The Songs in Our Hearts: A Young Adult Romance(9)

Micah wrinkled his nose. “Can we not? Let’s do something cool, please?”

The Bronte sisters were cool, and Heathcliff was even cooler. Much cooler than some manmade monster. Heathcliff was complex and dangerous, dashing and bold. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff’s love was complicated and one of my favorite go-back-to romances.

Mrs. Tenner circumnavigated the room with a small notebook, writing down each group’s chosen author and assigning their project.

“Mary Shelley,” Micah blurted as Mrs. Tenner approached us. I glared at him, but she smiled at the two of us.

“Great! Everyone else has been selecting the others. Mary Shelley is a great author to research.” She handed me a sheet with a bunch of different assignments to pick from. “I expect to see great things from the pair of you.” She turned to the next group.

I studied the sheet. The assignment options ranged from book reports, to author biographies, to writing a screenplay and creating a student film about the book. I figured Micah would be interested in the easiest project on the list, but asked him just to be sure.

“Which one do you want to do?” I asked as I handed him the form. After a moment of looking up and down the paper, his eyes lit up at the last option.

“Oh, heck yes! A Frankenstein movie! We have to do that.”

“Do you even know how to make a movie?” I began to worry I’d have to do everything for this project alone.

“No, but it would be fun to learn how, right? Maybe your brother could help.”

“My brother can throw a football, that’s about it,” I retorted.

“Well, we can learn how to do all of this. Come on, Charlie, live a little.”

“You’ve told me that before. If you haven’t noticed already, I am living. I’m breathing. I’m functioning.”

“Barely.” He smirked. “Come on. This’ll be fun. You could even be Mary Shelley, or the girl that gets her guts ripped out by the monster.”

“Sounds delightful,” I replied, circling the project option.

“If you’re lucky, we could even write a kiss between you and me in the screenplay.”

I glared at him. Micah winked as he brushed a strand of his dark brown hair from his eyes. He seemed to be pleased that he had gotten his first choice in author, book, and project. I, on the other hand, was not so thrilled.

The bell rang, relieving me. I gathered up my things and shoved them into my book bag.





“Gravity”

Sara Bareilles





“SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAD AN interesting English class,” Rachel remarked. Our math teacher had just handed out a worksheet. Rachel was always my math partner, not just because she knew the answers, but because she showed me how to solve the problems.

“It shouldn’t be bad, though. From what you’re telling me, he seems nice.”

“I hope one of his qualities is hard-working rather than just nice.” I erased a series of numbers I had written in the corner of the paper. I had no idea how to do these equations with the new formula Mr. Harvey had just written on the board. Lost, I looked to Rachel, hoping she’d explain it better.

“What did David talk to you about?” I blurted.

“He just wanted to talk more about our youth group idea. We’ve been having these really cool bible lessons and we’ve been thinking about leading one together.”

“Oh, wow!” I said, excited. “That sounds cool.”

“Yeah, David and I might even plan an outing for it. We’d go to the lake, sit down and have devotionals, and go swimming. It might be a way to bring more of our classmates to God.”

These were the only times when I began to feel uncomfortable with Rachel. God and I…we had our own kind of relationship. I guess I went to Him when I felt like I needed something, and He came to me when I needed to do something differently in my life. I didn’t really pray, but then again, He had easy access to my mind, right?

“So, he didn’t ask you anything else?” I asked cautiously. Rachel glanced at me, a wrinkle in her brow as though she knew I was onto something.

“Not that I can recall. Why?” She copied a few of the formulas into her notebook.

“No reason. Just wondered.”

“I’d hold back from telling Jennifer about what happened in English. At least for a bit. She seems really intent on you and Micah hooking up,” Rachel joked.

“I think she just wants one of us to finally land a boyfriend.” Rachel and I laughed together.

“You’re probably right.” She worked on a math problem for minute, then glanced back up at me. “So, what are you going to do? You know, about Micah and stuff.”

“Just work on the project with him until it’s finished. We have two months to write a screenplay, get it approved, and then film it. Once it’s done, my interactions with him will be minimal.”

“Speaking of which, how did your bus ride go?” Rachel gave a small smile.

“He confronted me about my ‘crush’ yesterday. And then he told me to text him.”

“Did you?” Her smile grew wider.

“I…did.”

“And? What happened?”

“Nothing really. Just talked. I don’t know. He’s a flirt. I hate that he knows…I mean, thinks he knows…that I like him. Almost like it’s a power he has over me.”