Completely (Un)expected

It was only my third week in school and I already had a project to do.

I hated school projects. They were too much work for one person so I couldn't do it alone, and alternatively I never seemed to getpaired up with someone I got along with. And what was worse; it was a history project. I hate history.

"Emily, you'll work with Matt. Ben with Lauren," my teacher announced as she read off her partner pairings. The project didn’t seem overly difficult, our only objective to research a president and make a poster board about them, but if I wasn’t paired with someone who was at least competent, I'd see myself with a miserable, failing grade by the end.

"Connor and Jason, you'll be partners," he continued to read off of his list as I sat idly in my chair, dreading the moment my name would be called and my project-partner-fate sealed. "And Henri, I'm putting you with Bob."

I picked my head up off of my desk and shot Bob a smile from across the room. He looked back over to me and mouthed an enthusiastic, 'yes!' If I was going to be put with anyone, I was glad it was Bob.

Though I hadn't known him long, Bob and I got along swimmingly. He was funny and nice and much easier to handle than Frank. I still couldn’t get myself to be normal around him, not with our history, short as it was. There was just something about that night that made talking to Frank so seemingly impossible. Maybe it was when I kissed him?

Mr. Davison let us have the rest of the period to meet with our partners and plan our poster. Bob moved over to my side of the classroom and sat himself down beside me. "Thank god I'm with you," he remarked as he opened up his binder to a note sheet about Woodrow Wilson. "Anyone else wouldhave driven me mad."

"I know, we lucked out," I agreed with Bob. "You're the only person I even know in this class."

"And that's why I paired you," Mr. Davison said, stopping by our desks as me made his walk around the room. "I knew you two would work well together and it seemed senseless to partner either of you with anyone else."

"Thanks, Mr. Davison." He smiled to me and impishly tapped his pen against my shoulder as he went off to see if any of the other kids needed help.

Bob and I didn’t get very far in planning out our project seeing as when we'd started there hadn't been that much time left and because we were too busy talking about how amazing Rise Against was.

The bell chimed and we realized that if we were going to catch up, we needed to focus. "Alright," Bob said as he stood and slipped his backpack straps over his shoulders. "How about you come over after school and we can finish the first two sections?"

"I have work right after school," I told him. "But I can head over right after."

"Sounds good." I said goodbye to Bob and made my way off to chemistry. It was almost last period and I only had an hour and half left in this prison.

***

Gerard drove me to Bob's house after the comic store closed for the day. He would have stayed later, but it was slow and he said he had better things to do than 'sit in a dead and dusty little store all night.' I didn’t argue.

Bob's house wasn’t too far from Gerard and Mikey's but it was definitely far enough not to walk. We pulled up into his driveway where I saw Bob sitting out on his porch, history text book out and opened on his lap. When he heard Gerard's car, he looked up and gave us a wave.

"Behave," Gerard jokingly warned me as I opened the door to get out. I rolled my eyes and him as I said my goodbyes, pushing open the door and meeting with Bob.

"Hey," he said as I walked over to him, sitting myself down beside him on the step.

"Hey, ready to kick some ass, Woodrow Wilson?"

Bob laughed a little and replied, "You know it. Here, I'll do part one, you can do part two and then we'll put it together on the poster next time."

"Sounds like a plan." We worked relatively efficiently for the first half hour or so, but our pace slowed as we each reached the end of our section. Conversation shifted from World War I to our favorite movies to the attack on Pearl Harbor to which flavor of ice cream we liked best.

"Only a few," I answered Bob when he asked me about my old friends having thoroughly abandoned the project for the night. "But we were never really close anyway, I mostly just hung out with my dad."

"You never wanted to talk to anyone your own age?" he asked.

"I did, a little. I had a boyfriend in Pennsylvania, but breaking it off wasn’t exactly detrimental." I'd dated Tommy Gehler for two months before my dad told me I'd be moving off to Jersey. I kept it from him for a little while, but decided it was best to tell him sooner rather than later, and I ended up breaking the news to him just before the start of summer. He wanted to 'make it work,' but the truth was, I really didn’t care that much about him. He was sweet no doubt, but I wasn’t into the whole long-distance thing, and a high school relationship didn’t seem worth all the effort. We'd end it eventually anyway.

"What happened?" Bob asked.

"I moved out here," I explained. "I figured it wasn’t really worth all the trouble being so far away."

"So you're not dating anyone?"

"No," I answered hesitantly, and a little awkwardly. I wasn’t sure if this was a normal conversation. "I'm not."

"Good," Bob responded.

"What?" But before I had a chance to actually ask anything with any real substance, Bob had leaned down to meet his lips to mine.

At first I had no idea how to respond. It came with absolutely no warning and I lost myself trying to figure out how to respond, but eventually my body took over my mind and instinct kicked in. I let my eyes fall closed and my head tilt to the side. I pressed my lips in closer to Bob's as I felt his hand reach up to my cheek. I could feel the metal from his lip ring pressing against my skin and the slight, prickly scratch from his scruff.

He pulled away and looked down to me, gauging my reaction. "Henri?" he asked cautiously.

"Bob?"

"I'm sorry, I just," he began to explain. "I just had to try."

"It's okay," I responded, having to slightly will a smile onto my face. The atmosphere was a little awkward, but I tried not to let it bother me. "So . . .?"

"So," he repeated, ready to propose his next point. "Would you, uh, maybe want to go out some time?"

I thought to myself for a moment. I liked Bob, he was nice and I got along with him well. We didn’t have the type of friendship I was afraid a date could ruin and, well, he already kissed me, so I might as well say:

"Yeah, sure."

Bob smiled as I agreed, and it was at this point that we each fell silent, not really having anything to say and not having the guts to say anything anyway.

We tried our best to focus ourselves back on the project, but it was useless at this point. Nothing would get done, and we both knew it.

Gerard came just in time. The sun had started to set a little and it was probably best that Bob and I each have a little time to let the awkward air pass. I said goodbye to him, opting not to give him my usual parting hug seeing as the tension was still fading, but I told him I'd see him in school the next day.

Notes

SURPRISE! That happened. I had a different idea for the story originally, but then I found some notes in one of my binders from this year and I'd toyed with taking this direction instead, so here we are. Drama's a commin' kiddies, so stay tuned. As always, thanks for reading, send me a message, leave a comment, la-di-da, and I'll see you back here again next week!!! XP