Don't Believe Everything You Hear

"Okay class, we're working with partners today!" Mr. Marks said excitedly. I sighed and looked out the window. I watched as a few cars passed by, some nice, some old, but all of them with one thing in common. Everybody in those cars has somewhere they're going, something to do if you will. "Go to your lab tables and get started," he said and walked out of the room. I sighed and went over to the table, looking at my sheet of paper that the teacher had given us.

"Do you know what we need to do?" I asked Austin. He didn't seem to hear me, or didn't make it apparent that he heard me anyways. "Austin," I repeated, tapping him on the shoulder.

"What?" He asked bitterly. I was a bit taken back by the tone of his voice.

"Do you know what we need to do?" I asked.

"Not really," he said and turned back to his own paper.

I sighed to myself. Since this was a lab, it was only worth about five points towards our overall grade. I sighed again. "Forget it, I'll just take the zero," I said to myself and went back over to my seat.

I sat down in my seat and then looked back over at Austin, who was staring at me intently. He saw me looking at him but didn't turn away. It was bothering me slightly, so I turned and looked out the window again.

I pulled out my notebook and started to doodle. That's what I did until people slowly started to finish their labs and go back to their separate seats. I looked down at my drawing to see that I drew what looked to be a satellite traveling around a giant can of soda. I looked at it weirdly. It was kind of random, to say the least.

I looked back at Austin to see that he was still working, but looking confused as hell. I felt really bad right about then.

"Okay," Mr. Marks said, coming back into the classroom. "Everybody go back to your seats. If you didn't finish, you may come in during lunch to do so, but for now, we're just going to clean up and talk quietly," he told us. Austin looked down and went back over to his seat. I put my head down and stared out the window yet again.

When the bell rang I quickly shuffled out of the classroom and into the outside world, going around the outside of the school to get to my next class.

************ FF>> Lunch ************

"Hi Mr. Marks," I said coming into the class room.

"Ugh, hi Selena, are you here to finish the lab?" he asked.

"Um, I'm here to start the lab," I told him.

"But- you know what? Never mind, just get to work and don't burn anything down while I'm gone," he said and walked out of the class room. He was like never in here unless he was teaching something out of the book.

I looked at the work sheet again and read it over. I apparently had to take some water and make it turn the colors of the rainbow. I sighed and filled up the beakers with water.

After I had a few filled up to the appropriate places, I heard somebody walk into the room. So far I had been in here alone, so I was clueless as to who it was. That is, until I saw Austin walk in. I rolled my eyes.

"What are you doing here?" he asked me, when he saw me standing at the sink.

"Finishing my lab," I told him, not looking away from the task at hand. I got them all filled up and I went back over to the lab table. He went to the table across from mine and started his own work.

I bent down onto my elbows and carefully dropped the chemical into each amount of water. In about five minutes, I had made a colorful water rainbow. I filled out all the questions on the worksheet and started to clean the beakers.

"How did you finish so fast?" Austin asked me.

"I'm good at measuring things," I told him in an obvious tone.

"Oh, well do you want to help me? Since you're my lab partner and all?" he added the second part.

"I don't know," I told him honestly. "You were sort of a jerk earlier."

"Sorry about that, it's just…complicated," he told me sincerely. "Can you please help me?" He asked in a quiet, nervous tone.

"Sure, if you answer me this one question," I said to him.

"What?" he asked.

"Why do you always seem so nervous?" I asked.

"Again, it's complicated, I can't tell you," he said. "So if that means I have to finish this by myself, then so be it," he said and moved all his stuff to a separate table so his back was to me.

"Okay then," I mumbled and started to walk away. "Good luck," I mumbled and walked out of the classroom. I still would have gladly helped him, but something about the way he said that made it seem like he wouldn't want my help either way.

I got a few feet down the hallway until I stopped in my tracks. I decided on walking back to the classroom. I'm not sure why, but I did.

"Here Austin," I said holding out my paper to him.

"What?" he asked me, sounding confused.

"Take the paper and copy it, we're partner, we're allowed to do that," I laughed.

"Okay," he said unsurely, but copied my answers either way. "Thanks," he mumbled.

"No problem," I said blankly, "what kind of partner would I be if I let you not do that?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said quietly, turning away. Without another word he gathered up his things and walked out of the classroom.

"That boy is strange," I said to myself, sighing loudly. I looked around the empty room.

"Hey look!" said a random kid coming into the room. "All of you friends are here," he said and walked away laughing.

"Who was that?" I asked myself. I picked up all my stuff and left the room. "That was random" I said to myself and walked back out to the lunch area.