“Yeah, you’re right.”
Quiet again.
“I want something we can actually do a good presentation on,” I say. “I don’t want to make a lame speech. We should do something fun.”
“What about choosing a famous woman? I know how much you love girl power.”
I have no idea why that causes my cheeks to warm up. I guess because I’m surprised he remembers that about me? But then again, it’s only been a year and a half. It’s not like we’re thirty-five and barely remember anything about each other.
“It’s definitely tempting,” I tell him. “But I kind of have another idea that I like.”
“Okay. Who?”
“William Shakespeare. We can perform a scene from one of his plays for the presentation, and we can build the Globe Theatre for our model.”
Kylen thinks it over for a bit. “Yeah, that sounds like fun. I have tons of Lego we can use to build the Globe Theatre, and I love making a British accent.”
“You suck at a British accent.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, and my cheeks flush. The memory of the two of us acting out one of the Harry Potter movies at camptakes over my brain. He did a horrible Harry Potter, but I loved it anyway.
A small smile appears on Kylen’s lips as he most likely relives the memory, too. But then we’re engulfed in silence.
He clears his throat as he shifts in his seat. “Okay, so we’re choosing William Shakespeare?”
“If you’re cool with it.”
“I’m cool with it.” He rips a page out of his notebook and starts writing it down. “For the written assignment, we’ll need to focus on what effect he had during his time era and then on ours, and how much it has changed over the years.”
“Yeah.”
As he jots it down, I find myself staring at his profile. But then I quickly catch myself and tear my eyes away, trying to keep my breathing under control. It’ll be okay. It’s just an assignment, where we’ll have to spend only a small amount of time together. It’s not like we’ll be forced to spend every second together. I hope.
“So how will you get your Lego here?” I ask.
“Oh…” He laughs sheepishly. “Sometimes I forget that I dorm here. I guess I can ask my grandparents to ship it over, or we’ll have to buy new ones or something…” He rubs the back of his neck.
“I guess we can worry about that when we get there. For now, let’s focus on the written assignment.”
“Sure, that’s cool.”
“We can’t look up any of our sources online in Mr. Lewis’s class. We’ll need to meet at the school library.”
He nods slowly. “Right.”
Once again, it’s silent. And so freakin’awkward. How is this my life right now? I was supposed to avoid this dude and not say a single word to him. Now we’ll have to spend one-on-one timetogether all because no one wanted to partner up with either of us?
“I guess I’ll hand this in,” Kylen says as he gets up. “I’ll, uh…” His eyes settle on me. “I guess I’ll see you around, Raven. When we meet up at the library, I mean. When exactly?”
“Are you available after school?”
“I have band practice today, but I can push it off.”
Band practice? He’s in a band?
“It’s fine. I’ll cancel band practice so we can go to the library.”
“Okay.”
I want to sink into the ground because of how awkward the atmosphere is.
