Page 8 of So Long, Honey

I closed my book and stood from my chair, shoveling the books into my backpack as the doors to the library slammed open. Ryan skittered in like a wet cat, out of breath and frantic. His eyes widened as he watched me pack up my book, jogging over to the table with his hand out to stop me.

“You’re late,” I said.

“I love you too, beautiful.” He smiled out of breath, pulling his hand out from behind his back with a bundle of flowers. “I got these for you.”

“Whose garden did you steal them from?” I asked, trying to ignore the fact that he had called me beautiful.Again.

“I paid a garden club nerd five dollars to let me raid the greenhouse, so I’m late.” He set them down when I didn’t take them and dropped his bag on the floor, moving around the desk to my side.

“That’s not a good enough excuse.” I shook my head and continued to pack my bag when he dropped to his knees beside me and closed the opening with his hands. “Get up,” I whispered at him angrily as a few of the other students started to turn and look at the commotion.

“Not until you forgive me for being late,” he pouted, those big green eyes on fire under the harsh fluorescent lights of the library. “Come on, Mouse. I’m sorry. I just wanted to do something nice for you, but it backfired.” He flipped his cap off and pressed it to his chest, still staring up at him with those long lashes.

“I told you not to call me that.” I shook my head, wanting to deny him, to send him away, and to let him fail, but it was hard to say no to Ryan Cody, especially when he was staring at me like that, causing a scene in the library.

“Listen, Rae, I need you. Do you understand that? This is life or death for me. You hold my entire future in your pretty little hands.” He said.

I chewed my lip, worried that the entire situation was slipping from my fingers, but I nodded, “Fine, just get off the damn floor, stupid.” I hissed.

Ryan chuckled and pushed off his knees as he ran his hand through his messy sandy blonde hair. Those damned strands framed his flirty eyes, and the heat rose to the back of my neck.

I shook off the feeling of warmth and took my book back out, dropping it on the table next to the flowers he had brought me. The flower that secretly made me feel special and that I would attempt to keep alive for as long as possible as soon as I left today.

“I separated all your assignments to make them more manageable. We’ll get as many as we can do in the next two weeks, and hopefully, if we get enough of them done, you’ll be able to play again,” I explained to him.

“Hope is fickle,” Ryan said, “I need your guarantee,” he said, looking up from the binder.

“Whether or not you finish these papers isn’t up to me. You have to put in the work, Ryan. I can’t do that for you,” I said with a tiny shrug.

“Say my name again,” he hummed, tilting his chin.

“No.” I shook my head, ignoring how my body reacted to his attention. “Pay attention. Start with this one,” I pointed to the easiest of them all.

“I hate that one,” he groaned and slid into his chair, moving it over so he was shoulder-to-shoulder with me. He caved when I stared at him with a deep scowl. “Alright, alright, Mouse, you’re gonna burn a hole in me.”

I huffed at his nickname and watched as he pulled out his pencil and paper, slowly starting to read the assignment notes. “I don’t understand what’s so educational about writing a paper on a childhood memory.”

“It’s about reflection on your life. It’s about your ability to recount, not the memory.” I shrugged, separating the emotion from it.

“So she wants me to write a memory but doesn’t care about it just so that she can judge my ability to tell a story?” Ryan laughed, eyes flashing up to meet mine as I nodded. “That’s absurd.”

“It’s just a memory,” I said. “It should be easy; pick a favorite of yours.”

Ryan’s hand paused the nervous tapping he had started. Seeing how his father treated him, I realized there might not be as many as I had assumed, and for once, we were standing on level ground. I inhaled slowly, trying to find a way out of the corner I had backed him into accidentally. Our stories weren’t the same. I had never been…hit. I had never had a reason to think about it before, but being ignored was better than being abused.

“What’s your favorite?” He asked me.

“This isn’t about me,” I said quietly.I didn’t have any.

“Mrs. Raymond isn’t going to know the difference,” Ryan said.

“You aren’t starting this paper by plagiarizing someone else's life,” I sighed.

“Just give me an idea, Mouse. Maybe then I can make something up.” He shrugged. He was doing anything he could to avoid digging deep into his childhood, and it made my heart ache for him.

“What about a baseball memory?” I asked him, and he sank his teeth into his bottom lip, and his gaze became distant.

“Let’s do a different one. I’m sure I’ll think of something eventually.” He flipped the pages in the binder to the next one. The following six assignments he had missed were all topics involving him as a person, his memories, his family, and simple issues for normal kids, but they all seemed to make his skin crawl. Suddenly, I understood that there was a deeper issue as to why he was failing English.