It's Only a Matter of Time

Chapter 14

Drama

Eliza's POV

The dance is tomorrow. That means that I need to ask somebody to go with me today or somebody needs to ask me. What if nobody wants to go with me? I guess I could always go with friends. But, all my friends are going with somebody. Abigail is going with John Adams, Theodosia is going with Aaron who just so happens to be her boyfriend, and my sisters are probably going to go with somebody. I suppose I could sit in a corner and read a book...

I have an idea. During lunch I will go up to Alexander and ask him to go with me to the dance. I am so nervous and excited. I will wear a beautiful dress to the dance. I am going to wear a blue dress. Blue is my favorite color and it looks amazing on me.

I was sitting in Spanish and not really paying attention. When my assignment was placed in front of me, I barely noticed. I sat right next to Abigail. She had to poke me. We were working on gender agreements and clothing. The paper had song lyrics on it but the lyrics were missing a bunch of spots. It was a fill in the blank paper. Señora Ramirez went to her computer and started playing a song. It was called Ropa Cara. That meant expensive clothing. We are also learning about articles of clothing. The song was horrible. We had to listen to the song and fill in the blanks as we heard them.

After the bell rang for the start of lunch, I found my friends. I told them about my idea to ask Alexander. They all thought that it was a good idea. We walked to the English room and sat in the hall right outside of the room. We always sit in the hall outside of the English room.

We were talking and laughing. Lafayette pushed Alexander into the hall. Then he disappeared behind the corner. Alexander slowly walked towards us. He was mouthing words and staring at the ground. I paid him no attention. I turned my head so he couldn't see me blush.

"Hey...Eliza. Could I talk to you?" he asked.

I looked to my friends for reassurance. They smiled because all my friends know that I have a pretty big crush on Alexander. They nodded and motioned for me to follow him. I gave them a little smile and stood up. We walked a little bit away towards the lockers. His mouth opened a tiny bit. I knew that all my friends were straining their ears to hear even a word of our conversation.

Alexander looked up at me. His eyes were so pretty. We both blushed. I was getting a little nervous now.

"So. Uh...the dance is tomorrow. I have nobody to go with. Um...will you go with me?" Alexander said.

"Okay. Yeah. Yes! I will go with you," I agreed.

Alexander smiled. We discussed where we would meet. We decided that we would meet at a restaurant near school. When he left, I wandered back over to my friends. I told them that I was going to the dance with Alexander. Theodosia shrieked, Peggy hugged me, Abigail smiled, and Angie congratulated me. The way she said congratulations was weird though. Angie thinks she can hide her feelings well, but she can't. I'm not supposed to know that Angie asked Alex and he refused. Peggy told me.

A little bit later, John came over. He casually walked up to Peggy who was still on the ground. She peered up into his face.

"Do you want to go with me to the dance?" he asked with no hesitation.

"Sure," Peggy responded.

With that, he left. We were all surprised by this casual encounter. We laughed and gossiped.

"Eliza?"

I turned to see Maria rushing towards me. A bruise was blooming over her cheek. My cheery disposition disappeared faster than a slice of cake. Why does James do that to her? What did Maria ever do to him?

"I think I lost him," Maria panted.

"Maria... What happened?" I asked.

"I...he...he made me...do his homework. I said no and he hit me, so I ran away," Maria explained.

"That's a dumb reason for him to hurt you! Just report him or I will. Ooh! Or even better, you make him believe that he did something and you know about it and he will slowly descend into madness. Everything he believes will slowly turn into a lie and that'll happen until he goes insane!" I said.

My friends stared at me. Abigail scooted a little bit away. I nervously laughed. There was a pounding of footsteps in the hallway. James Reynolds ran into view. Maria sighed and looked down at the ground. She started to get up but Theodosia jumped up before Maria and stood in front of her.

"Hello," Abigail greeted him

"Move, James commanded.

"Whyyyyy?" Theodosia sang.

Abigail stood up. Then did Angie, me, and Peggy. We stood in front of Maria. James cursed and ran away. We all cheered and gave high fives to each other. Maria started laughing and we all joined in.

"I can't remember the last time I laughed!" she giggled.

I smiled. Maria was in our friend group. We could protect her from James and George Eacker. They can both go die in a hole for all I care. We finished up our lunches and went to our next class which was DT. That stands for Design Tech.

I opened my computer and went to Code.org. We were working on coding for this unit. We had to code a page or more about something that we care about. I was doing it on BSLs. BSLs are a type of law that don't allow you to own a specific breed of dog. For example, one man was living in California and his dog was taken away because it was a "pitbull" Fortunately, he got the dog back. I loved bully breeds and I hoped that I could make a change with this page.

I was so happy that Maria joined our friend group. We will protect her4 with everything we have. No one deserves to be hurt like that.

Short chapter because I am lazy.