The Thing About Flip Flops

Chapter Five: Birthday Candles Are A Fucking Fire Hazard

The next day at school during my free period, I'm sitting in the library and trying (and failing) to work out a complicated equation when someone sits opposite me.

It's Chris.

I'm so surprised to see him at my table that I accidentally write a four instead of a seven. I grab my eraser and rub it out.

"Hey." I look up at Chris and raise my eyebrows.

"Hi. What do you want?"

"Do I need an excuse to come talk to my beautiful girlfriend?" He suddenly looks concerned. "But sorry, I'll go if you want."

I realize that he says this not because of what I said about baby steps but because Henry is standing next to the table. He'd been looking in a different row of shelves for a cookbook that he now holds over his face, pretending not to look at us.

Instead it just looks like he's Gordon Ramsay.

There are a few seconds of awkward silence before Henry sits down next to me raising his eyebrows. He smirks conspiratorially at me, while I move to smack him but he dodges my hand.

"Fuck off Henry, I'm doing calculus," I say pointedly, not looking away from Henry in order to establish dominance.

He rolls his eyes and then looks pointedly at Chris. "Yeah. Sure. Orange is the new black, calculus is the new sex."

My cheeks heat up and I try to smack him but he dodges away. I say, "Shut. Up."

Henry snickers while Chris stands there looking uncomfortable. "I'm watching you two..."

"We don't need a chaperone," I tell my twin, and he just laughs and goes to sit at the table next to us, probably to spy on us as we study.

Well, study and talk.

Okay I lied, we mostly just talk, catching up on what happened over the week we were broken up.

Then the bell rings and it's time for English class.

I groan as I remember what we're learning in English because Miss Spencer always acts like she and her class are the best things that ever happened to the school, especially during the poetry unit. She acts so uptight and pretentious and proper that the opposite is true.

But I can't quit English because I need the credit. So I'm stuck.

I sit in my usual seat towards the back of the room and wait for Miss Spencer to start talking about limericks and ballads and sonnets.

Instead, she tell us that we're going to be doing a project. We're supposed to write our own poems the same way Shakespeare did. Talk about pretentious. The thing is, it's going to be with partners. Which sucks because none of my friends are in this class.

Luckily she's already chosen pairs, so I don't have to worry about standing around partnerless or having to join people and make an awkward group of three.

"Joshua and Meryl. Erin and Norman. Ruby and Maria. Audrey-" I perk up at the sound of my name, "-and Jack."

Well, crap.

My memory shoots back to the last time I had poetry class, when I fell and he helped me up. I try not to think about his gorgeous face or gloriously tanned, muscular arms since that kind of thinking helps no one, especially me.

I have only one thing I should worry about: How the hell am I supposed to write in Iambic Pentameter?

Jack doesn't seem like he's about to move, so I get up, dragging my bag along with me. I find an empty seat next to him and sit down as other groups also get up and shift seats.