Stone Hearts & Hand Grenades - 2. Chapter 2

I walked Gracie back to the house, thinking about my encounter with the guy a few minutes ago. He was so gorgeous. I didn't even know anything about the guy. He probably had a girlfriend, but it didn't stop me from admiring his beauty. I put some food and water in Gracie's tray and grabbed my keys. It was still fairly early, around 6:45, so I decided to get something to eat from Sonic. I decided on a breakfast sandwich of biscuit, egg, bacon and cheese. After I picked up my food, I went to Mulholland Drive and headed towards the school.

Soon enough, I walked through the crowded hallways of ECRHS. It was such a huge school, containing 4100+ students and a huge staff of 260 teachers, not including other members of faculty and administration. I walked towards the senior homeroom hall, saying a hey to random kids that I really didn't know, just me being cordial. Just then, one of my best friends Blair, came up to me. She latched on to my arm and continued to walk with me.

"Oh my God, Trace! I'm so happy to see you! Do you like my tan? I've been in the South of France! It's so gorgeous. Everyone is so nice, even though I barely speak any French! The guys were so cute too! I really missed you, I should have taken you with me." Blair said, excitedly, rambling on 50 words in 20 seconds. Blair is extremely beautiful. She's kinda tall, standing at 5ft8, big beautiful brown eyes, long and flowing brunette hair that reached her waist, a model thin body, and flawless tan skin. She's Turkish and white, so she had natural tan skin. She was always dressed in designer labels. Everyone from Chanel to Victor & Rolf, Proenza Schouler, Bill Blass, Givenchy, JPG, Gucci, everything. She was the epitome of a fashionista. Today, she was dressed no differently, sporting a PS blazer, a plain white t-shirt and Balmain jeans. Blair represented a modern woman; strong, independent, beautiful, extremely intelligent, and most of all compassionate. She would give the shirt off her shoulders if she could.

"You should have invited me, but whatever. You clearly don't love me," I said to her, laughing.

"Oh, I so do. I didn't think you'd want to go. You already go everywhere as it is," she replied back. We entered Mr. Black's classroom for homeroom.
We decided to take seats in the middle of the classroom. I looked around for my other best friend, Cameron, but I didn't see him in the classroom. Blair, Cameron and I always had homeroom together since Freshman year. The only thing that changed was the teacher and the classroom. This year, it so happened to be Mr. Black, my AP Biology II teacher. Just then the bell rang, signaling everyone after the bell would be late. Blair and I continued to talk about nothing in general, discussing how exciting senior year was going to be. About 10 minutes later, Cameron burst through the door, looking a bit disheveled. Cameron is my male best friend. We've known him since grade 7. I've known Blair since kindergarten, but we didn't really become best friends until 5th grade. Cam and I are more than best friends. Both of them really. They're like my siblings, especially since I don't have any. Cam and I have so much in common. We both love music and art, we both are the same age, and share a same birthday, and we even came out to each other on the same day.

Cameron is Black and Asian, so he has those almond shaped eyes, and caramel skin, and a wild head of curly afro hair. He's about my height, 5ft10 and he has a toned, muscular body due to his running. Cameron loved running. He even signed up for track and had been running since 8th grade.

"Hey guys. I overslept! Had a late night last night. Had to rush to school."

"What were you doing, Cam? You're like ten minutes late!" I said to him.

"Josh Beck," he replied back with a devious smirk. Josh Beck was the captain of the football team and he was so deep in the closet. He had a girlfriend, Brittany, who didn't even know of his and Cameron's sexcapades. Josh had that girl blinded, and Cam too, since he was only using him for a quick blowjob.

"UGH! I can't stand guys who can't be open with who they are. What you even see in him anyway?" Blair said, throwing her hands up.

"A big d*ck." Cam stated plainly, eliciting a laugh from the both of us. It's not like he was really lying.

"Man, I'm so hungry. I haven't eaten anything since last night," Cam said, taking my sandwich off my desk.

"Well, here, Cameron. I have a sandwich that I've only taken 3 bites out of, why don't you enjoy it's deliciousness with me? Oh wait, You already took it." I said sarcastically.

