The Trip

Before we left, a hand gently tapped on my shoulder.

“Ah!” I yelped in shock.

“Shh-” the voice whispered in a calm, familiar tone that I  recognized.

Joseph Renaldt.

I turned around.

“What do you want?” I yelled.

He spinned to face me with his irresistible, ocean blue eyes.

“I want y-”

I couldn’t wait any longer. I positioned my finger on his mouth to shush him, and then, without another word, I used my other hand to grab his mitten gloved hand and sprinted both of us to the sunflower meadows right next to my cottage. 

I remembered his adorable boyish grin everytime we froliced around when we were foolish adolescents. He’d hand-pick a lonely scarlett rouge from the bundle of blooming rose maries just to give it to me as a thoughtful gesture. We would tell each other all our secrets, and we’d swear we’d never leave the other until our dying day. 

The meadows were our secret place, away from the world. 

I remember one time, he had held my hand and told me we’d run away to somewhere beautiful where we’d live together, happily forever. I guess that day would never come. The night before, I had sobbed my tears on my pillows of grief in the middle of the night while everyone else was asleep because I knew that I'd never see my poor Joseph again. 

 Even though we both knew we wouldn’t last,I was moving away to a completely different state, and long distance would be way too challenging to do. However, he was too special to let go. He held my hand tight and told me not to leave him. That we were destined to be together forever, that the universe wouldn’t pull us apart no matter what happened between us. 

“Joseph, I’m sorry, but I think-”

Tears begin to spill out of his gorgeous eyes. We were so close that we were each other’s twin flames. We knew everything about each other. He was my other half, someone I would never leave, never in a million years.

“Emaline!” My mother called, “It’s time to go!”

My face grew sour, and I felt weary of my stupid mother’s voice because all I wanted to be was with my sweet Joseph forever and always. Despite that, I saw the moving trucks, the big red sign right in front of our cottage that read, “sold”, and the family van that was waiting for me to get in.

“No!” I shrieked furiously, “Just one more minute, mama!”

“NO!” screamed my mother at the top of her lungs, “You come, now, Emaline Mildred Smith!”

Joseph leaned in, and he clutched on to my two hands, interlacing his in mine, telling me to go, that I deserved much better. He mumbled that he loved me so much, but there was no time left.

This wasn’t fair. Why did the universe have to be like this? Have to separate true love? I stared deeply into the souls of his eyes, looked at him sincerely, kissing him one last time. 

“I’ll never leave you, Joseph-”

Then, all of a sudden, someone knocked me over, hitting me hard in the chest. Joseph tried to defend me, but it was too late.

“I told you, Emaline, to stay away from that boy! He’s a troublemaker! What are you doing with Joseph? We have to leave now!” My mother hollered in my face.

“Please, mama! Why?!” I cried as I tried to remove myself from my mother’s grasp, but her grip was too tight.

Joseph’s mother approached the scene as well, her face showered with disappointment.

“Joseph! Emaline has to move now, so you can’t be with her anymore! What more can you not understand?”

“No, mama! I can’t leave her!”

His mother’s clasp was too hard to resist, and my parents had already thrown me in the family van. We were on our way to Minnesota. Officially.

The School

I couldn’t control my anger. I had held it inside my chest for so long, and I couldn’t seem to release the stress that was building up slowly, boiling its way toward me as I trudged to my brand new school in exhaustion. My heart ached for Joseph, and I longed to reunite with him once more. We were supposed to be soulmates, but now, it nearly seemed impossible as we were more than 2,000 miles away from each other.

Even though we could go to this fancy, rich private school because my dad transferred here as a teacher, it still didn’t change the fact that we were still a lower-class family. My clothes were all hand-me-downs and from thrift stores. I was wearing a plain, old t-shirt with baggy worn jeans.describe In my old life, I was a farm girl, but now, we were living in the city, and it felt so anomalous to be surrounded by so many people, houses, and traffic. When I was ambling my way toward this new facility, my arms were noodles, and my legs felt numb as sweat poured on my face profusely. My face was as red as a tomato, the anxiety increased the tension around the room as my classmates studied me as if I was a test subject for one of their experiments.

The girls all wore adorable little bow ties, tied back with a tight ponytail, and a glamorous aquamarine blue blouse with a white lace attached to it. The boys all wore a white shirt with a collar and dark navy jeans. 

“You must be Emaline, the new student,” the teacher says, “I’m Ms. Beckett.” 

“Yes, ma’am. That’s me,” I replied nervously.

I couldn’t shake off the butterflies in my stomach. There were just so many people and their eyes were glued to me the entire time I was chattering with the teacher. I know I shouldn’t care what others thought about me, but it was my first day at this new school, and I didn’t know what to expect.

“Well, nice to meet you, Emaline. You’ll enjoy it here at Mapleville High School very much. Everyone here is excited to meet you. You may sit next to the left of Maddox Stewart in the front of the classroom.”

The next few days went by in a blink of an eye.

As soon as I was about to sit in my chair, someone knocked me, again, except this time, it definitely wasn’t my mom, and it was with much force.

“Sorry, but this seat is reserved for me and only me. Maddox is mine.”

I looked up and glimpsed Ms. Beckett. She didn’t seem to notice. This was uncanny.

“I’m sorry,” I tried to stand up, but the mean girl who had just pushed me down, punched me in the stomach, again.

“Hey, Catalina! She’s the new girl. Don’t be like that.” It was the stern voice of Maddox Stewart, who sat to the left of me.

I turned around to face him. The first thing I noticed was his brown ruffled hair that fluffed in the breeze. He also had a round face with huge Harry Potter glasses. Holy. He was taller than a NBA professional basketball player. Of course, no one could be nearly as good-looking as my dear, Joseph, but this Maddox Stewart had a really fresh look on him. Joseph wore sunhats and had freckles all over his face and was a redhead by heart. 

