“
It was Friday. The class was busy at work on a math test, silently plugging away at the problems, when a snicker went up amongst some of the students. Gregory looked up, and the snicker died down.
A few moments later, a quiet laugh arose, and more students snickered. Gregory looked up again, and looked around the room. The laughter died down once more. Gregory went back to staring at the girl who sat in front of him.
She’s so beautiful, he thought to himself. If I could just touch her hair…
The laughter burst out again from a few students.
“Who’s talking?” the teacher asked. “Quiet down and get back to work.”
The laughter died down again.
I think I love her.
The snicker arose. Gregory began to imagine kissing the girl, holding her in his arms.
Tiffany, I love you.
The whole class broke out into laughter, and Gregory snapped out of his fantasy with a start. Other students were looking at him and laughing, pointing and laughing, turning to one another and then back to him and laughing. “What?” he asserted. He had thought maybe that they had seen him staring.
“Greg, do you want a detention?” the teacher demanded.
“I didn’t do anything,” Greg explained.
“You can confess your love for Tiffany after class,” the teacher said sternly. “Now get back to work.”
Greg was mortified. He hadn’t been speaking out loud. He couldn’t have been. At least, he didn’t think so.
The class began to laugh again. “All of you, get back to work!” shouted the teacher. Greg put his head down in his arms. He was humiliated. He wanted to disappear. The girl in front of him looked almost as embarrassed, holding her head down and blushing, glancing around the room and down at Greg, who felt on the verge of tears. He hid his face completely until the end of the test, thinking of nothing but how embarrassed he was, and how he couldn’t believe that he had been talking out loud. When the bell rang, he waited until all of the other students had left, keeping his face hidden, trying to ignore the laughter and mockery of his classmates as they walked by. He didn’t even look up when Tiffany, face as red as a beet, had gotten up to leave. Finally, when the last student had left, he took his unfinished paper to the teacher’s desk and placed it in the bin with the others before hurriedly leaving the room himself, keeping his head low, still experiencing the intense shame of what had just happened.
“
gah!
these must be fun to write though.