like me.
“Oh, hey.”
“Hmm?”
Just as I was thinking that this might be the best moment of my high school career, I caught a glance of her doing something that I really wish I hadn’t seen. In her hand was a creased piece of paper that I almost immediately recognized. She looked down at it, then shifted her gaze to my notebook.
I tried my best to deny the reality before me.
To tell myself that the piece of paper before me wasn’t what I was thinking.
“Zoey…?” I muttered. The sound of the classroom slowly phased out of my ears. In their place, was a hollow ringing that seemed to shake every cell in my body.
Even though a situation where I’m interacting normally with Zoey should be something worth celebrating, I could do nothing but panic.
After all, that piece of paper she was reading alongside my notes…
Served as undeniable proof.
“Okay, thanks.”
She folded the piece of paper and slipped it into my notebook. The ringing faded and sound returned to my world. In its place was the sound of my heart beating rapidly against my rib cage. She closed the notebook with one hand and yawned.
“If you need help with anything else just let me know, okay?” I stared at her in silence anxiously before remembering to talk.
“Oh, uh. Yeah.”
Leaving me with those words, she returned the chair to its proper position and walked off to her seat. I want to say that I was relieved, but I was more so worried about what that all meant.
“Your girlfriend’s kind of a bitch, Trist.”
“Uh… yeah. Whatever, man.”
My mind didn’t even process what he had just said to me. I immediately brushed it off and picked up the notebook. I couldn’t let Lance see it if my premonition was correct.
Without thinking, I quickly lifted the book up so that it would stand tall like a shield, then opened it up to the page it was on just seconds ago. And as I did, a folded piece of paper with lots of creases fell out onto my desk.
I couldn’t believe it.
Carefully, I picked the piece of paper up and began to unfold it.
And…
I held my breath.
The words were there, without any room for misinterpretation.
I’m sorry for ruining your day today.
Reality crashed down upon me.
I was forced to accept it.
It wasn’t a dream.
But… but somehow...
Somehow, that wasn’t even the worst part.
Underneath those words was an entirely new message in a different set of handwriting.
Photography clubroom. 10am.
My heart almost leaped out of my chest.
She knew.