Writing Class

-4 Classes Later-

Since that day that he walked her to her car, it’s become another part of their routine. He walks her to her car, and leaves for his before she can thank him. He never sticks around and chats. Like he hates standing by cars. It’s either in them or nothing.

If Finn is slow in leaving, Miranda finds herself slowing down as well so that they walk out together. She tries not to be too obvious that she’s waiting for him. He’s doesn’t care if he‘s obvious. If she’s slow or if she needs to ask Ryan something, Finn just stands outside and waits. Leaning against the wall. He’s always there when she comes out. The little things are what she’s begun to count on. She counts on him arriving first, she counts on him being harshly honest, and on him waiting for her. She counts on a lot of tiny things, she can admit to that. She won’t admit that what she counts on most of all, over everything, is just him.

That is why when she manages to walk in an empty classroom she is completely thrown. For once, he isn’t there, sitting with a book in hand. For a few seconds, she just stands there, waiting for something and not knowing what. Like he’s invisible and if she just waits long enough he’ll quit joking around and appear.

He never does. People start filing in, everyone except Finn. Worry and fear begin to creep up her spine. It’s ridiculous, and she knows it is. It’s not rare for a student to miss a class. Students skip classes all the time. He never has though. She knows he has her number, she gave it to him the time she had to leave early so he could tell her what their reading assignment was. So why didn’t he call her and tell her that he wouldn’t be there? Why didn’t he think that she would worry? All the possible reasons as to why he didn’t show and why he didn’t call began streaming through Miranda’s mind. None of them are pleasant. Maybe he fell off of a roof and broke a leg and all of his fingers? He can’t dial when his fingers are all broken and he can’t walk to have someone else do it for him. Maybe he fell into a coma. Maybe he got into a car accident and hasn’t been released from the hospital yet. Maybe his gigantic book shelf fell on top of him, and at this very moment, he’s trapped under tons of books just waiting for someone to find and help him.

Class blows by quickly, she barely listened to a word Ryan was saying about character development. When the time came to group up and critique everyone’s work, she found that she needed Finn. She didn’t believe a word of what these other people said about anything. She desperately needed to know what Finn thought. Even though it’s never good enough. She hates it, but she’s gotten used to it. And she uses it when she does another draft. Trying to get more out of herself. And she hates to admit it, definitely to Finn, but it comes out better. Reading her work now is like reading someone else’s. She never knew that she could write like that and she feels like without him there to tell her what he thinks, she won’t be able to make it better. She thrives off his opinion. She hates that she does. She doesn’t need someone else telling her how she should write. But he doesn’t do that. He merely points out what would need work and of course…that she can do better. He always tacks that on. ‘You can do better.’ It’s his campaign slogan.

Ryan dismisses the class and she wanders out deep in thought, almost running into many people on the way to her car. She sits in her car without moving for countless minutes. She desperately wants to call him. To see what’s wrong, why he didn’t show. Her worry has morphed into a quiet anger. He probably knows that she was worried and it probably entertained him.

Frowning, she pulls her cell phone from her bag and quickly dials his number from a scrap of paper she pulls from the pocket on her car door. Before she can chicken out, she clicks the green send button and waits for the ring. It rings three times before it’s answered.

“Yeah?”

“Finn?”

“….yes.”

She sighs, “Hey, it’s Miranda…you know, from writing…”

“Rand I know who you are,” he cuts her off before she starts to describe who she is.

“Oh.” Suddenly she doesn’t know what to say. Nothing will spill from her mouth.

“I suppose you want to know why I didn’t show?” he doesn’t so much ask it as state it as a fact. He continues before she can agree, “I was tired, didn’t much feel like class today.”

“You didn’t feel like class? You’ve never skipped a class before. You were sick a few weeks ago and you still showed up. You looked like road kill, you sneezed the entire time, with coughing between the sneezes. And you didn’t show today cause you were…tired.”

“Well that and I couldn’t find my book. Mostly cause I couldn’t find my book. Besides, I only showed up that time cause it‘s so much fun disrupting class with bodily noise.”

“How come you didn’t call?”

“I didn’t realize that I had to call you and ask for permission.”

“I didn’t say you had to ask for permission. It would have been nice though if you had thought to call,” Miranda spits out more harshly than she intended to.

“Guess I’m not a nice guy then. My apologies,” his voice is flat, no emotion is spilling forth to give Miranda a clue as to what his problem is. Why he’s being such a dick.

“Never mind.”

“Hey, ‘fore you hang up in a fit of rage, what did we do in class?”

“Nothing really. Just group.”

“How’d that go?”

“It was useless. Those people like everything, they didn’t have one helpful thing to say. They did have a problem with the run-ons, the character is supposed to think in run-ons, it‘s how I wanted it, they had a problem with it. It‘s not grammatically correct.”

“Missed me bad huh?”

“Bite me.”

“Love to.”

Their rapid ping pong style is emerging and Miranda allows her shoulders to relax, she didn’t even realize that she was so stiff. This conversation is comfortable, she knows how to react to him. It’s predictable and easy.

“Why don’t you come over and I’ll give you some helpful tips? Got a pen?”

Miranda’s shoulders immediately tense up again, “What?”

“A pen? You know, those long thin plastic sticks that this dark liquid stuff spills from. You can write things with that stuff. Words. It’s…amazing.”

She grumbles in response and digs a pen from her bag, grabbing a piece of paper while her hand’s in there.

“Lovely come back.” He rattles off his address and the quickest way to get there, he assures her that it’s only ten minutes or so from the school.

