***

    I watch the clock. Two-fifty-nine. Just one more moment. Just one more minute until I am free. I can hear the dull monotonous voice of my history teacher in the background as thoughts run through my head. “And even though I had planned to spend a significant portion of this year on the Pre-Eve War era, a new education department mandate requires that the Eve Wars be covered in full. Therefore the events which lead to the creation of the Gundams and the training of their pilots will be targeted more than the politics behind the reason.”

    Three more seconds…

    “I expect you all to pick up copies of the following books before Monday.”

    Twenty…

    “The list will remain on my desk for ten minutes after class.”

    Ten…

    “You are dismissed as soon as you receive your list.”

    What?

    The class is standing, moving to form the single file line we get in when the teacher has something to give us. I slide in at the back. Trisha pokes me in the ribs; “I thought the Eve Wars were your favorite part of history?” her voice is low as we near the teacher.

    “Wow, this list is long.”

    “No, my favorite part will happen in about thirty seconds.”

    She takes her list. “Oh?”

    “Yeah,” I take my own and say, “It begins, now,” as I set foot on the other side of the threshold.

    “Look, Jeremy, if you don’t get your act together, you’re going to fail.” She is tucking her sheet into her binder and shoving it in her locker. “You don’t pay attention in class, it’s almost embarrassing to be seen with you anymore.”

    “Don’t sweat the small stuff, Trish, I’ll pass the class.”

    “Did you see the authors of the books? All of them were written by scholars.”

    “Maybe I won’t pass after all.”

    “You’re impossible,” she throws her hands into the air and starts packing her backpack. The crowd in the hall is thinning, but I keep up my post at her locker so the other guys don’t come close to my girlfriend.

“So do you want to go to the movies tonight?”

    She sighs, sneaking a quick look over at me, but I know she isn’t too upset at that question. “What for? So you can paw me in the dark?” her voice is tight.

    “Look, I said I was sorry.”

    “And I don’t know if I believe you.” She grabs her coat and slings the bag over one shoulder. “I have practice. Afterwards I’m going to go get the books. You want to meet me after practice and we can get them together?”

    “Sure. Same place?”

    “Yes,” she replies, a sweat smile on her face. She kisses my cheek before waving goodbye, and suddenly all of her nagging doesn’t seem so bad anymore. I really like Trish, but even I don’t get what she sees in me. I shove my hands into my pockets and walk back towards my own locker; it’s on the other side of this wing of the building.

    That right there proves something. The ‘smart’ people are put in one area, the slackers in another. Trish is like the school’s mascot. She does three sports, is active in the drama club, and maintains a straight ‘A’ average while going out with me.

    I have to admit, I didn’t like her at all for the first two years I knew her. She was watching me, that much I knew. It was before she blossomed; I suppose is the proper word. She used to be a real nerd, looked like a tomboy geek with her large glasses and freckles. Her face was too big for her body, and even that looked like it belonged in the eighth grade.

    And she liked me.

    It was some weird sort of miracle. I gave her a chance, being rather useless and classless myself at the time, it couldn’t have hurt me. I would be a loser for the rest of high school, so I didn’t mind. If she liked me enough to let go of that, then she couldn’t be all bad.

    So we started dating, and then it turned into going out. We grew into our bodies, and our social status here. She kept up with everything, for the most part, stayed in sports, drama, but she was bigger on being seen with me, back then. Not that she has a problem with it now, just… she liked to be seen being a couple with me. We held hands in the hallway like we were lovebirds and I used to carry her books everywhere.

    I may not be ambitious when it comes to schoolwork, but something about the relationship motivated me. I saw in her the person I had always wanted to be. I began to shape up. I applied myself more, for her sake, and we even got into some of the same classes. This year I got stuck with AP Colonial History because it was the only thing left to take.

    I do fairly well. She started turning heads before I did. She grew curves and muscle. I felt comfortable with that. She didn’t expect me to be macho, and I like that about her. I started working out some too, though I refused to do sports. My parents were so happy that they got me a membership in this exclusive gym over by where we live, and I use it on a regular basis.

    It took until the beginning of this year for the girls to notice me. I’m not much of a talker, or at least not to anyone but her really, and so they take me for the ‘strong silent type,’ though I frankly find myself bored at the parties people throw and even though I’ve tried the usual drugs, smoking… I even had some alcohol a couple times, none of it really appeals to me.

    I’m a wholesome guy when you get right down to it.

    But I am a guy. And we have been going out for almost three years now.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’d do anything for Trish, I just… thought I’d take a little initiative.

    Here’s the locker. I should get that sheet.

    Lets just see about these authors… even though it was over fifty years ago the current scholars find it some great big notoriety thing about having a book out on something that none of them experienced… but these aren’t all newer books…

    What? Psychosis: An In-Depth Study on the Minds of our Saviors? Who the hell wrote that? Figures… F.S. Black… the guy’s written more books that put people my age to sleep than Danielle Steele has romance novels… why do we have to read stuff by him?

    Oh well… down to the gym, I can worry about what to buy that I’ll actually read after we get to the bookstore.

*** 

    The standard two-hour period has passed, so I take a quick rinse in the locker room showers and change clothes before going out to meet Trish. She, of course, will be coming out of the girls’ locker room in much the same manner, but it’s on the other face of the school, with the sunset as a beautiful backdrop as she comes out of the building, trim form illuminated, hair falling in blazing waves down her back and spreading across her shoulders.

