All I can hear and see is the rain and wind that soar through New Orleans. All I want to do is listen, and gaze through the window tiredly as school comes to a close end. So that's what I do: I listen, and I gaze. At this point, I don't have a care in the world. But my patience is tested as I hear my name being called.
I look up to see the entirety of the class staring at me. My math teacher, Mr. Lockwood, looks at me as if waiting on an answer to a question, and the roll of his eyes towards me can only explain his knowledge of my distractibility.
I reluctantly turn my focus away from the window, and forward towards the teacher as if giving the impression that I had started to pay attention. I hadn't, but he turns around with a nod and starts to write some math gibberish on the board.
Math isn't my strongest subject, but it is my best friend's, and because of her, I'm passing. I take in the sound of the rain as I drown out the environment surrounding me, and all I hear is the rain again.
I don't realize that I had closed my eyes until I jump at the sound of the classroom door opening and slamming against the cream-painted stone wall. I roll my eyes as Phoenix Hoffman walks in, presumably late, with only 37 minutes left of the school day.
Mr. Lockwood holds his hand out as he writes on the board to take his late slip without looking at him, and he shakes his head as Phoenix hands it to him.
"Sit down, Phoenix," Mr. Lockwood says.
Phoenix gives a salute with a smirk and the class snickers. I roll my eyes for the second time, and my gaze turns back towards the window.
My silence is interrupted when Phoenix slams his book bag down on the tile floor as he sits in the seat on my right.
"Yo, Lilian, what are we doing in here?" I hear his voice beside me. I furrow my brows and look over as he takes out the math workbook and flips through it. He looks up at me at the silence, with an expression of confusion when he notices my look of distaste.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"It's Lilith."
He shrugs, "And we're doing what, Lilith?"
He enunciates clearly the sound of my name with confidence, and waits for my answer with a hopeful expression.
"Hell if I know."
"Fair," he chuckles. He stops what he's doing and looks straight at me before I can look away.
"What?"
He shrugs and leans back in his chair.
"Did I do something to bother you?"
I shrug. "No?"
"Then what's your deal?"
"My deal?"
"Why are you so tense?"
"Tense? I'm not tense."
He chuckles. "And I'm not named after a bird."
I attempt to suppress my amusement, and a sly smile forms onto my face. I look away from Phoenix towards the window, and I can hear his laugh. To be fair, he was the exact guy that would get on your last nerves.
Football players are portrayed in movies the same way they appear in the real world. The exact same way—and that football captain you see in the movies? It's Phoenix. He's the same cocky, arrogant, and ridiculously good-looking football player you see in the movies. The same guy you don't want to be around. I've known Phoenix since middle school, and I still have yet to know anything about him—other than the way I see him in my eye and earshot. He was the guy praised and envied by students, and hated by teachers.
"Are you going to the game tonight?"
I look up with confusion.
"What?"
"You're asking me if I'm going to the game tonight?"
"You should go. I can meet you at the gate." He gives me a smile I wouldn't have thought I'd ever see on him. "Really. Come on, come."
I slightly chuckle, "I've never been to any of them."
"It's not completely dreadful, you know. I'm benched anyways."
He talks in a melancholy tone, and I quickly eye the navy blue arm sling that covers the red full arm cast that lies over his left arm.
"Why go if you're not playing?"
He shrugs, "To watch them lose?"
I stifle a chuckle as I collect my belongings to put into my book bag.
"Maybe."
I take a quick glance at his beaming smile, and raise my eyebrows with a slight smile. My daily small talk with Phoenix in math had never gone this far, and about every other day I hear him call me "Lillian," but strangely, I would consider him an acquaintance. As he talks to me in math, it's almost as if he forgets to be the arrogant asshole that he usually is, and he's actually quite nice at times.
"See you then, Lillian." He gives me a wave as the bell rings, and slings open the door quickly, hindering everyone's chances to leave before he does. His football friend group greets him as he walks out the door, and his laughter erupts in the school's second floor corridor.
I make it out of the classroom, and to Vivian's class on the first floor. I can still hear a faint laughter from the football player that's named after a bird. And for some reason, I stifle out a silent chuckle and close my eyes as I shake my head in amusement.
I look up as students leave their classes, and I see Vivian pacing towards me to meet me halfway. She has a beaming smile, and her brown hair appears messier in her single braid than it did at our free hour.
"You're going to the game?"
She looks surprised as she asks me, and I can assume I express my confusion at her question—as I never mentioned that I was.
"Who told you that?"
"That, uh, Tristan guy. The football player. Friends with all of those jocks."
I shrug, "I said maybe. Phoenix already asked me."
Her eyes widen and I raise my left eyebrow.
"What?"
"Phoenix Hoffman asked if you were going to a football game that he can't even play in?"
I shrug again, "I guess."
"You're like, friends?"
"Acquaintances," I shrug. "We have math."
She nods her head in analysis.
"What?"
She shrugs, "Maybe he likes you."
"Bitch, are you okay?" I bring my hand up quickly to her forehead to test a presumed risen temperature, and she rolls her eyes and swats my hand away as she pulls her head back and chuckles.
"You're so dramatic," she says, and walks past me to the staircase.
I turn around and chuckle as I catch up to her, and we walk side to side out of the 400 hall.