"Thanks buddy, love ya," he replied, ignoring my sarcasm. Mr. Black passed out our schedules and told us we could talk quietly if we pleased. Blair, Cam, and I compared our schedules to each other. Blair and I had English together, Cam and Blair had Calculus and Latin Literature together, Cam and I had Economics together, and we all had Theater Production together. That meant we all had the same lunch period. It was just like Freshman year, when we had most of the same classes together. My schedule was pretty neat this year. I had gotten most of the academic part of it out of the way, so I had more time to take alternative courses, such as Contemporary Lifestyles and Theater Production. The latter two were my absolute favorite courses. The bell rang, so Blair and I headed towards our English class.

We walked into our English class and took our seats. It was a pretty big class, so we took our seats near the back of the room. After a few minutes, our teacher came into to the room and told us to stand in front of the classroom so we could get assigned seats. She introduced herself as Ms. Bickerstaff, a new member of faculty. We stood and waited for our names to be called.

After everyone was seated, she turned on the projector so we could start our warm up assignment. After warm up, she passed out our rubric, her classroom expectations, and our books. She had given us 2 assignments on gerunds and 2 more for homework. Talk about laying it on thick. It was only our first day back! After we got done with our assignments, she wanted us to introduce ourselves to her. She wanted to tell her our names, favorite subject, and how we think English and Language Arts shape our daily lives. Of course, she asked me about my hair. Everyone does. I like the dreads. As long as they're neat, I really don't see the problem with them. Finally, the bell rang, so Blair and I parted ways. I maneuvered through the hallways and headed to my Algebra III class. I've always liked math, but I didn't really care for the advanced maths. Instead of taking calculus, I decided to go with Algebra III. You can never go wrong with algebraic equations. We didn't do too much as a class because it was the first day. Normal classroom rules, rubrics and syllabus, boring stuff.

Next up was AP Biology II in Mr. Black's class again. Mr. Black is really cool, young teacher. He didn't joke about us getting our work done, but he was still very relaxed and fun. I had him previously for regular biology and I loved his class so much and did extremely well, so I decided to take the advanced placement course. Once the bell rang, Mr. Black passed out our class rubric and informed us that after this week, we'd be working mostly with a partner and that partner would be our partner for the rest of the school year. Just then, Christian walked in the room.

"Sorry I'm late, Mr. Black. I'm new to this school and it's kinda hard to get around," he said, taking an empty seat one row over and two seats up from me.

"That's fine, Mr..."

"Greene. Here's my schedule." He gave Mr. Black his schedule. Mr. Black looked over it and handed it back to him.

Mr. Black walked back up to the front of the room and told us to get started on our warm ups, which were on the chalkboard. After we got done, he told us we could talk quietly. I didn't really know anyone to just randomly talk to them, so I just sat there quietly. Every now and then, I would look at the back of Chris's head. Wow, he was flawless. His muscles flexed as he wrote something or another on a sheet of paper. He stopped writing and then turned around, looking in my direction. I tried to play it off like I wasn't gawking at the guy, but I know he saw me looking at him.

I started to zone out and daydream about nothing in particular. The class started to get loud, so Mr. Black assigned more work. "You may work in partners with these assignments. Working in a group gives you different perspectives on life and on science. That's why you'll be working in mostly groups or duos. Don't be afraid to share opinions and theories. Much of science comes from theories coupled with facts. That's the main thing I want to focus on this year. I enjoy critical thinking and thinking outside the box," Mr. Black said as he passed out the workbooks.

I opened my book and started to work on the assignment. After a few minutes, I got stumped on a question. Something about carbon atoms and chemical elements. I got frustrated, so I just put my pencil down and started daydreaming again. Just then, he came over and sat at the desk in front of me.

"Hey, you're the guy with the dog. Trace right?" His voice was so deep and warm. Like chocolate.

"Ummm... Y-y-yeah. Sorry about her. She likes kids, but she's never disobeyed me, and she's never been that overzealous." He sort of chuckled. It was so cute!

"Do you need a partner? You looked like you were having trouble over here, dude. I'm pretty good at Biology. I may help wipe that confused look off your face," he said as he smirked at me.

"Ha! Whatever. I highly doubt it, Pretty boy." I said the last bit under my breath.

"What was that?" He laughed, taking my book. "You think I'm pretty huh?"

"Shut up! You're so ugly, it hurts my eyes to look at you."

"So is that why you were staring me down a few minutes ago?"

