Will You Keep Me Alive?

Three days later, I found Mr. Georges calling me after his class. I went to his desk as the other students walked out of the classroom.

“What’s up, Mr. Georges?” I asked.

“I just finished reading your piece and it was absolutely great,” his eyes were smiling, pleased, through his glasses. “I thought you deserved another credit so I submitted it to a writing competition.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You – you—“

“I know it was wrong for me not telling you but I couldn’t resist to just send it right after I read it. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Definitely not!” I objected, “But was it even worth it?”

He laughed, echoing through the empty room. “I never told you this, but I always do something to student’s piece that really deserves another prize than a good grade, therefore I submit it to a competition. Besides yours, there were another five pieces I submitted. Only the best ones I picked were submitted.”

“Mr. Georges, I can’t thank you enough,” I smiled, “I never really had the guts to submit my writing to anything.”

“But you should, Brock. You are one of the most talented students I’ve ever had.”

I chuckled. “Maybe you should also thank my brother and my boyfriend – they gave me inputs on that story.”

“Maybe I should.”

- - -

“Mr. Georges? Really?” Camilla said as she stabbed the lettuce from her salad. I nodded as I chewed my sandwich. “For someone that doesn’t have so many expressions on his face, I didn’t expect him to actually do that,” she put the lettuce into her mouth.

“I didn’t expect it too – and he actually had an expression when he talked to me.”

“Are you going to tell anyone else about this?”

I shrugged. “I don’t want to go around telling people about it when it turns out that I don’t win.”

“I haven’t read your piece – and believe me I won’t, but Mr. Georges has a really good eye so I guess it’s badass.” Camilla dislikes any media that only has words on it, that’s why she said she wouldn’t read my piece. It was funny though, because she’s practically an actress and she has to read scripts and memorize them.

“How do you know? He never even teaches you.”

“A little birdie told me.”

I laughed. “By the way Camilla, why haven’t I heard your current love life? We’ve been friends for almost two years and I never hear you talking about it.”

This time, she was the one that laughed. “I’m not really into love lives.”

“Really? And why is that?”

“Let’s just say I’ve encountered some jerks that made me lose interest to... stay committed.”

“And when was the last time you were committed?”

“Senior year, probably? Doesn’t matter.”

I rolled my eyes. Camilla was beautiful, really. And even though she was careless, she actually was nice. I really wanted to talk about her “love life” but she didn’t seem like she wanted to, and I hated to push people, so I let it be. Although I was still curious. I never even knew what was her taste in men, too – which sucked because she was the closest girl friend I’ve got in this state but I barely knew about her life around romance yet she knew a lot about mine.

“Anyway Daphne, your birthday is in three days, right?” she asked, slurping her smoothie. “Have anything planned?”

“Well, I guess I’m going to invite some close friends for lunch at home.”

“I hope it’s not another barbecue – I’ve had enough of barbecue this year. People in Arizona like barbecue too much.”

I laughed. “No worries, my mom and I will be cooking.”

“Great!” she clapped her hands. “Will Neyla and Morgan come too?”

“Morgan will be busy next week but Neyla could come.”

“Good, I just hope there’ll be enough drama between him and Garrett. Speaking of which, what the hell is his problem?” Even though Camilla wasn’t there during Garrett’s melodramatic act, she knew because I told her. After all, she also knew what happened between the two of them – I didn’t want to tell her at first but she sensed something was fishy between them when the very first time she spent time together with the group.

“I don’t know – he’s so immature.”

“Boys are meant to be immature.”

“Mm, true that. Can you make it though? It’ll probably start at around one.”

“Sure, I can make it. By the way, what time is it now? Is the movie starting yet?”

I looked at my watch. “Uh yes. In fact, it’s starting in five minutes.” We both quickly stood up and ran to the cinema.