4 Coincidences

I guess, no matter what subject you do, or which class you're in, class is always the most boring moment of the day. Can you believe sitting somewhere and hearing a guy speak of the same subject for 3 hours? Especially when that guy doesn't try to make things a bit more interesting. I was already bad in that subject, now add a mono-faced monotone teacher to it. What do you get? I don't know, I'm not good at math. However, my class attendance sheet has always been perfect. Never absent, never late, just not good at the subject. I was a good student in class.

Turned out that one day, we had an assignment. So basically our teacher only gave instructions on how to do the assignment. That was for an elective class: psychology. We had to choose a subject among a variety that is given to us. That subject had nothing to do with the IT core, but we had to do it. So I picked psychology as one of my electives, and strangely so did him. Psychology was quite a fascinating subject. The class itself was dull, but the subject was nice.

Anyways back to our assignment. It had to be done in pairs, and could we choose our partner? No. Otherwise, everyone would choose their friends and no one would actually socialise, or at least that is what the teacher said. He always kept on repeating the importance of socialising and making new friends and blah blah. I wanted to choke him every time he talked about that. For some unknown reason, people repeating stuff day after day always bugged me. Anyways, he decided to make the pairs himself based on the names that were present on the attendance list. He looked at the list, and picked two names out of the blue and these two people, who didn't know each other most of the time, had to work together. Good idea, right?

Imagine having to pair up about 100 students, that's crazy. But finally my name came up, after a long list of random strangers. My heart started racing as I am quite strict when it comes to assignment. I hate working with people who are not serious and committed, which is why I usually prefer working alone. At least alone I know that I'll do what's needed and I'll be committed. So I waited anxiously, hoping that it would be one of my friend's names that would be picked, or at least someone I know. I kept telling myself: "it's gonna be fine. Just relax. You're gonna get a good partner." And that's when the name came: "Jace Crawford." I was shocked. Could such a coincidence actually be possible?

Teacher - Mr. Crawford. Where are you? Could you and Ms. Morris please sit together and start talking. Your assignment title will be foster children. Start researching and thinking about what you could say.

His words started to fade as my attention deviated towards our stranger walking towards me. That's how me and mystery Jace-that's how I liked to call him- ended up sitting together in class and talking about foster kids while trying to avoid each other's eyes. My friends couldn't help but tease me on this. Of course, they are my friends. What did I expect? He and I sitting together just felt weirder and weirder by the day. How much of a coincidence could it be that among about 100 students, I end up working with the guy I've been wondering about for quite a few weeks now. Seemed like my first semester project was going to be the weirdest yet most interesting one of the year. I looked forward to hearing his opinion about the subject. "Foster children" is quite vast and interesting. And I would finally get to see what kind of a student he actually was.

As i tried to initiate a conversation, he straight away deviated my small talks to the project. No how are you, no asking about each other, no informal talks, no nothing. He was as formal and serious as can be, and that strangely increased my curiosity about him. What was he hiding so much? Why wouldn't he say anything about himself? Was it pride or fear that led him to remain so secretive? Questions after questions tormented my thoughts, so I decided to focus on the assignment to calm myself down.

Me - so, you wanna come to my place during the weekend? Or maybe I can come to yours? We could start researching and maybe write something.

I hesitated to ask him to meet me, just in case that would sound weird. I was never concerned about what others thought before he came along. Guys can really mess with your head sometimes.

Jace - Maybe I should come to yours.

Me - Okay, but my roommate's gonna be here. If you're fine with that, I just have to ask her if she doesn't mind me bringing in a friend.

And that's when I noticed a slight smile and strange laughing whisper from him saying "friends!" I didn't understand what the problem with friends was. Not being able to retain myself, I asked him.

Me - Well, yeah friends. Why? Is there a problem?

I tried to sound as polite as possible, afraid he would take it the wrong way and think I got angry. After all he did seem very shy. I even tried to pull off a laugh for him to feel more comfortable. He laughed again, brought back that light smile, with the small dimples showing up this time.

Jace, lightly, in a very low tone of voice as if he was scared to offend me - No, there is no problem. It's just very few people call me their FRIEND. And since we barely know each other, I found it funny that you would consider me your FRIEND.

What I actually thought was that a guy like him wouldn't have much friends, that's weird. But I answered calmly, not offended at all.

Me - Yeah well. I consider most people my friends. Even if I just know them from class. And we talked quite a few times, and we are in that school society together. And since we have to work together, I thought FRIEND would be appropriate.

He laughed again and nodded as a sign to agree to my FRIENDSHIP STATUS.

Finally it was official, we were friends. I did ask Kayra, and of course she didn't refuse. That was the perfect way for her to get to tease me, her favourite time pass. You can imagine that, if Kayra knew, after an hour, all my friends would know that Jace was coming to my room. After that, class was over, and we both went our own ways as usual.

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