I was so shocked! I faked a gasp and reached for the workbook. "Give me my book back! Give it, give it now!" I couldn't help but get a little flushed and slightly embarrassed. He finally relented and gave me the book so we could start on our work. We continued to talk and joke around throughout though. He even helped me with a couple of questions I didn't understand, so he wasn't totally wrong about being good at biology. Mr. Black had to tell Christian and I several times to settle down. All too soon, the bell rang and it was on to the next class.

I caught up with Blair and Cam and we headed to our next class, Theater & Production. This was the class I was most excited about this year. I'd been in about 6 school productions so far, 3 of them being musicals, 3 straight plays. Mr. Malik was my absolute favorite teacher. He was young and artsy, around 26, very imaginative and creative. He didn't even want us calling him his last name because he said his father was Mr. Bright. We walked into the auditorium and sat at the front and idly talked, waiting for class to begin. Soon enough the bell rang, and Mr. Malik sat at the edge of the stage. He instructed the class to get onstage and spread out in a circle.

"This game is called The Emotional Party. I will be recording this so you guys can see how your emotions transmit to camera, so I'd like a full commitment. This is a theater class, after all. The scenario is that there's a party host and guests. There's 22 of you, so I'll break it up into 2 groups of 11, that way there's 10 guests and 1 host. The party host enters the scene in a very neutral emotion, the party guest knocks or enters with a detectable emotion. Once the host detects that emotion, they catch that emotion and they begin to treat the guests with those emotions. Once the first guest has entered, the participants can interact with different people until they notice a change in the emotion, and then they must adapt that emotion. The participants should not watch the new guests for the emotional state, rather, they should let the emotion "travel" to them as it will. To make things really tricky, two guests could enter at the same time with different emotions. The participants will be really wired after this game, so plan accordingly to use that energy. This will be all improv style, so you guys form your groups and flip a coin for the first go."

Naturally, Blair, Cam and I paired up along with 7 other kids we knew. Ashley and Catherine were also kids we had known since freshman year, a really cool and laid back guy named Nick, Lauren and Emily, and best friends Harrison and Hunter. We decided that Harrison would be our host. Harrison won the coin toss, so we were to go first. Mr. Malik went to the center of the auditorium seats and set the camera up while all of us headed to the stage. There was a table and chairs on the stage and a set of plate-ware along with glasses to set the scene. Harrison pretended to make busy in a neutral manner before the first guest arrived. Blair decided to go first, so she skipped to the stage and in a sing-songy voice said "Diiiiiing dooooong!"

Harrison welcomed her in and Blair kinda skipped around the table and picked a seat. "Thank you for inviting me to this loooovely paaaaarty! I am so pleased to be here! I hope everyone has a woooooooonderful time!" Of course this was all done in a sing-songy manner.

"I'm glaaaaaaaaaad to have you, Ms!" Harrison mocked her and skipped around to the other side. As he did so, Ashley stomped to the stage and said a very angry "Knock! Knock!" very loudly. Harrison greeted her excitedly and said a very sing-songy "Helloooooo!"

Ashley yelled with an aggressive "Out of my way, chump!" along with a shove.

"Well welcome, doogie brain!" Harrison retorted just as aggressively as Ashley.

"What do you have to DRINK in this crap hole?! I wanna get slugged." Harrison picked up a plastic cup and slammed it on the table.

"We got some scotch, and gin, pin head. Now what else do ya want?"

Blair happily said "I'd like waaaaater please!" very sing-songy.

"I have pleeeeeeenty!" Harrison pretended to pour her a glass.

Catherine and I decided to go in together as a husband and wife. I wanted to portray sadness while she wanted to portray happiness. We walked to the stage arm in arm, I slouched my posture down a bit and looked to the ground.

"Weeeeeeeelcome to my speeeeeecial partyyyyy!" Harrison echoed Blair once again.

"Thank you for having us, I suppose." I said with a sigh and downturned face.

"I'm very excited to be here! You have a lovely home," Catherine said to him.

Harrison looked at the both of us and decided which emotion he would be effected by.
He then turned his face down and sunk in his posture and said sadly, "Have a seat, Mr. and Mrs. Gloom. I hope you find it fun." As he was saying the fun, he softly lifted his hands and did a spirit finger motion.

Ashley then banged on the table and yelled "Who are these pea brains?! I don't know them!"

