three.then

*eight months prior*

I'm late to class. And in all honesty, it really wasn't my fault. Somebody stole my lays from off my dresser, so I had to stop by the store and by some so I wouldn't starve during first period. And then that led to me buying a whole bunch of other snacks. Mostly skittles because I'm a skittles addict.

But now I'm 45 minutes late, so I sprint down the hall to my first period English class, my hair bouncing off my shoulders. Miraculously, the guard walking around doesn't tell me to slow down, which never happens but works in my favor.

I run for three straight minutes until I make it. As soon as I reach the exterior of the classroom, I pause for a moment to catch my breath because I really can't breathe. Not asthma, just severely out of shape.

Once I catch my breath, I slowly open the door and walk into the classroom, and I swear the god the entire class turns to look at me. Why does that even happen?

The teacher, whose name I really can't remember, gives me an annoyed look and says pointedly, "You're late."

No shit.

I don't say anything. I just stare her down until she rolls her eyes and turns back to the white board, returning back to her lesson about semicolons. I turn to find an empty seat and that's when I first see her.

I've never seen this girl in my life. She's so beautiful. Her curly dark brown hair touches her shoulders, almost completely covering the AirPods in her ears. Her hazel eyes look me over, bored, before she returns to her phone.

Everyone else in the class is paying deep attention to the teacher, and yet this girl sits in the back of the classroom and scrolls through her phone.

I can't stop staring at her. And, coincidentally, the only empty seat is right next to her, so I sit down next to her, pull out my notebook and favorite pen from my book bag, and attempt to scribble down what the teacher wrote on the board.

I swear to god, this woman had the worse handwriting I've ever seen. She doesn't dot her "I's" in her words. Her "I" is a dot. Why the hell is she a teacher if she writes like that??

Eventually, I just give up on whatever she wrote and pull out my phone like the girl, who's name I need to learn, had yet to stop scrolling on.

I sneak a peek at Mystery Girl. Her light brown eyes have a slight glow from the light from her phone, and she giggles at something she sees in her phone, and I swear to god her entire face lights up. I melt a little inside. I'm sitting so close to her I can smell the perfume that she must have bought from Victoria's Secret. She smells so good.

Without realizing it, I must have been staring again because her hazel eyes meet mine, a questioning expression carved into her face. I blush and turn back to my phone, which was off.

Real smooth Willow.

"Aren't you gonna say hello?"

I look at Mystery Girl again, surprised, and a small smile is carved into face, and in her cheeks I see a dimple.

Ok, I need to say something really really cool to impress her.

"Um... um... hello."

Wtf was that! That was not cool! That was the complete opposite of cool!

I blush even harder, and I swear my face is the complexion of a ripe strawberry. Mystery Girl laughs.

"So, why were you so late?"

Why is she still dragging this along?

I wanna keep talking to her, though, so I reach into my backpack and pull out my blue bag of lays. I place it on my desk as I murmur, "Snack emergency."

"Salt and vinegar," she reads. "Not the best choice but I'll leave that to you."

I decide not to comment on that because salt and vinegar lays are the best thing ever created. Instead I say, "Why were you smiling so hard?"

She scrolls on her phone for a minute and clears her throat before reciting, "And the stars blinked/ as they watched her carefully,/ jealous of her shine."

I blinked.

"It's poetry," she says slowly, noting my confused expression.

"Oh."

She grins before saying, "My boyfriend sent it to me." She squeals a little bit.

"Oh."

A boyfriend. Of course she has a boyfriend.

"He's so lucky," I whisper, but I forget that she's sitting so close to me because she responds, "And why is that?"

And I really want to say because she's the most beautiful girl I've ever met, but I'm not. I just met her, and she probably straight so it would just be weird. Instead I say, "Can I have your name?"

She gives me a weird expression because I dodged her question, but instead she responds, " Yet as adventurous/ as the ever-hanging sun/ rendered immobile by her/ alluring beauty."

"Um..."

She sighs. "Yara. My name is Yara. That's what the poem says."

"Oh," I say again, and I mentally facepalm because oh and um is all I seem to be able to say today.

She holds out her hand.

"I'm Willow," I say, and we shake hands. Her hand is really warm, and soft too.

She looks at me, her gaze vacant. I wonder what she's thinking about. Then she blinks and smiles again.

She has a really nice smile.

"'Weeping willow,'" Yara says suddenly, "'with your tears running down/ why is it you always weep and frown?'"

"Is that another poem?" I say smiling. She really loves poetry. I barely know her and I can tell that much. This one sounds like it's going to be sad though.

"Yeah. It's from the movie "My Girl". Kinda old but still a good movie nonetheless. It's called Weeping Willow. You wanna hear it?"

"Sure, since it's in my honor."

She clears her throat before reciting from memory, "' Weeping willow, with your tears running down/ why do you always weep and frown?/ is it because he left you one day?/ is it because he could not stay?/ he found shelter in your shade/ you thought his laughter would never fade/ on your branches he would swing/ do you long for the happiness the day would bring?'"

Tears start sliding down her face, and I swear I feel like crying too because she is. "I'm sorry. I'm it even reading it and it's still making me cry." Her face is a bright shade of red.

"It's okay, Yara." I really don't wanna see her cry. "You really don't have to keep on going, it's okay."

She sniffs.

"No, this poem is named after you. You should hear it."

She wipes her pinkish face and keeps going, staring at her turquoise nails. "'Weeping willow, stop your tears/ for there is something to calm your fears./ if you think death has ripped you apart/ I know he'll always be in your heart.'"

A single tear falls down my face. I guess that makes me a Weeping Willow as well ( yes, that's cringy. Fight me).

I open my mouth to tell her how much I like the poem, and the bell rings instead. Without so much as looking at me, Yara gathers her papers and hastily stuffs it into her backpack before rushing out the classroom with the rest of the students, still wiping tears from her face.

I hope I get to see her again.