Fated Love (BWWM)

present day - 22

Anxiety ate Aaliyah up as she slowly walked to school, trying to put on a brave face and pretend that everything was fine.

Everything was not fine.

She had to delete all social media, and blocked a majority of people's phone number off her phone over this weekend. She refused to talk to anybody. That included Carolina, Elijah and Jackson.

If it was up to Aaliyah, she wouldn't go to school for the rest of the year. But that wasn't possible because one, her mom would find out about what's going on. And two, she and Jackson have to present their projects today. And she knew if she wasn't there, they'd both fail.

And everyone knows grades are more important then your crumbling mental stability. Duh.

So as she walked into school, she did her best to put on a brave face and to remind herself that this won't even matter in two weeks.

By that time they'll find something or someone else to gawk at and they won't even remember her stupid video-

That was easier said than done.

As soon as she walked in, she caught people staring, whispering to each other in hushed tones as she walked by. She tried to avoid eye contact as much as possible while trying to make her way to homeroom. She sat down with a sigh and placed her head on her desk.

"Aaliyah!" Carolina rushes in and sits down next to her. "Dude, I've been trying for ext you all weekend! I️ was so worried-"

The bell rang and wordlessly, Aaliyah gets up and looks at Carolina once with tired eyes before passing her by and heading to her social studies class. She sits down in a desk and two minutes later, Jackson walks in and takes a seat next to her.

"Aaliyah," he speaks, "Are you-"

"Stop asking me if I'm okay!" She snaps, making a couple people look at her. Instead of backing off, Jackson just nods and sits down next to her as she holds her head in her hands. "Do you have the project?" She asked softly.

"Of course," he said. "How do you wanna present it?" He asked.

"We can take turns speaking," she tiredly waves him off before putting her head down again. Eventually she dozes off, ignoring everything Mr. Harkins was saying. She was so tired cause her thoughts were racing all night as she tried to sleep. In the end, she only got four hours of sleep.

She felt someone lightly tap her shoulder, and she instantly sat up. "I'm up!" She says, looking up to see Jackson with a worried expression on his face.

"Miss Hill," Mr. Harkins says, catching her attention, "is my class and your fellow students presentations getting in the way of your beauty rest?" He sarcastically asks, making everyone in class laugh and snicker.

Cheeks burning in embarrassment, she shook her head "no". "It's our turn to present," Jackson tells her. She sighs and gets up, stepping up to the electronic board as Jackson hands the flash drive of their work to the teacher to pull up on PowerPoint. Standing there, she felt exposed, which was ironic considering she literally got exposed. But she felt slightly better, now that Jackson was next to her.

"Hi...everyone," Aaliyah spoke first. "Um, this is me and Jackson's family tree," she points at the board at the family trees now being presented on the board.

Jackson looks up and sees Aaliyah pause for a moment. That's when he decide to take over. "The farthest I️ could trace my family tree was way back into the 1880's in Germany and England..."

Aaliyah could barely focus as she felt her mind starting to race again, and her breathing starting to get heavy as she looks out into her class and felt the weight of their stares and whispers and laughter. Oh my god they were laughing at her...