"They're my FRIENDS, twerp! Whatcha gonna do about it?!" Harrison emoted back to her. Just then, Hunter and Lauren decided to come in together, both of them portraying fear. They both flinched at Harrison's angry greeting and made whimpering sounds when he reached for their hands. Lauren actually said "Please don't hurt me!" and quivered her lip. It was hilarious!

They sat down and Cameron burst on as a ball full of energy. He even picked Harrison up! He was portraying excitement also. Instead of sitting in one of the seats, he climbed on top of the tabled and yelled out an excited WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO! It was comedy to watch! As he was sitting down, Nick and Emily entered and they both pretended to be snobby and uppity.

"This place looks rather dirty, if I do say so myself." Nick said snootily.

"Yes, love. There should have been a maid to come and clean before the party had commenced." Emily replied to Nick. "Here, host. Take my fur coat.
Be sure to place it properly! It's real, darling."

They both faked aristocratic like British accents, so Harrison faked one as well. Mr. Malik mentioned now would be a good time for the guests to have an affect on one another as well as the hosts. So it was Cameron who decided to switch characters first, going with Emily's feminine British royalty character, who in turn took on Cameron's wild man persona. Catherine and I looked at each other, and suddenly I became more happy and upbeat while she sank down and pretended to cry. Lauren and Blair switched personalities and emotions, Blair becoming more frightened with everything and jittery while Lauren adapted a sing-songy speech pattern. Just then, Emily gave me a hug, passing on her wild like ways to me. So I jumped on the table and did a quirky little dance number. I jumped down and dragged Ashley out of her seat and we traded personae.

The switcharoo train went on for about 2 more minutes, everyone trading emotions and personalities with each other until Mr. Malik told us that he was very impressed. "I loved everyone's commitment to the task. Especially you two, Cameron and Ashley. Definitely the standouts. Nick, Emily, Trace and Catherine, I like the character development your characters had. Harrison you were extremely good at switching emotions on the drop of a dime. I was really impressed."

We all took our seats in the auditorium and waited for the next group to go. Their group was really good as well. One of the characters was angry and agressive, another was extremely goofy, laughing and giggling. The host was quick to catch onto this. Another was nervous or scared, two were hippy like. It was interesting to watch them interact with each other. Especially after it got to the point where they all had to rub off on each other and not just the host. Immediately after the second group was done, the bell rang for lunch.

We walked to the cafeteria and once we looked at the line, we decided to sit down first. It was way too crowded. Luckily, we had 45 minute lunches. I kept on watching the cafe and looking around the room. Blair noticed because she looked at me and gave me a knowing look. "Who are you looking for, Trace? You're looking everywhere. What's his name?"

"Huh? I don't know what you're talking about..." I feigned ignorance.

"Mm. I'll find out sooner or later. I know you!" Blair said. Just then, her cheer girls came over and sat with us, along with a couple of guys from the football team. Blair really liked this one guy on the team, Derrek. I couldn't stand him. He was from Texas so he was really religious and homophobic. Derrek also happened to be best friends with Josh Beck, the guy who Josh was having secret sexcapades with. If Derrek only knew... Just then, Josh came to the table with his girlfriend Brittany, holding her hand. I watched Cameron's face. He was clearly hurt, but he hid it well. I could see it in his eyes. The killer was when Josh looked right at Cam the moment he kissed Brittany on the lips. She giggled and twirled her hair. So far gone. I kind of tuned out the conversation and grabbed Cam so we could get food since the line was winding down.

"Dude, I don't know why you waste your time with that idiot," I said to him, rubbing him on his back.

"I don't know either. I'm so stupid," he said, sighing. "Whatever. He's an idiot. A stupid closeted idiot. UGH! I'm so mad. Why am I so mad, Trace?"

"You've caught feelings, Cam. It was bound to happen. You can definitely find a guy who wants you and only you." Blair came up behind me and Cam.

"Cam, I saw what happened back there. Josh is a loser. I told you that. I've been telling you." Blair said to him.

"I don't need your I told you so, okay B?" Cam retorted. He was getting defensive.

"I didn't mean it that way, Cam. You know that," she said sympathetically.

"Whatever. I'm over it." Cam said plainly and went to pay for his food. Blair and I did the same. I got a soy burger with cheese, fries, and a bottle of water.

