Shutout

Socratic Seminars

Headphones were a classic sign of being on 'do not disturb' mode for Ramona. Lucas knows, Briar knows, Jamie knows (although as time progresses he seems to be less present in the story of Ramona's life...). So now twenty minutes into her gym-period-turned-study-hall, Ramona's sporting a pair of Bose wireless noise canceling headphones blasting her 'no words studying' Spotify playlist. Although putting them on didn't completely erase the odd feeling of longing that compelled her to glance at the library door every now and again, Ramona did feel more herself. She scribbles urgently as new thoughts to dissect the evidence against the morality of Tom Joad to use in her upcoming AP Lang Socratic Seminar flow through her brain. The pages of her book flip back and forth as she searches for quotes and reasoning, and slowly but surely Ramona falls back into her normal groove.

That is until she ends up on the floor (for the second time today) due to a startling hand landing on the side of her arm. Ramona scrambles to grab her headphones off the ground, placing them on her computer before grabbing the edge of the table to pull herself up. She does so without turning to see the perpetrator of the act. Once she's standing, Ramona spins on her heel leaning back on the table to help her stand with her hurt ankle. Taking one more deep breath, Ramona looks up.

"My bad, Mona." Beau quipped shortly, clearly struggling to hold back a laugh. "Didn't realize you were so easily startled."

Ramona rolls her eyes, "Yeah well, clearly my headphones are impressively good at noise cancellation. They blocked out your footsteps. An impressive feat considering your oaf-like frame." Ramona sneers. She narrows her vision as her head tilts slightly in annoyance. Said annoyance which only grows stronger with the grin forming in the corner of Beau's mouth.

"There's the Mona I know. Thought you've been going soft on me recently." His slight grin turns into a giddy smile. Ramona has to fight the urge to smile, pressing her lips together as her cheeks turn a rosy shade of pink. "Anyways, I came to check up on my oh-so intensely injured girl. But I take it you're doing fine, considering your lack of moping and surge of inexplicably pleasant snarkiness."

Ramona hums, not trusting herself to form an entirely coherent response to whatever Beau had said. In the silence following only does she register the faintly uncomfortable (was that the right word?) way looking into Beau's eyes twisted her stomach. She glances away feeling the heat from her cheeks spread across her face. Ramona feels it heat up her whole figure, she tries to make it go away by staring into the bottom tray of a book cart far enough away from Beau that he only partially penetrates her peripheral vision. Although Ramona may be known for her aggressively nonaggressive and nonchalant demeanor, the right trigger can turn her as red as a tomato. Realizing the embarrassing state her face is most likely in, Ramona turns her whole body away to meet the fixed point where her eyes had been looking pointedly.

Her focus on cooling herself down is so intense that Ramona seems to completely ignore the sudden exterior source of heat approaching her body. Only turning from the light brush of skin against her wrist, Ramona saw Beau leaning closer to her with every passing second.

The panic swelling in her mind must make itself evident on Ramona's face as Beau chuckles through his words, "Relax. I just wanna see what you're working on." Ramona looks down to where Beau's hand wraps around her side (explaining the contact she had felt on that arm prior), and travels past her to pick up her English notebook. And he's doing nothing scandalous or quite out of the ordinary, but to Ramona the proximity between their two bodies didn't make her feel warm. Rather, any place his skin touches or even just hovers near her own feels swelteringly hot.

Then Beau pulls back, taking Ramona's notebook with him. He takes a step back as he buries his face into the pages, showing uncharacteristically unadulterated interest in notes for a class he was never going to take. Was he nervous?