bound to happen | complete

chapter eight | homework and phone calls

C A R T E R M A D D O C K S

THE WAY SHE had inhaled that cigarette had been on my mind for days, the way she blew it out, the way her lips wrapped around the bud. The way she drank her coke, smiled as someone spoke to her, and always answered politely.

It had all been on my mind for days, I tried to stop it, I had, but I couldn't. It probably didn't even help that the moment she excused herself from the table, I managed to follow her out.

I asked her a question and she followed back with a question. I liked that. I don't like people who are open book, so open that there's a crinkle in the spin. I like to have to learn things, earn things. Not be given them on a silver platter.

Even now I can't get her off my mind. Her eyes, her lips, her face, her voice. All of it. It's all on my mind. I really need her to get out of my mind too, I need to do this homework, it's due on Monday, and it's Friday.

I'm busy all weekend, I don't have time to do it then, it needs to be done now.

I sit in the chair of my desk, lent far back, tapping the pen on the pad of paper. How the fuck do you write something like this?

I mean, there is someone I can ask that I know has definitely already done this. But, she just so happens to be the one person I'm trying to get off my mind.

I don't even know why she's on my mind so much. I don't even know her, I've spoken to her twice, and yet I can't stop looking out for her, and wanting to speak to her.

No, fuck it. I need help, she might help me, she might not. But I need it, it's worth the risk.

Sighing with myself, I pull out my phone and start to send her a quick message. I wait a few seconds before I press send. Trying to tell myself this is a very bad idea, but in the end I just press send.

I wait another few seconds before she answers back.

ME : hey, mellie. have you finished the homework?

MELLIE : heyy, yeah I have

ME : could you help me start mine off? I'm not quite sure on how to do it

MELLIE : why?

ME : why what?

MELLIE : why should I help you?

ME : because you're brainy and it's one piece of homework

MELLIE : fine
MELLIE : but it's be easier to call,

ME : yeah, okay

A FEW SECONDS later my phone screen lights up with Mellie's name across the screen.

I immediately answer and almost groan when the sound of her voice comes through.

"Hello?"

"Hey." I reply, putting her on loud speaker and putting her on the desk.

"So, what do you need help with?" She asks.

"The whole thing really, but I think if you help me with the beginning of it, I'll be able to do the rest." I explain and I hear her move around.

"Ummm okay, let me just find mine." She seems like she's talking to herself and I can't help but laugh. To myself of course, it's cute. "Got it." She then starts to talk me through why's she's written.

I write down some ideas but I don't copy her because she gives me the vibe that she would kick me in the dick if I ever tried something like that, and I don't fancy that, I can't lie.

As she speaks she proves to me even more hoe smart she is, it's fucking incredible, so much so that I do start to laugh Joe. Out loud.

"What?" She asks down the phone and I smile to myself.

"Nothing, it's just." I start. "You're ridiculously smart, it's well, ridiculous."

I hear her laugh and I smile even more now, Jesus, how is a girl I don't even know getting me to genuinely smile. "Thanks?" She says and laughs.

For about an hour, we continue, she helps me to write and introductory chapter and a few more, as well as plan, and now I feel as if I could write it all.

Fucking the changing in women's lives, I hate this topic, it's exactly the same with Britain and America so I don't understand why we're doing it twice? What's the point?

But Mellie helping me, talking me through it, I don't know, it makes me like it. Is that weird?

By the time we're done, I finish up planning the last paragraph and throw the pen down. "Thank you." I say "You've actually helped me so much, Mellie."

"No problem." She says "If you need anymore help, you can always ask, just not maths, that's the only thing I'm terrible at." She explains and another laugh escapes me, as well as something fluttering in my stomach.

"That's the only thing I'm good at, you ever need help, you can ask." I say back to her. After a few minutes we hang up, and my room is silent. Her voice no longer fills my room, but fills my mind.

As I finish off the essay, I wish she was still on the phone, even if she was talking complete gibberish, I'd sit and listen,