Every Little Thing

03

The next day, I find myself sitting alone in French class. Georgina has a doctor's appointment, and none of my other friends are in the class, so it appears I'm left on my own. Mrs. Manhime has been droning on for almost a half-hour, but the instant she says group project, the room is abuzz with energy.

Instantly, people start calling their friends over, pointing to each other from across the room. I just sit there, glancing wistfully at the seat Georgie would be occupying.

"Please get into pairs," Manhime says, her tone nasally and indifferent, "And please be quiet."

My stomach twists. Of course. The one day Georgina is out of class is the one day I have to be paired up with some stranger.

As everyone begins to mix and match with their friends, all seeming to find partners (even the kids who are usually quiet and reserved manage to find people), I find that I am the only person without one. I'm about to ask Mrs. Manhime if I can just wait until Georgina gets back and then start the project, but that's when someone sets their stuff down on the desk directly next to mine.

My heart stops.

Brown hair, blue eyes, white teeth. That's all I register before I realize who it is, and what his presence implies.

"Hey," Reed Bishop says, sitting down beside me with ease. "Wanna be partners?"

I don't trust myself to say anything. Instead, I go with my next-best option and just stare at him blankly, my mind whirring with questions but not quite wanting to know the answers.

Say yes, something inside me finally says, and I swallow the lump in my throat.

"Yeah," I sputter. "Yeah, I mean—yeah."

He laughs, a grin taking up one half of his face.

"That's right. You've always had some trouble with words, huh?"

Embarassment floods me, mixed with a little surprise. He remembers that day as well as I do?

"In case you forgot, I'm Reed." he says, extending a hand that I take, and shocks of electricity move up and down my arm, travelling through my fingers and my entire body.

"Evelyn Moore," I reply, and he smiles again. Suddenly I wish he would never stop smiling.

"Great. Parlez-vous français?"

"Oui," I reply tentatively, and he raises a brow.

"That's an easy answer. Ask me something that proves it."

My heart beats a thousand times faster as I swallow, accepting the challenge and asking what I really, deeply want to know.

"Pourquoi veux-tu être mon partenaire?"

The question comes out a little broken, but it translates well enough. He beams.

"That's what I was looking for."

"You didn't answer my question," I point out despite myself, and he smiles mischeviously.

"I know."

"So?" I ask, surprised at the ease I feel when he smiles at me, "Why do you want to be my partner?"

He winks and says,

"Pourquoi pas?"

________

The project turns out to be writing a poem in French, and although I know the language pretty well, I quickly discover that I am absolute crap at writing poetry. Even Reed, who usually seems overly-comfortable in situations like this, seems to be lost.

"How the hell can we make it rhyme?" he asks, through a laugh. "This is ridiculous."

I lift a shoulder in response, still too dumbstruck by the fact that, for some strange reason, Reed Bishop decided to be my French partner. He chose to be my French partner.

"I don't know," I say, with a slightly-forced laugh. "Um, maybe it's not supposed to. Maybe it's all about imagery."

"Imagery?" he asks, and I nod, my throat constricting ever-so-slightly as I do my best to explain myself.

"Yeah, you know...making the poem more about the words rather than what the words sound like. Does that make any sense?"

He pauses for a beat, and I start to feel embarrassed, a warm heat snaking its way up my neck and into my cheeks, but then he bites his lip and nods, as if in sudden concentration.

"Yeah," he says, with a soft laugh. "Yeah, actually, it does."

Without another word, he bends over the paper and begins to write. I watch, tentative, feeling almost as if I'm invading his privacy. He looks so into it, all of a sudden, like his thoughts were just vague and random up until right now, in this moment.

And after what seems like ages, he resurfaces, like he's been held underwater and has just taken a breath. He glances over at me, smiling somewhat sheepishly.

"Sorry," he says, but hands the paper to me nevertheless. "Will you read it?"

I don't even answer. This is insane, I think, and will my hands to keep from trembling around the simple sheet of notebook paper, filled with his writing.

I struggle with it for a while, glancing at a French-to-English dictionary to ensure that everything I read is accurate, but in the end, I get through the entire paragraph.

The paper reads:

It's when snow falls the exact night you prayed for it to come.

When the one test you didn't study for gets cancelled.

When the person you've been thinking about just happens to say hello.

When the patient survives, even after being told that they couldn't.

Some call it coincidence. Some call it fate.

But it's really the Universe smiling upon you and choosing to gift you a miracle. A little, tiny, otherwise irrelevant miracle that changes your day, your month, your year, your life.

It is well, says the Universe, and just for a moment, you can believe it to be so.

I reread the words a few times, dumbstruck and unsure how to respond. He's just sitting there, watching me, looking vulnerable for the first time in, like, ever. And I don't know what to say. Dear God, I have no idea what to say.

I just look up at him, my mouth half-open in preparation to at least utter a syllable, but he beats me to it.

"Sucks, doesn't it?"

I smack his arm in defiance, and he laughs, but then I realize what I've just done. It was just instinct, of course, to shut him up, but yesterday I wouldn't have even been able to look at him.

After a second, I clear my throat and say,

"Reed. Damn."

A smile takes up half of his face, not cocky, but more shy. Almost embarrassed-looking.

"Seriously?" he asks, and his eyes flicker to mine for a second.

"Seriously." I say. "This could be the whole project. We don't have to do anything else."

He laughs, waggling a finger at me.

"Not so fast, Evelyn. Don't think you can get out of this without doing any work."

I laugh, trying to ignore the way my name sounds on his lips.

"Okay," I concede, and after a beat, "Is that honestly your first time writing?"

"No," he answers, glancing away as he says, "Just my first time sharing it with anybody."

And, for some strange reason, that makes me really, really, happy.