earbuds

three

I placed my earbuds in my ears and turned them on. "My friends ditched me. Well, technically they didn't. They ditched our conversation." I walked in the door of my class and sat down in the seat I would usually sit in. The two girls followed behind and sat in their seats.

"Things would be easier if you just talked, but you're making this difficult." Opening my backpack, I grab the books out for this class that I needed. "Fine. Don't talk at all." I huff and pull the earbuds out, forgetting to turn them off. I shove them in my pocket and begin to suffer through this class.

xxx

"Shit, I forgot to turn off the earbuds." I mumbled to myself, "Sorry." I said, turning them off, hoping he didn't hear everything, but he probably did, unless he turned his off. He probably turned it off. I want a refund, my mom can just get me another pair of earbuds, right? Like, he can't be my soulmate. There's no way.

"(Y/n)? You good?" Ms. Flame asked, giving me another stack of papers that were already graded. I was in my last two periods, my free periods. I usually hang out in my music class, but today, I decided to hang out with a teacher I had last year. I would doodle little things on my homework and tests and she wanted me to do the same, but on the graded tests and homework. It's a cute little mutual agreement I started at the beginning of the year and her students love them, so I keep doing it.

"Yeah. I got my earbuds yesterday." I huffed, looking at the little stars and planet I drew.

"Oh? How was that? Are they nice?" She asked, intrigued I was even talking. I usually do not talk  when I doodle, I'm not that social hence why I only have Tay and Becca as friends. I'm not super popular at school, just somewhat smart. I can't really get under grade c's since my parents both work under the government and are both extremely smart.

"Uhm. They spoke like two sentences. I don't even think they listen to my rambles. Ah, I'm convinced they don't want to talk to me." I sighed, looking towards the stacked papers that already had doodles on them.

"I'm sure they'll come around. Many soulmates take a bit to come around. I'm sure they're like that too. They'll want to talk eventually. Unfortunately, mine was dead when I turned 18 all those years ago." She looked at me, then continued grading papers.

"Aren't you like-"

"Yeah, I'm only 23, but I won't have another soulmate unless someone else's soulmate dies as well." She says. We fall silent. It's comfortable, but a little weird.

"My condolences." I said, finally. I couldn't imagine putting on my earbuds and my soulmate is dead.