Love Is Flower Like

Chapter 3

Edited 05/25/21

Meadow rushed down the hallway and into her math class with seconds to spare. She had to take her dad to a doctor's appointment during her lunch period since Charlie, her dad's best friend and Chief of Police, was busy. She huffed out a breath as quietly as she could and gave her teacher an apologetic smile after she gave Meadow a small glare. Meadow shrunk slightly in her chair and quickly opened her book bag to retrieve her notebook and a pencil. 

Meadow could have easily skipped the rest of the day; her dad didn't really mind because he knew how hard she worked. But Meadow didn't want to fall behind in any of her schoolwork. It wasn't like she had plans to go to college or anything like that, but she wanted to make sure she had a good grade point average when she graduated in case she changed her mind. All she wanted to do in life was watch over her dad and make sure he lived a long, healthy life, and if that meant she had to stay in La Push for the rest of her life, then so be it. Besides, she wasn't someone who loved to venture off into the world; unfamiliar places made her anxious and too scared. 

Meadow copied the notes that were already on the board as fast as she could so that she could catch up to the rest of the class.  She was writing so fast that her pencil slipped out of her hand and rolled towards the person behind her. She silently cursed under her breath; that was her only pencil. She sat there, glaring at the blackboard in frustration. It wasn't entirely her fault that she didn't have a spare pencil. In fact, it was the kid's, who borrowed her backup pencil without giving it back, fault.

A tap on her shoulder pulled her out of her thoughts. Meadow turned in her seat to see who had tapped her and was shocked that it was Paul LaHote. She was taken aback as she hadn't realized he was in her class; she forgot or never noticed since he was never there. Paul had her pencil in his hand and had his arm outstretched towards her so she could grab it. He was staring at her so intensely that it almost made her blush. She grabbed the pencil out of his hand and nodded her head in thanks as she turned to face the front.

For the rest of the class period, she was on edge. She didn't know what it was about Paul, but ever since that day at the beach, she couldn't keep him off her mind; he was like one of those annoying, catchy songs that got stuck in your head. She made sure she was as still as she could be, and she refused to make a sound, going as far as to hold back any sneezes that tried to leave her nose. Meadow was trying to make it seem like she wasn't even there, but she didn't think it was working. She could feel his stare on her back the whole class period, and it was stressing her out because no one had ever stared at her for that long.

Meadow breathed a quiet sigh of relief when the bell rang and quickly packed her bag so she could leave the classroom. She booked it out of the room in record time and raced down the hallway to her next class. She was out of breath by the time she sat in her seat for her Chemistry class. She had a sliver of time left before the bell rang and everyone shuffled into the classroom, so she took the time to control her breathing and calm herself down. 

When the bell rang, signaling that class was starting, she took out her notebook assigned for the class and her pencil and followed the teacher as she talked about the elements on the periodic table. Meadow zoned out a little and wandered back to the topic of Paul. She was still shocked that he was in her class and couldn't fathom how she never noticed. Of course, she usually entered a room with her chin down, hoping to avoid all gazes. It wasn't that she wasn't confident in herself, it was just that she didn't want to start a conversation with someone unintentionally. Making eye contact with someone was some social signal for most people.

Meadow half-listened as the teacher droned on. Chemistry was not her favorite subject, mainly because she didn't understand the chemical processes that happened. Besides, she was more of an English person; she could read all day and she liked to analyze the themes and motives of a book. She was okay at math, since it was mostly doing the same thing repeatedly until you remembered how to do it, and history class was sometimes intriguing, but she hated science.