Journey to Love

Chapter 8

It took 2 whole, long days before Layla returned back to school. While Mrs Williams was worried about Layla and her absentee rate, she knew firsthand what it was like to lose someone close to her, and she couldn't question Danielle's response to taking Layla out of school for it. 

It was currently lunchtime, and while Layla missed sitting on the rock wall with Nikola, she very much liked how she was able to stay in the class away from the noise her cohort and the rest of the school seemed to make. It was so much quieter in the classroom. And Layla also felt less guilty being in the room, as it gave Nikola a chance to be a kid, where she could go play on the playground with a new friend she made late last week. Layla turned towards Mrs Williams who was standing near her table. 

"So Layla, what do you think you have been struggling with the most in my class?" Mrs Williams asked the girl who was still sitting in her seat. 

Layla thought about the question. If she had to be honest, she was struggling in all the areas that had been taught so far. Though she struggled in science, geography, and maths, it was English that proved to be the hardest for her. 

"Um..nouns, and er verbs and..." She trailed off, not knowing the other names. 

"adjectives and adverbs" Mrs Williams finished off for her. Layla bowed her head, shrinking slightly into herself at the embarrassment. She couldn't even remember them. 

"No need to feel embarrassed about it Layla, we all start somewhere. But we can definitely start with these" Mrs Williams walked over to her desk and grabbed a couple of worksheets from one of her many-colored trays. 

"Alright, is it okay if I come and sit next to you?"

Layla confusingly nodded her head, indicating it was fine for Mrs Williams to sit in Nikola's seat. Why would she ask such things though? She could do whatever she wanted, she didn't need Layla's consent to sit in the seat. Her parents did it, so why didn't Mrs Williams just do the same? 

Layla watched as Mrs Williams sat down in the chair beside her, shuffling over slightly, bringing the worksheets onto the table before them. 

"Okay, so we are going to start with nouns" Mrs Williams announced, "do you remember what nouns are?"

Layla's eyes focused on the worksheet, as she tried to recall what she had learned about nouns a couple of weeks ago in her bedroom. But all she could focus on was how scared she felt as she tried to complete the worksheet. 

After too long of a moment, Layla shook her head, avoiding any eye contact with her teacher. 

"That's okay, so Nouns are people, places, and things. You have proper nouns like someone's name such as Layla or Nikola, then you have places, for example, America, New York City. Other nouns are common nouns such as objects. Like this paper here, or flip flops (A/N- was gonna use thongs but SOME country thinks it's a goddamn piece of lingerie and not footwear). 

"So looking at the worksheet, it starts off with a bunch of proper and common nouns. Do you think you could separate between the two types of nouns on the first question for me?" Layla nodded her head. Looking down at the piece of paper, Layla felt a little more confident about what nouns could be. She picked up her tiny pencil sitting beside her and started writing the nouns under the category she thought appropriately fit them. 

Once Layla had finished the first activity, she sat slightly back in her chair to allow Mrs Williams to have a clear view of the worksheet. 

"Good job Layla! That is correct" Mrs Williams announced. Layla's heart beat a little bit quicker at the positive praise. And while it felt weird, it felt kind of nice to have a compliment.

"Okay, the next exercise is going to move through verbs. Do you know what a verb is?" Mrs Williams looked over at Layla who silently shook her head. "That's okay. A verb is an action, it is a word that is doing something. So for example, Layla is listening, or I am talking. Do you get it?" 

Layla nodded her head in affirmation. How could something so easy be so difficult for her to learn? How come she wasn't able to grasp these words the first time? 

"Okay that's great. Let's have a look at the next activity. The activity is getting you to underline the verbs in each sentence. How about you give it a crack and if you need some extra help, I can help you, okay?" 

Layla dipped her head in a yes motion and looked toward the colourful worksheet. Going through each of the sentences, Layla felt smart. She felt like she could do absolutely anything as she underlined all the verbs she saw in each sentence. She felt such happiness in being able to accomplish something. Yeah, she had the help from the teacher, but she was still doing it on her own, and definitely not out of fear. 

Again, when Layla had finished, she let Mrs Williams look over her work. "Correct, correct, and correct, good work Layla. You are absolutely flying through these. Do you want to move on to the next exercise? There are nouns and verbs together, and you have to separate them into their rightful spots." 

Layla squeaked out a small yes and began to rewrite the right words under nouns and verbs. She made sure, when she was unsure of which was which to refer to the last two activities to help her decide what word went under which area. 

When the bell ended up ringing at the end of Lunch, Layla had a large smile dancing across her face as she collected the worksheets together and placed them into her bag. 

"Great work today Layla. We will just go over them shortly tomorrow to make sure you can remember them, then we can move onwards to another topic" Mrs Williams's smile showed how proud she was of Layla's progress. 

As Mrs Williams opened the door for the rest of the class to pile in, Layla couldn't help but think that maybe having these extra sessions would be a good idea. Maybe, just maybe, she could keep up with her peers. And maybe she wasn't as hopeless or dumb as she thought she might have been. 

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Thank you so much for 380 reads and 24 votes! it means so much to me that people are actually liking my book. 

Words: 1123 

Published: 4/5/2022 

(ps, May the fourth be with you)