#17 Jealousy

Luckily the dorm wasn't too far of a distance from the main building. Even so, I was still an hour late. The classroom was already near clean when I reached. I put my things at my seat and helped out with the cleaning.

I damped the dry cloth with clean water and wiped the windows after spraying the cleaner. Emily was just wiping the table behind me.

"Jeez, Amanda. We do this every Thursday. How can you forget about it today? It's just like forgetting to eat." I never knew cleaning a classroom could be compared to eating.

Mia brought me a new bucket of clean water to wash my cloth. She has finished sweeping the floor so she came to help me. I told her I could do it on my own since it was only window cleaning but she insisted so I let her.

"Amanda, did you wake up late this morning or you just didn't check your phone?"

"I woke up early but I left my phone on silent so I thought there was no message. Sorry." I knew she would understand me because it wasn't the first time I made this mistake.

The whole class loves Thursdays because our class time would be taken up by classroom cleaning. Not to mention History is our first subject.

"How I wish we could do this everyday."

"No way I'm going to come an hour earlier just to clean a classroom."

"Our classroom will be so clean that not a single bit of dust could be found."

I do hope that could happen but please not on the day when English starts first.

The teacher entered the classroom as soon as we were done cleaning. The class representatives went to wash the buckets and cloths while I kept the brooms and mops back to where it was as a punishment from the class for being late.

After we took our attendance, our homeroom teacher made an announcement.

"Calnan Academy will be having a school trip to the Frederick Estate. It's a 3-days 2-nights trip so you better get permission from your parents before submitting your participation form."

Everyone of us received a participation form. I wasn't sure if my parents would let me join so I was thinking of letting my sister sign it instead. I really didn't want to miss the chance to hang out with my fellow classmates.

Just when I was about to write my name, my phone vibrated intensely until I could see that my desk mate was annoyed by it. I checked my phone only to see 10 texts from Eric.

"What is this school trip?"

"I never knew they were visiting Frederick."

"Did they mistook it as Freda Heights?"

"I never heard about a school trip visiting an estate."

"No one told me about this."

"Why don't you seem frightened?"

"Imagine visiting a classmate's estate."

"Can't relate."

"What's going on?"

"What is going on???"

Jeez! As if I would know if you asked me!

Whether we're visiting an estate of a classmate or not doesn't matter to me. All I want to do is to spend time with people I don't normally hang out with. I kept my phone away and listened to the details of the trip from the teacher.

During break time, Mia went to buy food for me while I talked to Eric about his texts he sent earlier. He looked around before answering me.

"You know that if you talk to me out of nowhere like this, people will think of you as someone crazy who talks to me when I didn't even ask a question, right?"

I don't think that was the case now. Besides, no one's here anyway.

The teacher told us to make a group of four for the trip and of course, I'm with Mia. She said she was going to invite her desk mate to join our group since the rest of them seemed to have grouped up already.

"You're not thinking of adding me into your group, are you?"

Huh? What? Where did that come out all of a sudden?

"She may not be but I am." Mia came out of nowhere and said that while passing me a cup of honeydew juice. She said there was a discount on fruit juices today so it was her treat.

"Mia, you said you were going to invite--"

"My desk mate? Come on, Andrew is a guy and he needs a guy friend, you know?"

I really didn't want Eric to be in our group because all he's going to do will be texting me when we're literally in front of each other. But I couldn't refuse when I saw my best friend's eyes were sparkling in joy.

Soon, break time was over and everyone went to their seats. Mia said she would ask Andrew if he wants to join our group or not. On the other hand, Eric kept texting me saying he would still join us even if there were no other boys in our group.

I didn't get why he needed to tell me this but I just told Mia anyway.

During Mathematics class, the teacher divided us into three people per group. I was so unlucky that Eric was in the same group as me, alongside my desk mate, Carl.

I don't really feel comfortable around boys so I stayed silent during the discussion time and let the boys handle the rest. However, there was a question that none of them were able to answer. I had no choice but to guide them step-by-step.

"Okay so first, we'll count 3 plus 1." I showed four fingers because I insisted on not talking and they were fine with it. "Next is 3 multiply by 1." I haven't put down my four fingers earlier so Carl wanted to put down one of my fingers when Eric hit his hand.

"Eric? We were just counting 3 times 1."

"He wasn't counting. He was trying to touch you."

"He was just trying to put one of my fingers down."

"Alright, stop arguing, I'm sorry for trying to touch a lady's hand without permission and I promise not to do it again. You happy now, Eric?"

Eric finally put down his hand and leaned on his chair. "Do whatever you want."

After the discussion was over, I told Carl that it was fine and Eric probably misunderstood his action for something else.

'Was he… jealous?'