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“Oh, yes- um.. Thanks,” I replied, my words stuck there, clogged in my throat.

“Now, don’t you worry about Catalina Wilson. She’s very arrogant,” he whispered softly in my ear.

“What did you say, Maddox, sweetheart?” Catalina shouted.

We both looked up this time.

“No-nothing,” he stammered.

“Oh, honey-”

Suddenly, Ms. Beckett noticed and scowled, shaking her head.

“Please, focus on class. Also, Emaline, I understand it’s your first day at your new school. However, try not to distract yourself, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I responded shyly.

“No, this was all three of us, not just Emaline,” Maddox said defensively.

“I understand, but you do know that I can’t do anything about Catalina, right? Her dad is the principal,” Ms. Beckett spoke quietly, leaning near Maddox’s table, where only he and I could hear. 

Maddox sighed, but says to Ms. Beckett that he knows.

I wondered if Maddox and Catalina were dating. Catalina did indeed call him “sweetheart” or other cute names constantly. Did Maddox like that? Why would he defend me then if he and Catalina were dating?

Then, Ms. Beckett’s voice came back as she explained the literature assignment to the rest of the class.

“This is a spoken word poetry assignment. Within a two month period, you’ll be filming a video and creating a spoken word poem with a partner. The theme is your choice, so you can do whatever you want as long as it fits the poem criteria. After the end of two months, there will be a showcase and your parents will come and see it, so make sure you are producing your best-quality work. Any questions?”

A short asian girl raised her hand.

“Ms. Beckett?”

“Yes, Willow?”

“Can we choose our partners?”

“No, I’ll be choosing them for you.”

Everyone groaned as soon as Ms. Beckett declared those words.

“Alright, now I’ll be arranging the pairs.”

“Emma Johnson and Liam Garcia, Corinna Brown and Wyatt Alinksy, Danica Miller and Jacob Williams…”

Then, she called out a few more names, finally getting down to the last two.

“Catalina Wilson and Elijah Caddel!”

“Ew, Ms. Beckett. I have to be with Elijah? I wanted to be with Maddox!” Catalina whined.

“You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit. Also, I can only make special arrangements like this only if the other partner accepts it. You don’t know if Maddox wants that,” Ms. Beckett tried to remain calm, but it was useless. Her face was all puffed up, and there was immense sweat poured down her face.

“It’s fine, honestly, if Catalina-” Maddox started.

“No, it wouldn’t be fair, and also, Cataline, you need to learn-” Ms. Beckett begins. 

“Well, my daddy, the principal, remember? You can do whatever you want with me, but there will always be consequences!” Catalina smirked when she said the last words.

Ms. Beckett frowned, but quickly recovered from the glare because she had no choice but to follow Catalina’s instructions otherwise she could possibly lose her job!

“Yeah, she wouldn't because she just got widowed with twins,” whispered Maddox as he tried to analyze the situation.

I couldn’t help but stare into the souls of his eyes. Once I started staring, I couldn’t stop.

“Sorry, is there something on my face?” questioned Maddox as he leaned a bit closer, touching his face, trying to scrub whatever it was off his face.

“No,” I replied sheepishly as I quickly looked away. My face flushed a deep shade of red. I prayed he didn’t notice, but my jawline was suddenly tensing up, my fingers clenched together so tight it hurt.

“It’s okay, Emaline, you can tell me-”

“Oh my gosh, check it out! Emaline, the new girl, is totally in love with Maddox! That’s hilarious!” Catalina laughed along with some of her minions.

I rolled my eyes, and Maddox’s smile turned into a frown as he glanced over at them with disgust.

“Oh, sorry, Maddox, didn’t mean to say anything terrible about you! It’s just-”

“Cut it out, Catalina!” Ms. Beckett raised her voice as she passed out the poem criterias, “For once-”

“Oh, Ms. Beckett, I didn't mean to cause any trouble,” Catalina started to apologize, “It’s just that I don’t understand why I couldn’t be with my sweetie, Maddox!”

“I’m sorry, but do I need to remind you of the rules, Ms. Wilson?!” Ms. Beckett's voice sounded wary, as she felt exhausted from arguing with Catalina.

Catalina glared back at Ms. Beckett decided to remain silent as she didn’t want others to think she was disrespectful to the authority even though her father was in fact, the principal of the entire school.

Ms. Beckett finally finished passing out the papers and instructed one of the partners to read over the criteria and start discussing the project.

There was a rubric that was on the paper as well.

Maddox scooted his chair at me and put the piece of paper in front of us.

“Do you want me to read it or-”

“You can.” This time I smiled at him sweetly, not wanting to have started off at the wrong note.

He grinned back at me, and I knew from that moment on, he and I were going to be great friends regardless of what Catalina Wilson thought.

“Alright. The criteria was basically what the teacher said. Create a spoken word poetry project within a 2 month period of time…”

The more he chattered, the more I started drifting off.

I sank slowly, deep into his ocean blue eyes that could tell a thousand stories and lies. He looked so sweet like honey.

“Hello?!”

He snapped me back to my attention. 

“Oh, sorry… I was thinking about something,” I replied, flushed that he probably noticed my staring.

“No, worries,” he said with the same old Maddox smile.

Even though I barely knew him for merely just a few days, it felt like I’d known him forever. Even more than I knew my dear Joseph! He had the sweetest smile, and he was very polite to all of the classmates here at Mapleville. It seemed like he was a local’s favorite as well. Everyone was amazed by his phenomenal juggling skills and how he used his brain to think things out. Trust me, not everyone can do what he does. 

With a brain like his, he could literally go anywhere to study and earn a PHD degree. He was the definition of Einstein! I thought I could literally just fall in love with him forever!