Frozen Moment

Girl Meets Boy. Girl Feels Infatuated. Boy Feels The Same. Love Happens.

“If you can dream it, then you can do it!” Adalaide read the poster in the back of her History class. It featured a little boy; above his head was a thought bubble filled with all kinds of images depicting cliche child career choices. “Yeah, right..” she thought to herself pessimistically. “I dream up all sort of fantasies, but not a single one of them will become my reality.” She was early to class, with only four other students in the room. (***this part to be re-written, describing the four students****) Adalaide checked the clock that hung above the empty teacher’s desk. There were still ten minutes before class began. 

Within a few minutes more students started pouring in, followed by the teacher. He introduced himself as Mr. Olde. He did so by writing it on the chalk board. He didn’t say a word. Mr. Olde sat at his desk and scanned the room, then peered down at some papers. His face was serious. Adalaide checked the clock again. “Fourty more minutes until I’m home bound”. 

10 more minutes of silence passed by, aside from the whispers between peers who seemed to already know one another. Still not a peep from Mr. Olde. He did, however, scan the class about once a minute. He stood about 4 foot 9 and was about 200 pounds; bald and had eyes like a hawk.  Adalaide found him to be bizarre, as did the rest of the class. What kind of teacher doesn’t talk on the first day? Or any day? 

Adalaide was absorbed in a steamy Vampire romance novel when the classroom door opening broke the silence. Every eye in the room shot to the door. Adalaide’s heart turned cold as her stomach crawled into her throat. Bolts of electricity surged throughout her body and a million butterflies swarmed her insides. She had never seen a human being so beautiful in her life. He was a little taller than average, but not much; fit, but not a meat head; semi-long blonde hair swept to one side and the face of an angel (in her mind, at least). He was most certainly overdressed for school, wearing a light blue button up tucked into khaki’s strapped on with a brown leather belt. His shoes were obviously just shined that morning. 

Mr. Olde stood up from his desk and locked eyes with the student as he walked over to him. The boy didn’t seem to know what to expect. “Sorry I’m late”. Mr. Olde extended his hand, which the boy grabbed and gave a firm shake. “Hello, Caleb. I’m Mr. Olde. I’m glad you finally arrived. I didn’t think I’d get to speak today.” Caleb smiled and let out a slight laugh of relief. “I, uh, guess I took a wrong turn.” Mr. Olde raised one brow. “But our school only has 223 students. It’s highly unlikely that you got lost.” Caleb looked down. “I will try not to be late in the future”. Mr. Olde smiled a big, cheesy smile. “I hope you are not! The rest of the class needs to learn, and I refuse to speak until everyone is present!” 

Caleb took a seat right next to Adalaide. Her anxiety went through the roof. She found it hard to look up from her desk. Her hands began to tremor. Her breathing became forced. 

Mr. Olde stood in front of his desk to face the class. “26 minutes remain in this class, as well as in the school day. I would like to introduce myself more formally-” He took a slight bow “-I am Mr. Olde. It is pronounced “old” and not “oldie”. I teach History... obviously. And starting tomorrow we will be learning about The Bill Of Rights and The Constitutional Amendments”. Mr. Olde stared with a big grin on for a good fifteen seconds. “For the rest of today, just get to know one another. After all, tomorrow’s History begins with today’s interpersonal relationships!” Mr. Olde sat back at his desk, returning his eyes to some papers.

That is not what Adalaide wanted to hear. Actually, it was exactly what she wanted to hear. But once she had heard it, she couldn’t move. A handful of fears ran through her mind as she pretended to continue reading her book. 

“What if he thinks I’m not interested? That would suck.”
“What if he thinks I AM interested? That would suck also.”
“What if I make too much eye contact and it’s creepy?”
“What if I don’t look at him at all but still seem interested? That would be worse!”

She was conscious of her entire body. No movements or mannerisms would come naturally. She would have to either consciously think of a movement to make and then carry it out, or her body would remain frozen and her head would remain down. She felt stuck. She knew if she were to get up and walk anywhere, her steps would be uneven on her unstable legs. But she knew that staying seated and looking down made her look weird. Thinking so deeply about the current state of her mind was unavoidable, but made her heart pound even harder. She wanted to cry.

The classroom suddenly sounded like a cafeteria, even though there were only 16 students. Everyones voices blended together into a strange, wavy sound. Adalaide’s head was spinning. She knew that it was now or never. It was her day to change her course in life and become someone who could function. She had to fight the fear. “Who knows?” she thought. “I could end up dating this guy!” She still had not lifted her face from her book, but once she did, she saw out of the corner of her eye that Caleb was, to her surprise, still sitting in his seat. He was not talking to anybody. He looked uncomfortable. Not socially, but physically. “How odd” she thought. “How great!” Adalaide suddenly felt as if she had the social upper hand. “How could anyone not want to talk to this guy?” She didn’t understand it, but it made her heart sing our loud.

Adalaide held her breath and turned her head to face Caleb, who was still looking in pain. “Hey there.” His eyebrows shot up and he turned to face her. It was as if she had broken him from a trance. “Hi.” He smiled. If anything ever made Adalaide’s heart melt, it would be his smile. “Well I guess our assignment today is to meet people.” Adalaide let out an awkward giggle. She was kicking herself in her mind for saying something so stupid. “Nice to meet you” Caleb maintained deep eye contact. “What’s your name?” Adalaide was trying to keep looking at his eyes, despite feeling uncomfortable. “I’m Addie.” She replied. “We have an odd teacher.” Caleb laughed. “That is very true. I thought the man was going to kill me. But then he shot me that crazy clown grin, then I knew I was alright.” Adalaide pulled on her hair and looked down for a moment. “So why were you late today? If you don’t mind my asking.” Caleb looked embarrassed. “The same reason I can’t keep any friends around. But I don’t need to bore a stranger with my issues.” Adalaide blushed. “We’re not strangers, not anymore.” Caleb looked pleasently surprised at her response. “You’re a confident girl. And you’re right. We’re not strangers.” His eyes burned deeper into Addie’s. “And honestly, I hope we don’t revert back to being strangers as the year goes on.” Addie didn’t know what to say. She was astonished at being called “confident”, and absolutely flattered that he basically said he wanted to become closer friends. She searched her mind for a fitting response. What came out of her mouth next amazed her. There was no pre meditation to her words. “We won’t. Of that I’m sure.”

“Where did that come from?” she thought to herself. But her heart was on fire and she was naturally high. Being called “confident” must have put the idea into her head. The words were deeply branding coming from him. 

Caleb blushed and looked down. “Awesome.” Addie casually returned her attention to her book, and Caleb stared off into space with a high level of concentration displayed on his face. Addie saw it out of the corner of her eye. It was similar to what he was doing before they spoke, only now he looked up rather than down. It was a bit odd, but she didn’t care. She was so elated it almost hurt.

Finally the bell rang. Addie grabbed her bag and left quickly, as she’d run out of “confident” things to say and didn’t want to ruin her new friendship with an awkward walk out of the room together.