We walked back to our seats and continued to talk about random things. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw him. I was so happy he had my lunch period. He looked kind of distracted, like he wasn't really paying any attention to the girl that was talking to him. He just smiled and nodded his head every now and then, but his eyes kept wandering off in odd directions.
I turned my attention back towards our group. "Dudes, I'm excited about the game this Friday. Everyone is gonna be there right? I mean it is our last ECR vs. Bev Hills rivalry game." Derrek said. Blair was nodding her head and looking all googly eyes at him. We all agreed that we would go, and after that, it was time to go back to class. We took our trays to the cleaner line and headed back to the auditorium. I looked for Christian to say hi, but I didn't see him, so he must've gotten lost in the crowd.

Once we were back in class, Mr. Malik told us that our group had won the challenge so we had 50 extra points we could use on any test during the semester. He also told us that we would build the set of whatever production we chose as a class and we could choose to either be on stage team or actually act in the play. It was mandatory to do either or, or else we would fail the class. Fine by me. We also had a portfolio in which we were to log our tasks down and grade ourselves and at the end of the week, Mr. Malik would confirm the grade or adjust it. And with that, we were free to talk for the rest of the class period.

"So what are you guys doing after school?" Blair asked the both of us.

"I don't know," I stated. "I don't really have anything planned."

"Me either," Cam echoed. He was really cold since lunch.

"You know the guys were talking about going to the beach later on, kind of a back to school thing or whatever. I'm down for it if y'all are."

"Is Derrek the cause of this?" I said to Blair teasing her a little.

"Maybe, but that's besides the point. So are you guys in?" She had a hopeful look in her eyes.

"Yeah. I'm in. Cameron is too. Right, Cam?" I said to him, knowing he was still a bit bummed out and pissed off at Josh.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever." He said, kinda apathetically. After that, Blair and I just talked more about her summer and what I did over the summer.
Soon enough, the bell rang, so Blair headed to her class in the opposite direction, while Cameron and I went to Economics. I could tell he was still pissed about Josh, so I didn't even mention it, so instead, we just walked in silence. I decided to sing his new favorite song to cheer him up.

"I want you to make me feel, like I'm the only guy in the world! Like I'm the only one that you'll ever love. Like I'm the only one who knows your heart! Only guy in the world. Like I'm the only guy that's in command! I'm the only one who understands how to make you feel like a man. Only one in the wooooooorrrrrrrrrld!" Cam laughed and started singing along with me, so we had this big *** moment.

"Take me for a ride, ride. Trace, you make me high, high. Baby make it thrust, thrust! Make it last all night!" He sang along, laughing while he did it. We finally reached the classroom and took our seats near the back. Ms. Turner was our teacher. She was yet another younger teacher in her late 20's. She had us doing vocabulary words and a silly ass word search. Cam finally opened up and started talking again, which was good. We continued to talk about nothing in particular, just rambling to each other, and soon enough the bell rang and we were heading to our last class of the day, Contemporary Lifestyles, which we had with Blair. Our teacher was Ms. Carey, a wild and free-spirited woman, w***eminded me of a hippie. She was dressed in a short sleeve green top with colorful flowers all over it and a long, flowy pink skirt and flip flops. She also had unruly long wavy brown hair. Blair was already seated when Cam and I arrived so we sat with her. We still had a few more minutes until the class started, so we talked and giggled like normal. Just then, the bell rang, and as it was ringing, Christian walked in. I was so excited! He took a seat near the back of the room, not too far from us. Ms. Carey sat on top of her desk in the front of the room and just looked at us for about a minute. There were only 16 kids in this class, so it was pretty small compared to the rest of my classes. She took a sip from her huge mug of coffee and lowered her purple tinted glasses. She cleared her throat and started to speak. Her voice was light and direct.

"It looks as if you guys have grouped together based upon friendships. I can tell from your body language that you are all familiar with each other. I'm going to break you out of that comfort zone. Split up. Now, please." She said, still sitting atop of her desk. So we shifted around and I ended up in the front, right next to Blair and Cameron again.

