The Past is Only the Future with the Lights On

---next day; end of first period---

"I still can't believe how great your hair turned out," Mikey said in awe, his hand gently petting my hair for about the billionth time since this morning. "And that my brother saw it first."

"Thanks," I laughed, my geometry class coming into view as we walked down the hallways and I remembered Mikey normally didn't walk with me to my second period. "Mikes, shouldn't you be walkin' that way?" I inquired, pointing behind us, feeling his hand leave my head.

"Yeah, but Dahlia and I are gonna ditch to hang out at the park for a bit," he said, Frank's familiar body appearing and stepping between Mikey and I.

"Oh, how romantic," Frank said sarcastically, jokingly batting his long eyelashes, only to receive a slap in the head from Mikey and causing me to laugh.

We finally reached my classroom, Dahlia already standing outside of it, as usual, with a huge smile on her face as her eyes connected with Mikey's.

"You can't leave me today, D," I said to Dahlia once she was in hearing range of me, her eyes immediately landing on my and her smile fading. "We're doing partner crap."

"Yeah, and I'm gonna go do crap with my partner," she smiled again, kissing Mikey's cheek before lacing her fingers with his.

"Gee, thanks for reminding me of my relationship status," I said with barely any effort, receiving pitiful smiles from my friends, even though I wasn't looking for that. It was my choice to stay single and not look for a new relationship.

"Ah, Kelly, would you like to ditch with me so we can go to the park and make out?" Frank asked, smiling teasingly down at me.

"Shut up," I sighed, flicking his nose as I turned on my heel and walked into my classroom, half of the class already in their normal seats.

I continued and stopped at my usual desk, letting out another sigh before sitting down. As odd as it sounded, I was starting to feel distracted without Dahlia here. You'd think she'd be the cause of my distractions, but it actually seemed like she was what was keeping me on task and focused.

A couple minutes later, the bell rang, and I soon noticed the rest of the class had entered and taken their appropriate seats - for the most part.

I looked at the seat to my left - the one that should have been empty because it belonged to Dahlia - and saw Skyler.

Damn, I must really be distracted if I didn't see him sit down there.

"I hope you don't mind me sitting here today," he said with a small smile. "I noticed your friend wasn't here and neither is Josh, so I thought I'd sit here," he explained, referring to the guy he normally sat next to in the back of the room.

"That's fine," I nodded, smiling back.

"Nice hair, by the way. It looks awesome," he said, nodding his head in a approval.

"Thanks," I said, the droning voice belonging to Ms. Parks silencing us and the rest of the class from saying anything else, in their normal voices at least, as she began today's lesson.

"As I'm sure we're all aware, finals start tomorrow," Ms. Parks said in a purposely happy voice, loud groans coming from almost every mouth in the classroom, including my own and Skyler's.

"So," she continued, "I've decided to give you the whole class period today to partner up and study, so long as you all stay on task."

That was already seeming impossible for me, not having Dahlia here.

"So go ahead and start partnering up. I'll be passing out a review sheet soon," the teacher's voice stopped and I turned to my left, meeting a pair of green eyes and a beaming Skyler.

"Partner?" he asked, raising his eyebrows slightly.

"Yeah, sure," I agreed, getting out my geometry notebook, even though I knew I wouldn't use it. It was more for props than studying, because it was like a physical impossibility for me to study for classes like this, with the numbers and everything. I always did better just winging it.

"So. . .doing anything special over break?" Skyler asked conversationally, scooting his desk closer to my own.

"Unless you consider spending Christmas with my grandma and waiting for my dad to come down special, than no," I replied, watching his brows pull together in confusion.

It was then that I noticed just how, dare I say it, cute he was. Skyler and I hadn't talked much since my first encounter with him, so I hadn't paid much attention to it before now.

His piercing green eyes had speckles of brown and yellow in them, standing out beautifully against his pale complexion. And he was beanie-less today, probably remembering how irritated Ms. Parks got each time she asked him to remove it, which was at least once a week, his long, unkempt once-black hair now faded, showing it's natural chestnut color.

"You don't live with your father? Are your parents divorced or something?" he asked, pulling my from my stare at him.

"Actually, my mom passed away a few years ago. And I'm living with my grandmother now," I explained, noticing that Ms. Parks was passing out the review sheets to my row.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you or anything," he said quickly. My thoughts instantly flashed to Frank; his reaction to me telling him this.

"No worries, I'm fine. So do you have any plans for break?" I asked him, as to not sound rude or uncaring to him.

He started telling me about how every year him and his family go down to Florida for Christmas to visit some relatives, and they'd be doing the same this year.

Then, instead of studying like we were supposed to, like the rest of the class actually was, we started a whole new conversation, about hair, skateboarding, bands, and, at one point, even the brand of toothpaste we used.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed just talking to him, even about the most random things. It was nice, refreshing.