Mommy ✓

twenty-two

C H A P T E R  T W E N T Y - T W O

☆☆☆

Mature Content
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I couldn't keep the smile off of my face as I walked out of the assembly hall and on my way to the library the next Wednesday morning. Other students smiled and offered a word of congratulation as I walked past them and I nodded with a 'thank you' already poised on the tip of my tongue.

That morning, I, along with nineteen other grade eleven students had been elected as prefects for the next year. It was a prestigious honour in our school.

The prefects wore a special uniform and went away to prefect camp for a weekend at the beginning of the year and went on a five-day vacation to either Cape Town or Knysna after final exams. Prefecthood meant privilege amongst the student body and classroom and it had its own plethora of responsibilities.

I was overjoyed that I was among the few to be chosen as I hadn't been expecting it in the slightest. I assumed that there was someone better suited for the role than me and I rationed that perhaps it was my sportsmanship that had gotten me the position?

My grade average had gone up from 68% to 73% and maybe that had something to do with it too, but now that I'd gotten it, there was no use in obsessing about the finer details.

I'd taken to reading these days and the library, I'd found out had a great selection of fictional books. Sometimes I'd take a book out and read outside in the sun.

Other times I would curl up on one of the bean-bag chairs in the library and read as much as I could in the hour off that we got.

It didn't take me long to find a book of my fancy and I was soon engrossed in the story before me, I almost didn't hear my phone when it vibrated with a text.

Manda🖤: Congratulations on the prefect nomination ✨

Pait👑💖: thanks Manda, congrats to you too, i always knew you'd get it.

Manda🖤: Thank you.

I knew the conversation had ended there and I put the phone away.

Manda had been the first to text me last week and we had a few words here and there, nothing dramatic. She was still so awkward with me and a part of me feared she was still weirded out by what had happened in Durban and another assumed she was trying to make amends and didn't know how to go about it. Manda had never needed to befriend me, she'd known me for almost her entire school life – not being close to me was weird for her, for us.

I always let her make the first move and I let her lead the conversations because the last thing I wanted to do was to make her uncomfortable.

I saw the 'typing...' appear under her name and soon after, a follow-up text appeared:

Manda🖤: You don't know this but I always imagined us being prefects together even though you were convinced you wouldn't get it. I'd known since Grade 8 that you would 🙈

Pait👑💖: really? i guess you are always right haha, i really didn't see this coming.

Manda: Well they don't say I'm smart for no reason. I Know Things.

Something about this particular conversation began to feel familiar and the old ache in my chest returned.

I didn't quite know what to do from here so I sent her a 'lol, true. text you later xx' and put my phone down and tired really hard for the next half hour to focus on the words in my book.