"Hey, hey Ellie," my heart skips a beat at the sound of his familiar whisper. I pretend not to hear because I know he'll repeat it if he thinks he's being ignored. The "hey,hey Ellie" comes again, this time accompanied by a small annoying pressure of his pencil-eraser being prodded into my back. I feel the blood rush to my freckle-covered face flowing all the way up to my hairline of light brown waves. For a second a small smile flits across my face but, as soon as the uproar of emotions emerged, I dimished these feelings because they were utterly ridiculous. I glance at the teacher who seems to be watching the minutes slowly tick down to the weekend almost as incriminatingly as the rest of the class. Five minutes until freedom for at least a couple of days away from this hell-hole of a high school, nothing seemed as sweet. Once again, I feel the pencil poke, this time more urgent. I spine around in my seat glaring at him for a minute before I ask, "What?!"
"Give me your hand," he replies with a mischevious grin on his face.
My heart gave an obnoxiously loud thump of which I was sure he could hear. "No, no! Stop it Ellie!" I scream at myslef ffrom inside my head,"you are not allowed to fall in love, you know that. You'll hurt him. You don't have time." Time, time was always against me but I placed my hand in his anywasy smiling inquiringly. He pulls out a pen and with one last glance into my eyes he turns his gaze downward to my peach colored fingersand begins writing"Z...A...P," I laugh,"Aren't we a little old for this?" He chuckles,"No, you're never too old for anything, trust me. Now turn around so I can finish this without you seeing it." Sighing, I turn around in my desk and stare out the window across the room leaving the fate of my palm in his wonderful, strong, caring,--No, no! Stop! This is an uncomfortable position you're sitting in and he forced you into it! You see, Ellie, your shoulder is cramping up as he decides what to write for his stupid ZAP game! Obviously not worthy of your love if he's going to put you through such pain, I feebly argue with myself. I had been through much worse pain than this so I think I could take it a bit longer as long he kept holding my hand.
"O.K. all done!"
I turn back around to retrieve my hand fom his iron grasp. I look down at the top of my hand to sheck my time slot. "Only eight minutes? Wow, way to really challenge my self control," I chortle sarcastically. He laughs, but only a little. Something's wrong, I can tell. As soon as I'm about to ask I hear a familiar cleared throat and the same droning voice that always seems to say the same thing, " Ms. Elizabeth Knight, please turn around, face the front of the class, and leave poor Mr. Nathan Reide alone for the remainder of the class period."
Begrudgingly, I lumber around to meet the the accusing stare of Mr.Hampton, the most excrutiatingly boring English teacher ever hired in the history of Ohio, just as the bell rings. Mr. Nathan Reide and I strutted out of that class laughing together as we felt Mr.Hampton's eyes impailing our backpacks. Walking faster than usual due to the day of the week, Friday traffic always seemed to move quicker than Monday traffic, we reached my locker in record time. Throwing what homework I had for the weekend into my backpack and grabbing my sweatshirt I slam my locker shut and start towards Nate's locker with him right beside me. We rode the same bus so why not just go at the same time and stop at eachother's lockers on the way? As he fumbles around his locker for awhile I realize my time is up and triumphantly state, "Time's up! I win. Now, lets see who the lucky chap is." I notice him stiffen as I turn my hand over, what a sore loser. To my surprise my ZAP wasn't a person at all. In the cramped writing he gets when he's nervous, I see the four little letters I had been dreaming of for the past couple of weeks: P-R-O-M. I glance up to realize that he had already been standing and now he's much closer than he was before. With his face just inches from mine he whispers,"Ms.Elizabeth Diane Knight, would you do me the honor of accompanying me to Prom?" I have absolutley no idea what so say. I want to say yes but a little voice in my head keeps screaming "NO NO NO!!Don't do this to him!" Why now, why now of all times when time was the only thing I didn't have enough of? I had made a pact with myself that I wouldn't hurt anyone but what could I say to this perfectly imperfect being standing before me asking me to live my life? I could say yes.