Unfolding Her

Wendalyn Jacobs - played by alex g


Xavier Moss Stevenson - played by Tessellation

Xavier Moss Stevenson shifted in his seat, tucking one of his feet under the chair. He began another doodle. The teacher had begun to talk about a project, and Moss had been listening with dedication until the poor woman started repeating herself to the point he no longer valued what she had to say. He trusted himself to be able to figure out what was required of him regardless of if he was fully tuned in to her rant. He drew monsters with bulging, veiny eyes consuming the human race as he contemplated Satre.

Suddenly, his name was called. Moss snapped to attention, his bright eyes jumping to the teacher's face as his head churned to formulate what she could've said to him. Although Moss could normally accurately estimate what the teacher's question had been, it seemed this time that wouldn't be needed. He perceived that she had called his name in order to assign him to a partner for the project. Moss was internally cursing. He didn't want or need a partner, he could do this project perfectly fine on his own. Considering his grade in the class was a 98%, he could probably skip doing the project altogether and possibly maintain an A. But nothing of this inward turmoil surfaced on his expression. "And Wendalyn Jacobs," the teacher said.

Moss blinked. He located Wendalyn, who was looking at him in a curious fashion, like he was some fancy breed of bird. He looked away again, calculating how this project would go. Wendalyn Jacobs. I've never spoken a word to her, only observed a few typical conversations about trivial things between her and the girl she generally associates with in this class. He guessed that he would be doing most of the work, and that she would love to decorate the final poster with glitter and bubble letters. The teacher finished calling out the rest of the pairs before allowing them to move together. Moss blinked again, deciding it would be more efficient to move towards her than for her to come to him.

He rose, gathering his drawings and stuffing them into his bag, zipping it most of the way shut as he wandered over to where Wendalyn sat. He slipped into the desk adjacent to hers, turning to look into her eyes. "Hey," he said, with a small smile, not quite sure how else to proceed.

@ Tessellation
Wendy paid close attention to the teacher as she spoke, not wanting to miss a single word that was being spoken. She might not look it, considering she looked like your typical blonde and was just like those girls in cliche High School movies where she was the cheerleader, did every sport she could, and had tons of friends and guys begging to be with her. Wendy wasn't top of the class or anything, but she did pass with B's and A's in her classes. Wendy's notes were very organized and neat, detailing every thing she would need to know about this project. Normally she liked to chat and giggle with her friend that sat right next to her, talking about the party that happened last night or gossiping about the girl on the squad that was rumored to be pregnant. But today, she really needed to pay attention.

Last week their teacher mentioned something about a huge project coming up and she really needed to pass this. After her step fathers rampage yesterday about the low B she had in this class, she needed to get her grade up to an A, she couldn't afford anything less than an eighty-five. Not that Wendy didn't ever pay attention in this class, but most days she preferred the company of her loyal friend. When the teacher said she was going to pick the partners this time, her heart sunk a little in her chest. Wendy found it really hard to trust just about anybody, even her friend that sat right beside her. Sure they told each other 'everything' but Wendy always left things out and kept a wall built around her.

So when she heard her name being called after a guy she had never really heard of before, her bright eyes flickered over to where he sat and made his gaze, watching him curiously. Wendy had never spoken a word to him before, but she knew he was very bright. Watching carefully as he walked over to her and slipped into the seat next to hers, a gentle smile graced her lips. Wendy's heart was beating rapidly in her chest as spoke to her, suddenly very nervous and very cautious about him. Wendy had a hard time trusting anybody, especially a man. Tugging nervously on the sleeve of her jacket, that she had to wear today even though it was getting slightly warmer out after her mom's new husbands angry rampage last night, she smiled brightly at the man next to her, acting like she normally would.

"Hi!" She spoke cheerfully, her eyes seeming to sparkle but not quite reaching happy. Wendy flipped through her notebook to the page where her notes were, putting them in the middle of the table so he could see them "Okay so I took notes on this project we have to do, so if you want to read them you can! Not that I think you weren't paying attention or that you're stupid or anything, but it might help you understand better so we can pick a topic we want to focus on." She rambled on, trying to hide how nervous she was.

Moss saw all people as puzzles that were to be pieced together. He was fairly certain that Wendy's puzzle was going to be simple. He analyzed her words and expressions as soon as she began speaking, piecing together what he could. He was thankful that she didn't appear to be hostile towards him - she actually seemed rather nice. Moss didn't understand people whose minds were preoccupied with social rankings. As she talked, he detected a small amount of nervousness in her voice. This perplexed him. She's just shy - no, that doesn't make any sense. Perhaps... Moss looked into Wendy's eyes, his intent gaze searching her momentarily. Is it possible that she's intimidated by me? Moss decided he was overthinking the entire situation and shook it off.

Moss was grateful when she placed her notes in front of him. It was wonderfully convenient, he was glad they had avoided the possible situation in which neither of them had been listening to the teacher. He immediately began scanning the pages with his eyes and committing the sequence of her notes to memory. "I wasn't paying the least bit of attention," he mumbled. The teacher had given vague ideas of projects by presenting materials, which Wendalyn had listed. Moss mentally performed an experiment with each set of materials to discover what it was that the teacher wanted. A slinky, various weights - Hooke's Law, the spring constant... A laser pointer and gelatin, ah, that must be measuring the speed of light. Nothing particularly interesting to him was on the list. He divided the projects into groups based on difficulty and the speed he believed at which they could complete the entire project. Moss realized he had been slowly leaning forward the entire time he had been reading. He sat up and turned to face Wendy.

"Is there anything you'd like to try? You can choose," he said after coming to the conclusion that he was indifferent towards which project they ended up doing. For the first time, he looked at her face without thinking about it. Moss acknowledged that her face was very beautiful. He almost told her so, but decided it would only interfere with the task at hand, considering that she probably knew exactly how pretty she was.

@ alex g
forgot this