“Oh and could you stop on the way and pick up some playing cards? Thanks.” Than he hangs up and she’s left with a dead phone pressed to her ear.

-20 Minutes Later-

Once she woke up from her stunned coma, she found a gas station and bought a deck of playing cards inside the little store. She has no idea why he would want her to get these, maybe he’s planning on making her play some poker or something. She’s never been good at poker. She’s better at ‘Bullshit’.

He lives in a little condo that lays in a little residential area full of them. It’s called ‘Spring Tides’ and she laughed a bit at the name. It’s for people who either buy the condos or just rent them. The whole place is much nicer than she would have thought. She finds the correct number and parks in front of a condo that looks like all the others. Dark grey paint, grey roofing, and a small enclosed porch on the side. There are lush green plants lining the wall around the porch with dark green vines growing up the sides. She has a hard time picturing him standing out there watering all the plants, but someone does.

She pushes her car door open, making sure to have the cards and her bag, she gets out and locks the doors. Miranda slowly walks up the little path to the white door with the number 666 mounted to it’s side. She thought he was joking when he told her that his address was 666. What kind of person lives at that address? Finn, apparently.

She holds her grin back and lightly raps on the door with her knuckles, half expecting a stranger to answer because Finn gave her a fake address.

But a stranger doesn’t answer, Finn does. The door swings open and her brain shuts off. He’s standing before her in a pair of faded blue jeans and sans shirt.

“Hey, hold on a sec,” he tells her and turns his back to her, walking down a hall and disappearing.

She manages to step in and close the door behind her. But the image of Finn shirtless is forever burned into her brain. She never imagined what his body would look like, that’s not something that she would normally want to think about. But now, it’s impossible not to think about it. He obviously does some sort of physical activity to make his body like that. She can’t picture him partaking in the general sports, it has to be something odd. He’s not overly built. He has a thin waist, not rock-hard abs, but well-defined abs. His entire body is well-defined. The muscle lines are obvious, but not overly worked at. It’s a body that comes from activity, not a gym.

Before she can continue to dwell on his torso, he strolls back in while pulling a t-shirt over his head. It ruffles his hair, but he either doesn’t care or just doesn’t notice. She assumes it’s probably both. Years of not caring has resulted in his not even noticing any longer. But she can’t help but lightly giggle at the state of his hair.

“What?” Finn asks with a suspicious note.

“Morrissey…” she points to his hair.

He looks up as if he could see his hair, and grins, “Yeah, must have been fate.”

He places his hand on Miranda‘s shoulder and points her towards his couch, “Sit down, want a drink?”

She barely shakes her head in a ‘no’ gesture and wanders over to the couch sitting in the middle of the room. It’s rather large and when she sits, she sinks down into it and suddenly gets the urge to lay down and take a nap. It’s the perfect couch for an all night movie marathon. While he gets a drink, she looks around his place.

Just like the outside, it’s much nicer than she would have thought, but still exactly what she would have thought. Directly to the right of the front door, is a small dining table and a little kitchen with all the necessities. Straight ahead of the door, is the living room. The large soft black couch centered, with a small table in front, and a large television set against the wall with all the necessary movie players and stereo equipment. She notices a crate full of records in the corner and is surprised. He must have a record player. She used to have one when she was younger but it broke. Now she has a ton of old records from her mom but nothing to play them on. The only way to listen to Beethoven is on a record player. He wasn’t meant for compact disks. The hallway that he disappeared down is all the way to the left and leads to what she assumes is a bathroom and his bedroom. The place is spotless. No trash laying around. The walls are decorated with movie and band posters. Not too many, just a few. The only thing that one could consider to be messy, is the random piles of books spread out everywhere. She doesn’t see a book shelf so she assumes that he has one in his bedroom. He probably just hasn’t gotten around to putting them away yet. Or the bookshelf is full-up and they’ve migrated into the rest of his place.

Finn comes up behind her and holds a glass out to her, waiting for her to take it even though she didn’t say she wanted something. She smiles gratefully, her throat feels dry and she’s glad he didn’t listen to her. The cool water slides down her throat as she gulps down half the glass right away. He settles himself down on the couch, turning his body to hers. Setting his glass down on the table, he reaches down to the floor and hands her two books that were laying there.

“Give them a try, I think you’ll like him.”

She doesn’t know what to say. She just stares down at the two books he handed her. Both by Gregory Corso. Miranda has heard of him but has never read his poetry before so she’s excited to start in on them.

“They’re mine, so don’t mind all the notes.”

“Thanks,” she says awkwardly and glances around the room, “How did you get this place?”

“My dad’s way of loving me, and getting me out of his line of sight.”

She doesn’t know what to say in response, she’s never heard him mention his family before.

“So lets hear it,” he motions towards her bag resting at her feet.

---

After she finishes reading it, she waits for him to respond, as usual. A smile breaks out across his face, but he doesn’t say anything right away.

“The run-on’s work, don’t change it. Seems like you wanted him frenzied. It’s good, really good….” he trails off.

“But I could do better?” she finishes for him.

He laughs and nods his head, “Yeah, it can always be better.”

She suddenly remembers the playing cards and pulls them out of her pocket, handing them to him.

“Oh thanks,” he tosses them on the table carelessly and doesn’t give them a second look. Miranda stares imploringly at him.

“Realized last night that my deck was missing a Queen.”

She laughs and shakes her head in amazement. This boy is insane.


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Author\'s Note: Thanks everyone for the reviews. Hope you all liked it. Keep reviewing with tips or whatever.