"Still not working, you three. Split up, please!" She had such a light and sugary voice but it commanded authority. So finally, all three of us ended up in different parts of the room. "There, that's better. I want you all to look to your left, and look to your right. I'm going to switch you up until all of you are familiar with each other. From my understanding, there's a mix of 10th, 11th, and 12th graders in this class room. How many sophomores do we have?" 6 people raised their hands. "And juniors?" This time, 5 people raised their hands. "So you 4 are the only seniors in this class. Brilliant!" Of course, she was referring to Blair, Christian, Cam and I. "This is contemporary living. We'll do away with books and written assignments. We'll focus more on group discussions and talk about pros and cons of society and living in a modern day world. Can anybody tell me what culture is?"

Blair was the first to speak up. "Culture is how people live their lives. How people behave, the normal things you do in every day life, how you think and react to certain situations." She was beaming.

"That's such a textbook answer, Ms. Smarty pants. It's not wrong, but it's very text book like. What's your name?" She asked Blair.

"Blair Lloyd."

"Well Ms. Lloyd, I want to expand your textbook definition of culture and apply it to the real world. Culture can be your home life and family dynamic, it can be about the charities you and your parents donate to, it can be friendship based, it can even expand to technology and conveniences, such as your precious cellphones and cars. How many of you think it's normal to have a cellphone?" Every one in the class raised their hands. "20 years ago, in 1992, it was very uncommon, believe it or not, for everyone to have a cell phone. That's culture evolving. Culture always evolves, and when things evolve and continue to evolve, that's when it becomes contemporary. Here, I have a cell phone to show you from 1992. It was my old one! I was one of the cool teens," she said with a giggle.

She passed the phone around and let us look at it. "Pretty ugly huh?" We all laughed at that. When it came around to me, it was a huge chunk of plastic. It was dark gray and huge and it didn't even have a screen. And it had an antennae. "How did you text on this?" I said jokingly.

"You didn't. You could only make calls. And those were very short calls if I remember. Those bills were outrageous because we didn't have the technology to handle non-landline phones. Now, texting and picture messaging is all the norm! But back then, it was very uncommon to have a cell phone. Here's another cell phone from 2002." She passed around another one, and sat back on her desk. "Technology and culture and standard of living is constantly evolving. 20 years ago, not many people had computers in their homes. Now you have people with as many as 4 as the minimum for computers. All of these are essential to our every day life. How many of you know that you have biases and prejudices?" We all looked around the room at each other and started laughing.

One guy laughed and said "I'm not prejudiced! I have plenty of black friends."

"You may laugh now, but I saw it as soon as everyone entered the room. You all grouped together with your friends or people you were familiar with. A prejudice is a prejudgement. It's not just about race or minorities. I want to take away those prejudgements with this class so you can understand one another and understand the environment you live in. We all have personal opinions and biases, but I want you to look past those opinions and gain an understanding of people before you write someone off as wrong or a bad person. Take Ms. Fowler for example. Just a few minutes ago, I told her that she had a very text-book answer for me. I did that on purpose to show you that we all think what we know is right, but in the reality of everything, what's true to you may not be true to someone else. Facts and opinions can be very blurred in some cases. It's a fact that you can describe something based on a very dictionary answer, but it becomes tricky when you take that dictionary meaning and apply it to real life situations. That's where opinions come in. I want you to think about something. It can be anything and you have to write this down. And after you write whatever thought you have down, I want you to pass it two places to the left and one place in front. Can you all follow those directions? The people on the left end of the classroom, you can pass to the right."

I didn't know what to write down. So I thought for a minute and I got it. I wrote down "My best friends are the glue that hold my life together, they are more than friends they are my family especially since I don't have any siblings." I folded the paper and sent it to my left. When a sheet landed on my desk, I opened it and read it. It read as follows, "Beauty comes in unexpected instances. Like the package that appears from nowhere with an overzealous dog that jumps on your kid sister." I looked over at Christian and I left my mouth open, staring at the phrase. I didn't know if it was meant to land in my hands, but I was happy that it did. After a while, we were told to read the notes out loud. Turns out that a sophomore got mine, and it was the second one read. I could instantly pick out Blair's because it was a quote about fashion. When it was my turn to read, I couldn't stop smiling. I read the quote out loud and I looked at Christian, who was also smiling. When our eyes connected, he winked at me. Just then, the bell rang to dismiss us from school. I gathered my bags and waited for Blair and Cam so we could walk out to our cars. Just then, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and I was staring into Christian's bright hazel eyes. "I knew you would get it. That's why I wrote it," he said confidently and walked off.