    She is beautiful, a goddess, a vision, a…

    “Come on, Jeremy, the store will close before we get there.”

    The walk is a short one, the air of the fall brisker than either of us anticipated, and so we walk close together, hands clasped with entwined fingers. We enter the shop and she heads straight back with her list. I fumble for mine and she calls that she’ll grab me the major ones if I’ll pick out my optional reading books…

    “Optional?”

    “You think Lieutenant Commander Smith is going to let us off easily? He’s preparing us for the AP examination by doing this.” I shrug and ask one of the clerks for the autobiographical section. I look at the list:

    Two biographies of your choice, autobiographies are acceptable.

    Well that’s easy. I know enough about the pilots that I know which ones to pick. Who all is on the list of possible candidates…? Ah, here we go, I’ll just get the biographies of Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell.

    I wonder how many people will have picked the pair of them? The other three pilots get overlooked a lot, but I’ve already done reports on them… I think I’ve got their biographies at home. I even bought, a waste of money for political jargon, the one of/on Relena Peacecraft. I don’t understand how she held the Unified Nation unified so long… she was obviously just a love sick woman who couldn’t get her mind off of Heero Yuy. Sure she got married and had kids… but what normal man of European descent would name their first born ‘Takeru’? Thomas would have been normal, Thompson… for one of that pink cow’s children… acceptable…

    So I shelled out twenty bucks for a piece of crap that I won’t even bother asking Trish to read and see if she understands… so what? Like she said, I really like that time period and it will be on the test, so maybe I’ll finish those last two-hundred and fifty pages… or maybe I’ll by the Cliff’s Notes… either way, I’ve got a good base of knowledge. So to complete the six-pack I’ll just pick up these two biographies…

    “How may I help you?”

    “I’m doing a project for class, and I’m looking for biographies on Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell.”

    “Impossible.”

    “What?”

    “I said it’s impossible, sir, there were only ever autobiographies done on those two of the five pilots.” Great, just great. I smile at the clerk all the same and ask where the autobiographies for them are. “I’m surprised, most of the people after biographies today just skipped them and went on to the other pilots.”

    “Well I’ve already read the other pilot’s biographies, and the one Relena Peacecraft wrote… so this’ll be me getting the full set.”

    Trish comes back with a couple textbook-sized monstrosities and various sized other books… that’s more than just AP Colonial stuff there… oh well, she’s taking just about every other AP this year too, probably for that.

    “Can you hold these here while I go pick up what I need?” she asks politely.

    The clerk nods and she goes off in the biography section we’re standing near.

    “You’ll want to go down that aisle,” the clerk says, motioning with a thumb, “I know, at least, the one on Yuy is titled Ninmu Kanryo: A Soldier’s Battle with the Darkness, but you’ll have to search a bit more for Maxwell’s… I don’t recall what it’s called.”

“Thanks. Do hold the books… we’ll be just back.”

***

    Ten minutes later we’re checked out and walking down the street towards our neighborhood. It’s Friday so I’ve got family night, but she’s always invited in my parents’ eyes…

    “Trish would you like to come over for dinner? I’m sure my mom wouldn’t mind.”

    She considers this, “Oh I can’t, I promised Sara I’d go over and help her with her math homework tonight.” Her hand squeezes mine. “I’m sorry, Jeremy.”

    “No, that’s ok… I’d actually like to start reading my optional books.”

    She gives me an appalled look, but cures it with a smile, “I knew you’d fall back into the way you always do about the Eve War stuff…” We’ve had this conversation a lot. Once she claimed the ‘Eve Wars’ was another woman and I was cheating on her. Technically, at that point, her words held some twisted bit of logic to them; I was attempting to read Relena’s biography… hmm… or was that pink covered thing an autobiography? Who knows, remembers? Cares, even?

    The point I’m making is that I was neglecting her for a book on a dead woman. She had a founded reason to be upset… jealous I’ll never buy. “So you’re not mad about me helping someone study on Friday night instead of going to the movies with you?”

    “Nah, you’ve got a track meet tomorrow anyway. I think I’d be more upset if I got you to the movies and you lost tomorrow.” She smiles.

    We get to her front door, and we go in for a minute. “Hey mom, I’m home!”

    “That took longer than expected. Jeremy, how are you?”

    “I’m fine Misses Patterson, how are you?”

    “Doing fine, thank you. How’s your family?”

    “Mark and Jimmie got the flu, mom took the day off to take care of them, but I think Mark just wanted the day off.” Jimmie’s the dog, he doesn’t take time off… he’ll be waiting for me, tail wagging, sneezing, when I get home, I’m sure.

    She laughs, a real true laugh, that’s what I like about this place. They’re so much more of what a family should be over here. Or at least a generic one, regular Leave it to Beaver sort of material, except that Trish is the youngest and just a little older than he was…

    Trish and I split the books from the bookstore, she picked Wufei and Quatre, interesting combination, but then she’s like that, and I help her put them down on the table by the door before I give her a warm smile and head out. She follows me out the front door and stops me with a hand on my arm.

    I turn back and say, “What-?” and she leans forward and kisses me on the lips.

    It doesn’t last long, and I don’t press for it to be, and she leans back and waves a little awkwardly. “Trish you didn’t have to-”

    “No, but I wanted to,” she responds. “Give me a call tonight, around nine?”

    “Sure thing.”