Missing You

Chapter #20

"So... you're telling me that here," Reid points for the billionth time to the same verse we've been trying to analyze together for twenty minutes, completely losing our time. "She means she's speechless?"

"Yes! God damn it, Reid! That's what I've been trying to tell you! What part of 'stand irresolute' and 'a mind undone' do you not understand?"

"But..."

"Oh for God's sake, read it again," I demand and he lowers his head obediently to try and get how I know what Edna St. Vincent was trying to transmit in her beautiful piece.

I'm not one to read poetry in my free time, more like romance, dramas, thrillers, and fantasy. Though this poem has totally stolen my heart. I read it yesterday before bed when I was trying to organize which text Reid and I would analyze in class and our "project session" in the library. I stumbled upon this one in our list and seeing that it wasn't too long, I chose it for today but he has a hard time understanding romance, let alone metaphors and figurative talking.

He sighs and looks at me. "Would you read it again?"

I roll my eyes and huff. "Fine," I take the sheet from his hands and clear my throat.

"When I too long have looked upon your face,

Wherein for me a brightness unobscured

Save by the mists of brightness has its place,

And terrible beauty not to be endured,

I turn away reluctant from your light,

And stand irresolute, a mind undone,

A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight

From having looked too long upon the sun...."

I stop and look at him. His eyes are attentive, lost... like his mind is elsewhere. I snap my fingers in his face and he blinks. "Did you even listen to me?"

"Why did you stop?" He asks with a smirk instead of answering my question.

"Well, because I saw that eight miserable lines were too much for your pea-sized brain to handle," I say with a bit too much of honey coating my tone to let him know I'm actually being sarcastic.

He chuckles and grins wider. "Finish it, I'm all ears,"

I sigh. "But did you get-"

"Just finish it and we'll talk after that. But you interrupted my art-analyzing aura so you will have to start again,"

"Everything okay here?" Ms. Zimmerman says as she walks through the classroom to check up on the other teams.

"Yeah,"

"No,"

Reid and I say in unison and I turn to him confused as to why he said 'no'.

"Actually, my partner here is being a little bit too demanding with me, I can't seem to get the poem and when I ask her to read it for me, she says no,"

"What?! That's-"

"Blair, be a little more understanding with Reid, he's a bit slow on the reading and writing department," That makes me roll my lips into my mouth to keep in a laugh and contorts Reid's face into outrage. "But that is why he's with you so that he can develop new skills and overcome his obstacles, right Reid?" She directs a smug look to Mason who is grinning and shaking his head with his arms crossed. I snort and start laughing behind my hand as my teacher leaves us to continue working.