The Promise

Chapter 1

The cool breeze of the early, foggy London morning hit my bare face as I walked out of my flat. The tiny click of my boots against the concrete steps was a nice contrast to the sound of cars and taxis whizzing by in a rush to get somewhere important. I zipped my heavy, black leather jacket up to keep the continuos flow of body heat from escaping into the chilly morning. I buried my nose into my wool scarf and set out on the sidewalk onto the familiar street in the same monotonous pattern I have been doing each day for the past year.
A few minutes into my walk someone shoved something warm into my hands. I looked to my left and found my best friend looking straight ahead, and appearing to just have rolled out of bed. She grunted quietly to herself after she took a sip of coffee and looked at me.
"Morning sunshine." I chirped sarcastically. She rolled her eyes and looked straight ahead again. "You look like shit." I laughed and she rolled her eyes again. "Screw off." she quietly mumbled and I laughed. "Love you Lilly." I sang and skipped forward a little.
We continued the familiar walk and ended it in the same place. A damn classroom. We took our usual seats and watched as the brainiacs took their seats in the very front and the slackers sat in the very back by the door. The typical morning.
"Alright class take out your books and turn to page 11." Professor Smith instructed. A girl in the very front slammed her book on her table and started squealing. "I love this chapter." She oddly whispered to herself. Lilly and I held back our giggles, not wanting to make the girl feel bad. Mr. Smith simply smiled and started into some lecture about the significance of the imagery and metaphor Hurston was using. I doodled on my notebook and opened up a blank page.
When I was a kid, I was always particularly gifted in the area of poetry. Analyzing and writing to be exact. Although some of my analysis were not always correct, I could always find some deeper meaning and look at it differently than anyone in my class. That's what initially inspired me to go into a career in writing or journalism. Making people feel something because of the well constructed and oddly placed words was exciting and thrilling.

I placed my pen on the top line of the paper and the words began to pour out. After getting lost for a few minutes, I looked at the page and tore it out of my notebook. "Dismissed!" Mr. Smith screamed and everyone rushed for the door. I throw my paper away in a nearby garbage can and begin to walk out the door. A warm hand stops me from leaving and I turn around to see who it is. "This is incredible." Mr. Smith holds up my crinkled piece of paper and invitingly smiles at me. "It's crap." I shrug my shoulders. He looks at me with large eyes and shakes his head. "From a professional stand point, this is art. Where did you learn to write like this?" He asks excitedly. "God knows it wasn't my class." He chuckles and I smile. "I've always loved writing poems and such, I guess. No one really ever taught me." His eyes twinkle and I stay in the classroom out of the pure curiosity as to why he is so excited.
"There's this class three times a week at night. It's only an hour, but I think you may be a wonderful addition to it." He looks at me with anxious eyes and I sigh. "What class is it?" I ask. "It's a poetry class. They work with students to develop their skills in such areas and analyze poems and find the different tools the authors use in order to try to teach you guys how to implement and use those tools when you are writing poetry." He lets out a big breath and smiles at me. "Do you want to do it?" He asks excitedly. "Well-" " I'll give you extra credit." He cuts me off. "Fine." I give into him and he smiles at me with a smile that could make the most hideous and unhappy man full of joy and laughter. "You won't regret it Ms. Parks. Have a lovely day." He smiles at me warmly and I say my goodbyes and leave his classroom.

"Jesus Christ Rosie! I'm freezing my ass off here and your talking to the damn teacher?" Lilly breaths out exasperatedly. "Oh yes I'm the inconsiderate one." I smile and roll my eyes. "Yes you are. You damn Americans are nothing but entitled." She playfully nudges my shoulder and runs across the street. "Oi! Don't go blaming the entire American population for my entitlement!" I chase after here. Before I can get fully across the street a black van almost hits me. "Watch where your going!" I scream at the car and the driver lays on his horn. I roll my eyes and run after Lilly. "Did that bloke almost hit you?" Lilly asked angrily. "It's not a big deal." I roll my eyes and Lilly marches to the corner and yells at the car driving away. "That's my friend you bastard!" She begins to take off her shoe and I grab her shoulders. "Are your comfy, black, expensive, warm boots really worth loosing to some stupid asshole who nearly ran me over." She looks at me and begins to tie her shoe. "Just wait until I have some cheap shoes that will do a ton of damage. Your day will come you stupid bastard!" She screamed after the long gone black van. I laugh at her and we continue back to our flat.

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"So why was Smith talking to you today?" Lilly throws her stinky feet onto the top of my coffee table and I push them onto the floor. "Who?" I ask. "Mr. Smith our teacher." Lilly says in a 'duh' tone. "I can't understand you people sometimes." I mumble and she kicks me. "He found the paper I was scribbling on and long story short I am now part of the poetry class that meets three times a week at night." I take a sip of my cup of tea and watch Lilly's expression. "That's so jacked! Three nights a week! That's like half of your life!" Lilly dramatically says. "Oh please. I get extra credit and it looks good on my resume. What's not like?" I shrug. "Um-the fact that it's taking up half of your week. The fact that you are now going to have another class of homework and papers and shit to do. The fact you have to sit in another stupid classroom for a few hours at night! The fact you cannot go party now at night because you have that stupid class. That's what's not to love." Lilly says sitting next to me. "Alright downer David I get it." I laugh and hit her with a pillow. She rolls her eyes and reaches for the remote. "Let's just watch shirtless men dance on your last night of freedom okay?" She smirks at me. "Make sure to send me pictures of all the fun parties I will miss three days a week." I sarcastically bite back and she rolls her eyes and presses the play button.