That night, I dreamt about the boy in the red shirt. I don’t know why, but it was something about him that had caught my attention. Last night was memorable for a lot of reasons, one of them when Olivia threw up on me. Another when the guy in the red t-shirt just disappeared. One second he was there, the next he was gone. I knew he had been there, I knew what I had seen. Neither Cole nor Noah had taken me seriously, which made me feel angry and unimportant. I had not imagined that boy; he had been there, no matter what the others tried to tell me.
Sunday evening came sooner than wanted. My dad and Catherine were cooking dinner while Cole and I were studying.
“Would you mind taking off your headphones, dear?” Catherine said to Cole who obviously couldn’t hear her. Parents…
I poked Cole in the side and nodded towards Catherine to tell him she wanted him to take his headphones off.
“Thank you Sophie” she smiled warmly and I responded with a smile as well.
“How was the party last night?” my dad asked and looked over at me.
“Fun, I guess” I said and shrugged. It had been fun, in the beginning.
“They don’t want to tell us, Howard” Catherine stated and giggled a little at my father. Oh cute little Catherine, she knows me too well.
Cole and I didn’t participate much in the conversations, dad and Catherine took care of that.
Sunday night came and I was lying in bed with my English book, reading a few pages for class tomorrow morning. However, concentrating didn’t work out very well. You know when you read but don’t understand what you’re reading? It is like one part of your brain is reading but another part is too busy thinking about something. I was thinking of everything at the same time; of how Olivia got home, of the boy in the red t-shirt, of English literature and of Noah.
It was Monday morning and I was sitting in English class with Olivia by my side. The teacher hadn’t arrived yet and everyone was talking about the events of the weekend. Some guys had won their basketball match against some team from California. A few girls at the back were talking about some hot older guy they had seen at the mall and how they wished they had been older so they would know who he was.
“I’m sorry” Olivia said as she sat down next to me in the front.
“It’s fine, how were you feeling yesterday?” I responded and picked up my notebook.
“As I deserved” she hurried to say since Mr. Brown was going to start class.
The talking slowly began to fade out and Mr. Brown soon gained all of the students’ attention.
“Good morning! Today you are going to do all of the work while I will just be sitting here watching you trying to get along” he smiled a satisfying smile as he picked up a paper.
“I’ve divided you into groups and within the groups you are going to form pairs. Each pair is going to choose a scene from a famous musical or play, which you are going to present for the other pair that is in you group” he looked at almost each one of us and nodded after. “Great, let’s get started”.
He began telling us which group we were in, and the classroom became emptier as students left with their pairs.
“Sophie, Gabriel, Noah and Emma” Mr. Brown said and I collected my things.
I was not going to work together with Gabriel; he has to be the dumbest person at this entire school. Emma is not very bright she either, so they would do a great job together. Or well, not a good job but at least they wouldn’t bring anyone else down with them.
“I’m quite fond of high grades and I’ve noticed that the other two aren’t very clever. Do you mind being my partner?” Noah came up and asked me.
“Sure” I shrugged and we walked out of the classroom together.
It was awkward. He didn’t say much as we walked and he had longer legs than me, which meant I had to almost run to keep up with his pace.
“So…” I began as we reached a table. “What play are we going to use?” I asked and took out my notebook.
“Romeo and Juliet?” Noah suggested and lay back with his arms over his chest.
“Shouldn’t we be at least a bit more inventive?” I asked and raised my eyebrows.
Choosing Romeo and Juliet would be committing suicide. I just realized that statement is very true, since they both actually kill themselves in the end. That, however, was not what I was thinking about. Choosing Romeo and Juliet was very cliché; we wouldn’t reach a high grade by choosing that one.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked and I instantly came back to reality.
“What?” I asked in confusion.
“What were you thinking about?” he smiled when he said it this time. No, let me correct myself, he grinned.
“I don’t know” was the first thing that came to my mind to say. Some thoughts aren’t meant to be shared.
“Well you must’ve thought of something” he argued and leaned closer, over the table.
“I don’t ask you what you are thinking about all the time” I responded and suddenly felt a bit uncomfortable.
“That’s because I have too much to think about, so I end up not thinking at all” he said, dead serious.
Did he mean that he was stressed? It was a very interesting way of putting it, a bit too serious to explain stress.
I opened my mouth to say something but closed it again. Whatever respond I could come up with sounded silly.
“I think Romeo and Juliet would be a perfect play for us” he said and watched me closely with his dark eyes. I hadn’t noticed how dark they were, until now. They were almost black, almost gorgeous.
“Why?”
“Because I said so”
“We are supposed to decide together”
“Aren’t we doing that right now?” Noah finished, put his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows.
“We are not doing Romeo and Juliet” I said and started looking through my papers for another suggestion.
I didn’t have anything against Romeo and Juliet normally, but since Noah was determined we were doing it I couldn’t just let him win without a fair fight.
“Trust me, it will be epic” he said and grinned again.
“Can’t you at least try to consider another play?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because Romeo and Juliet is terrible”
“No it’s not”
“Yes it is”
I realized how childish this was, us sitting here arguing like five-year-olds.
“It may not be terrible but…” I began but Noah cut me off.
“Maybe if you see the modern version” he said.
“If you mean the one with Leonardo DiCaprio it is not very modern” I argued.
“Not compared to the original play,” he said.
“Well I can’t say something about what I haven’t seen”
“Then you shouldn’t be so judgmental”
“It’s not like you’ve seen it”
“Yes I have”
“A few year old play doesn’t count”
“Yes it does”
“No”
“How can’t the premiere in 1596 count?!” he said, clearly upset by now.
“Whatever” I said and gave up the fight.
Neither of us said anything, we just looked at each other. Why bother to argue about a stupid play you haven’t even seen?
“Wait, did you just say that you saw the premiere in 1596?” I asked and froze.
“No”
“Yes you did,” I argued. This time I was determined to get him to confess it.
“We’ll choose another one, take whatever play you want. Give me the details my tomorrow and I’ll get the script” he said, stood up from the chair and walked away.
Förlåt för att det kom så sent! Jag skrev flera olika förslag, men ingen utav dem var helt rätt. Men nu är jag nöjd! Hoppas ni gillar det, nästa kommer i övermorgon. Kramisar!
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