School Will Never Be the Same

I picked Annie up on Monday at about nine and we made our way into town to do Christmas shopping. I had a list of people I still needed to buy for, and from what Annie had told me hers was even longer than mine, so this was a hole day set aside for shopping.

My friends had been growing a bit annoyed at me. I hadn’t spoken to them that much, spent less time with them and tried to spend time with Gerard rather than them. So I owed my best friend a full day of my undivided attention. Gee was under strict instructions of not texts or calls unless I text or call first.

We pulled up and parked. I was just about mentally prepared for all this shopping. Physically, I wasn’t so sure. My first purchase was going to big a large can of red bull. When Annie shops it is til she drops and she hardly ever drops. She could beat Alice Cullen at shopping.

“Where have you been lately, me and the others thought you’d gone into hibernation?” She joked as we made our way to the first shop of many.

“I’ve been busy with all my coursework and stuff.” The party line.

“Come on, Nat, you know as well as I do, you’d ditch that stuff to hang out any day, so what is it? You got a guy you not telling us about? Are you a Natalie by day super girl by night? Do you lead a double pop star life?” I laughed at her guesses to hide my uneasiness. She’d got it first try and I knew she was good at that sort of thing but I couldn’t tell her. I wanted to be all girly and analyse the date, recite it detail for detail but for now that could never happen. I felt depressed at the thought. I shared everything with my friends and the one thing I want to share most, I can’t.

“It’s work and coursework, applying to uni, it all gets on top of me, if I was a superhero I could handle it all, but I can’t. Anyways, anything new with you. New guy? New music? New anything?” Annie told me about her Christmas job and how she had a huge crush on the guy who worked the same shifts as her at a clothes chain. She told me every detail about him, how she thought he liked her and all the signals. This is what I wanted. But I wouldn’t be able to share the beginning of the relationship rush with anyone and I wanted to share that with Annie the most. If she did ever find out, she would be so mad at me.

“Anything new with you, you still madly in love with your art teacher?” I wouldn’t say madly in love. Yet.

“Um, not really, I'm just enjoying being single,” I think I'm a pretty good liar. “I get to do coursework, read and write all I like, watch youtube all day long.” I said as w walked into a shop which is always good for sales at this time of year.

At lunch time we dropped of the bags we already had in the car and made our way to a café.

“Have you heard from any of the others recently?” I asked sipping on my hot chocolate.

“Yeah and we agreed to get together when Sarah comes back from holiday and they want me to invite you obviously. So are you free on the 30th?” She seemed excited about this meet up, we haven’t all been together in a long time.

“I'm free, what did you guys have in mind?”

The rest of the day we got everything else we needed. I got to pick up part one of Gerard’s Christmas present and a little something for Mikey as I was seeing him. But that was only some chocolate. All in all we had a good day of catching up and I got to cross off Christmas shopping from my very short list of things to do. I had everyone’s presents and tonight I had free to wrap everything. For someone in a semi-serious relationship I still lead a boring life.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Annie said getting out of my car. “Seriously, call me and everyone else.” She slammed my door and walked away. I did feel guilty for forgetting my friends like I have, I did that with my ex and I promised myself I would never let it happen again. I hate myself for slipping, I have to make sure I don’t leave the people who are important to me behind. Especially since we’re all going to different schools at the end of the school year.

It was times like these when I wished Gerard was around more often, I had to lug all the stuff I got into my house and up to my room. It took me two trips to get it all done. The house was empty, what's new, so I called Gerard when I was done with unpacking my car.

“Hey, how was shopping with Annie?” He asked as I wondered up to my room to get the book I was reading at the moment, Carrie by Stephen King. I do love Stephen King.

“It was good,” I said looking threw a pile of books stacked by my bed. Locating my iPod also wouldn’t take long. “I managed to get part of your Christmas present and something for your brother.”

“Mikey?”

“No, the little monkey you keep in your basement, yes Mikey. He likes chocolate right?” I said grabbing my book and lying on my bed.

“You didn’t have to get him anything and yes he likes chocolate. His plane arrives tomorrow so I'm going to the airport to get him so I'm sorry but I don’t think you’ll hear from me much tomorrow.” I rolled onto my stomach to look at my desk calendar on the other side of me.

“That’s cool. I can’t believe that Christmas eve is the day after tomorrow. I just realise how late I left shopping.” Gerard laughed on the other end of the phone.

“You leave everything to the last minute. Especially your school work.”

“Hey, do I need to remind you I got all my work for over Christmas done already. I bet you can’t say the same.” I smirked.

“Well, no, I still have some marking to do and lesson planning but there’s still the rest of the holiday left, I’ve got plenty of time.” And I learnt long ago that having that attitude means you will never get any work done.

“Well, Mr. Way, I am going to make sure it is done for the sake of your students.”

“I love it when you call me by my last name,” he sounded turned on, which made me blush, I’d never had a guy talk to me like that before. But who gets turned on by their last name?

“How have you contained yourself until now? I have to call you that every day at school.” He stalled on the other end, I could only hear his soft breathing and the sound of him panicking, but that’s more intuition than it is hearing. “Never mind. So What are you doing on the day after boxing day?”

“I was planning on hanging out with my little brother but I have a funny feeling that you have other plans for me.” He didn’t sound excited about the prospect of grading instead of having fun with his brother.

“Well for a couple of hours you could do some work and I will be round nice and early to make sure you do. Then you can spend the rest of the day with your brother and it will work like that until you’re done.”

“And here I thought I was the teacher and you were the student.”

“Well it seems as though we’re crossing all the lines now. I’ve gotta go do some wrapping. Talk to you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, good night sugar lump.”

“Sugar lump?” He could be such a dork.

“It’s a nick name I thought I would try out.”