Training Wheels: Boyfriend Edition

4. boyfriend

Hailey leaned against Michelle's locker door.

"No, seriously, what's the deal? Did someone lose a bet or something?"

Perplexed, Michelle scowled slightly and nudged her arm.

"Huh? Hey, quit blocking me. I need to get my stuff."

Hailey relented and stepped to the left, so that she could watch Michelle open it. "You can tell me, you know. I won't tell anyone else."

"Tell you what? I don't even know what you're talking about," she replied, yanking the locker door open.

She rifled through the messy heap of textbooks and binders that were thrown all over each other. Her calculus textbook seemed to have gone missing.

"You and Caledon, duh! You can't tell me you're actually dating. Are you?"

"We are," Michelle insisted. "I don't even get what you're saying!"

Hailey shifted her books from one arm to the other. "There's no one else here. You can tell me."

The fact that Hailey was making it sound like she was guarding some secret was not lost to her, but only thing Michelle could think to do was to stare blankly back at her.

"Whether we're alone or not, I'd be saying the same thing. It's not like we're keeping it a secret that we're dating!"

With a frown, Hailey brushed a lock of her brown hair over her shoulders. "That's not the secret that I'm talking about!"

"Then what is?"

"Are you guys really together?"

Finally finding her textbook, Michelle pulled it out from under the mountain of books and shut her locker with a slam of the door.

"Yes! Man, what's everyone's problem today? First Autumn, then Sylvie, and now you! Are you going to send Carter next to ask me the exact same thing? You guys are so weird!"

"We're weird?" Hailey looked like there was more she wanted to say, but then the bell rang.

"Look, I gotta go. Stop asking me strange questions, okay? Later!"

With a quick wave of her hand, Michelle turned and sped off to her next class.

In between lessons today, all her friends had seemingly taken turns to ask her about her new relationship status in the most roundabout ways possible. It was the most bizarre thing she'd ever encountered in her life so far.

This relationship was her chance to finally stop third wheeling on group-outings-turned-triple-dates. There was no way she was giving it up—they'd have to pry it from her cold, dead hands.

-------------------------------------------------

"Michelle!"

Upon hearing her name being called out by a semi-familiar voice, she looked around in the crowd for its owner. "Huh?"

Her last class of the day had ended, and everyone else around her had just filed out of the classroom. The hallway was clogged with human traffic.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder, causing her to whirl around.

She came face to face with Caledon, who had a smile on his face.

"Yo," he said. "Did you hear me calling you?"

"Yeah," she said, caught off-guard by his sudden appearance, "I did. 'Sup?"

Caledon had asked her over text what her last class was, but when she answered him, he hadn't responded to her question of why he was asking. Again, as she watched him brush his floppy brown hair out of his warm brown eyes, Michelle wondered why he was waiting for her outside her classroom.