Rough Flowers [Unedited]

The Stress of Finals Week

Entering finals week has to be the most dreadful time for all students, except Megan of course. She has been studying nonstop since the school year started because she is an overachiever. And then theres me. I study enough to pass, but I don't retain the information like she does. And then theres Damon. Words cant express.

"How am I supposed to remember everything you have been teaching me? Do you know much we did these past few months??" he chucks a pencil across the room and unfortunately it lands on Mr. Baileys desk. Mr. Bailey is our new tutoring advisor that our lovely principle Tom decided to hire right before finals week. He thought that it would be a good idea to give everyone someone who can offer extra help, especially for Damon so that I could focus on my one finals. Which of course didn't work because upon meeting Mr. Bailey, Damon of course got into an argument with him within 3 minutes of their tutoring session. So here I am helping Damon when I should be studying for my own finals.

"Damon if you cant keep these distractions of yours to a minimum I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Mr. Bailey picks up the pencil and carefully returns it to me with a stern look. Honestly Mr. Bailey isn't much help as a tutor, therefore many of us just sit here and study with each other and disregard asking him for assistance which he doesn't seem to mind.

"Damon you need to focus. I want to get this done in the next hour so that I can go home and study for my history final with Megan." I always attempt to keep him on task, but its hard to do that because this is the first time I've seen him since he was at my house for tutoring a week ago. I stopped thinking about who Ava could be and accepted that its none of my business. Megan on the other hand decided to ask Ryan about Ava without my permission and insists that he did not know an Ava. In case you are wondering what happened on Megan and Ryans date, just know that everything went as I expected. They clicked immediately and are now officially dating as of yesterday. I am happy for her and hopefully she will be so busy being in love with Ryan that she forgets about Damon and I. Because I have..

"Can we just go to your house then?" he shoots me an innocent cocky smile that makes me as red as an apple. I catch Mr. Bailey looking at us in disapproval probably thinking we want to skip to do other things besides studying. Ha jokes on you Bailey, I would have tried that already if I could.

"Fine lets go." I cave in and ignore Mr. Baileys big shocked eyes. He needs to worry about buying himself some hair growing products because that bald spot on his head isn't getting any smaller. In fact its shiny like a balloon.

In the car theres a little silence which I don't mind because I know we don't have much to talk about at the moment. I half expect him to play around like he usually does but to my surprise he doesn't even try. I wonder if everything is okay?

"Hey Damon, how is everything at home?" I ask hesitantly but his demeanor never falters at the question. I bite my now chapped lips in anticipation and ponder what could go wrong with his father at home. Is there something he hasn't told me?

"You look pretty today." he responds catching me completely off guard. He didn't even answer my question and now I cant help but face the window so he doesn't see my now embarrassed face. Why did he say that? He has never said anything like that before. Why do I feel like theres a pit in my stomach?

"Are you okay?" I ask him staring out the window and watching the cars pass by as we go. I see myself in the reflection and want to puke upon the look that I have on my face. I look shy and nervous, I hate it. Today doesn't make me any different from any other day, I have on dark blue jeans and a light blue shoulder shirt which I wouldn't consider fancy at all. My hair is a mess because all I did when I woke up was brush it and I have no makeup on. Is he crazy?

"Yeah why wouldn't I be?" he scoffs sounding offended that I didn't accept his compliment. This makes me turn back to look at him but when I do I feel my heart skip a beat which has never happened before. What is going on? He is the same Damon as he has always been.

"Well you have never said that to me before and you didn't answer me before."

"Danielle." when he says my name I feel my cheeks burn, "I actually wanted to talk to you about something important." he says and my brain immediately goes into panic mode. Everyone knows you can not say that to someone because it will make them anxious even if its not a bad thing.

"What?" I ask him trying to mask my nervousness with pure interest. I can feel the anxiety creeping up on me and I'm dying to know what he has to say. Did I do something wrong?

Before he can answer me his phone starts beeping.

"What do you want?" he sounds annoyed with whoever called him and for some reason that makes me happy. He doesn't want anyone to interrupt our conversation?

"Ava I told you to leave me alone." the sound of her name makes my heart drop and suddenly I now feel annoyed. Why did she have to call right when I stopped caring about who she was? He obviously said he didn't want anything to do with her which is good but for some reason I'm still annoyed. Luckily after going back and forth Damon decides to hang up.

"Sorry about that."

"Who is she?" I finally ask without thinking. Ugh why did I have to ask.

"Ava is just one of my dads business partner's daughter. He kept trying to get me to go out with her because of a stupid raise. She's so fucking annoying. More annoying than you." he laughs at that and I cant help but laugh with him not feeling offended at all. Mostly due to the fact that he said he wasn't interested in her.

"Block her then." I half joke but internally hope that he really does, "what were you going to tell me?" I ask cutting to the chase.

"Oh right, don't worry about it actually. Its not important I've just been stressed thinking about these finals." he seems nervous and I can already tell he is lying. Why did he change his mind about telling me? Stupid Ava. Now I will never know what he wanted to talk to me about.

This week is going to be hell.