When You Least Expect It

Math & Baby Goats

It felt like I had been studying for hours and I was right. Jake was laid across the bed opposite of me. I was covered in books while he had his headphones in watching something that kept making him laugh and it was adorable watching him hold it in not to distract me.

I looked up at my clock and decided that I had studied enough, the test was in an hour and my head was already hurting from all the reading. I moved my books off of me and slightly and his eyes shot up towards me.

"Are you finally done?" He questioned with excitement.

"Well, my test is in an hour so I thought I could stop and spare some time for you." I replied with a huge smile. As I spoke I started making my way over the bed towards Jake, crawling across his body until I was close enough to plant a kiss on his lips.

"That is so kind of you." He said when our lips separated, but he instantly pulled me close again and ran his hands up my side.

This lasted for 30 minutes, and by the time we were done we were covered in sweat and I was forced to rush through getting ready. He pulled up his rental car, a nice one at that, and raced me to class with just enough time. He came around and opened my door for me, planted a kiss on my check and wished me luck.

"You got this babe – and when you ace it I'm gonna take you out for an amazing night."

"Mwah!" I yelled back to him as I blew him an air kiss and headed inside the building. Of all my classes, I knew that this math one was going to be the thing that stopped me right in my tracks. For the rest of the school this was one of the basics, simple – you take it sophomore year and then you move on to the harder stuff. I always felt bad about myself because I was confused on something as simple as fractions and percent's – so all this morning when I was studying I was trying to remember the steps for every math thing I had learned this semester. To say I was stressed was an understatement.

I walked in with my head held high and walked out the classroom the same way. I didn't know my score, but I did know that I didn't ace it. I was okay with whatever the outcome because I tried my best – and I had the best boyfriend ever greeting me from the hood of his car when I was done.

"I need to get my mind off all of this, take me somewhere." I yelled at him before he even saw me. I knew he was going to ask me how it went and I was too embarrassed to admit that I was awful I math and would probably be taking that class until I was 30.

"Whatever you want babe – lets go."

We both jumped in the car and he drove. I didn't know where we were going, and I was pretty sure he didn't either, but it was amazing to just roll the windows down and hold my hand out the window. Every once in a while, I would look over at him singing the words to whatever song was on the radio, and I could feel him look at me too. After 30 minutes he took an exit and we went off onto a side road. I didn't ask questions, and he didn't elaborate on our destination, I just assumed we were driving to drive – with no planned destination.

After a couple more minutes the car started to slow and we pulled into what seemed like a farm or something. I kept silent but Jake could see the confusion on my face.

"I was just thinking about what we could do today and I found this cute little place online – thought no matter what happened with the test you would love to see come cute baby goats."

"You know how much I love baby goats." I said – practically screaming.

I didn't even wait for a response before I jumped out of the car, ran over to Jake, gave him the quickest kiss ever, grabbed his hand, and started dragging him towards the entrance.

The property looked privately owned, not a big tourist spot – but what I liked most about it was in the big city of Baltimore it was nice to see a little piece of simplicity to remind me of home.

"Slow down, what's the rush!" He joked.

I turned towards him and gave him a "duh" look and he instantly knew that he needed to get a move on. He sped up – not nearly enough. When we reached the front of the barn Jake let go of my hand and grabbed the door pushing it open. That was when all my dreams came true. I was greeted by a bunch of little baby goats, they all looked so happy and playful and they instantly started crowding around us hoping for food.

After 45 minutes we left the barn and made our way back to the car, but instead of going to the driver's side door Jake walked around the back, opening the trunk, and pulling out a picnic basket.

"Come here." He said, taking my hand in his and pulling towards a small field of grass.

We picked a spot and he laid out a towel for us to sit down. After pulling everything out of the basket he looked at me with those eyes. Those eyes that I could just drown in.

"I am so happy you are here." I said. "I didn't realize how much I missed you until I saw you sitting on my bed." My eyes began to tear up and he pulled me closer to his chest.

"I know, I missed you so much too – but we got through it."

"I just don't know if I can say goodbye to you again."

"Hey – hey. Don't think about that. Just tell me you love me, let's eat some food, and we can worry about that later. Okay?" He said, putting his fingers under my chin and lifting my head up so I could look him in the eyes.

"I love you – and I love food, what did you bring?" I said with a smile. My tried to hardest to cover my worry and instead started digging into all the food that was laid out in front of me.

"So, today. You seemed upset about your exam – what happened?" He asked slowly.

"Um... Math sucks that's what happened. I don't know. I went in prepared, kind of, and left feeling defeated by numbers."

"You probably did better than you expected."

"Not when I left half the questions blank. I don't know what happened, I went through 2 entire pencils and erasers – when I stood up eraser shavings fell all over the floor under me. It happened, and there is nothing I can do about it."

"It can only get better from here right. Next exam you are going to do so much better, I know it. He said.