Aiko

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    He lowered his face to hers, eyes closed, and gently smoothed his thumbs over her rosy cheeks. He had never felt this way before. No other girl had invaded his dreams and clung to his every thought. No other girl had made his stomach queasy at a single glance or made him as anxious as Heather. When he knew they were going to meet he practiced what he was going to say and act; but when the time finally came he forgot everything and tripped over his words.

“Do you want me to kiss you?” he asked in a dazed voice , aimlessly playing with a strand of her dark brown hair.

    He stopped in mid-thought. “That was a really stupid question. Why did I say that!” he thought, internally cursing himself. His heart was beating a mile a minute against the confinement of his ribcage and his stomach threatened to fall out his butt. Damn organs. He opened his eyes slowly, dreading that this moment might come to an end due to his stupidity. She was looking up at him with green eyes. He took a small step away from her, creating a small gap between their bodies. She lowered her gaze so she was looking at the brown Louis Vuitton bag she was carrying.

“That’s it, you blew it. I’m such an ass!” he thought picking up his school bag.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you later then…” he mumbled, reluctantly walking away.

“But, I do!” she suddenly blurted, dropping the bag and beginning to walk to ward him.

    He froze and turned around, a goofy smile pulling at his cheeks. His eyes beckoned her to come to him. As she was about to go to him, the bell rang, ending lunch break. A horde of students began to flood from the classrooms and into the hallway. They resembled ants scurrying away from a flooded anthill. Heathers bag began to be aimlessly kicked around, penalty for leaving a bag in the main hallway. She hurried over and picked it up, brushed the dirt off and gave Teddy a sympathetic look, and joined the crowd of students heading to the portables. Teddy sighed, flustered. “So close” he murmured, kicking an empty bottle across the floor. Although he had senior privilege, he spent 7th hour in his AP chemistry class earning community service hours so he could eventually graduate. He walked into the classroom and set his things on the floor and glanced around to make sure he was alone.

“Alright, liar, show yourself”

Almost instantly Aiko appeared on top of a lab table.

“You are so cold, Teddy.” She whimpered, dramatically falling from the table.
Before she could hit the floor she spread her soft light-pink wings and hovered just above the ground. She slowly advanced toward him.

“You should he kinder to me. After all, I am your lucky charm.”

“Love charm,” Teddy corrected with pursed lips, pushing past her into the storage room, “And you are doing a very poor job of it. Perhaps I should have found the ‘lucky charm’, perhaps then Heather would be my girlfriend.” He said, irritably scratching his name onto the sign- in sheet.

The pencil broke under pressure and he jabbed it into the sharpener, cursing.

“No, the lucky charm isn’t so grand. When you have love, you have all luck you can possibly posses.”

“And what do you know about the lucky charm?” he spat, putting the date on the sheet.

“He is my brother.” She said nonchalantly, letting herself gracefully into a vacant chair nearby.

“Whatever. My question is, why didn’t your charm work on Heather? Isn’t she supposed to fall totally head over heals goo goo gaa in love with me?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then    why  didn’t    it  work.” He said, dragging each word out to add emphasis.

“Because I didn’t put the charm on her yet!” she giggled, her cheeks turning pink.

Inside the storage closet Teddy dropped the graduated cylinder he was carrying.
“WHAT!” 

    He disregarded the shards of glass on the floor, grinding them into smaller pieces as he walked over them. Aiko, seeing his fury, flew to the other end of the classroom.

“Calm down. You’ll have a hernia.” She snickered, still laughing at her mischief.

Teddy’s face was red and the vein on the side of his head was throbbing. His dark grey eyes were filled with murderous rage that had the potential to stab whoever looked at them. His dark almond hair was disheveled around is face, and his broad chest was rising and falling rapidly. You could feel the anger in the air.

“Calm down?” he said with mock sarcasm. “Calm down?” he repeated, a slight edge of hysteria to his words. “I told her my hearts deepest desires thinking you had put the charm on her and…..” he trailed off, thinking in horror all the things he had said to her.

“Well, it looks like she has taken a like to you without my help.”She said, playing with a strand of her short, honey blonde hair.

“But I am you master! You are supposed to obey me and I said to use one of your love charms on Heather!”

“Correction, you are not my master. I am currently in your possession, but you do NOT own me.  And it’s your fault all this happened anyway. You told me to put a charm on her, but you didn’t say when. I was planning to get to it eventually.” She said bluntly.

Teddy was left speechless for a while. But then he managed to say, “But in my possession you are supposed to do whatever I say,”

“Love wise” she added.

“Right, and you didn’t! You purposely didn’t put that charm on Heather! Now I don’t know what to do. She hesitated right before I was about to kiss her, and that can’t be good.  Are you happy?”

“Heather did say ‘But I do!’ indicating that she indeed did want to kiss you. Goodness, you are so naïve at times.”

Teddy thought about what she said, and found that he couldn’t retaliate. She was right.

“Still, you disobeyed me. I can punish you, you know.” He said, taking a golden heart shaped locket out of his pocket.

She scowled. “You wouldn’t”

A smile pulled at his cheeks. “I would.”

She blew it off and started to walk over to him, her shining pink eyes daring him to do it.
She smirked. “Do it.”

Ted grabbed a white tissue, cutting it through the air once in surrender.  “As my lady commands”

He opened the locket and Aiko gasped, her eyes wide with surprise. There was a flash of pink light then the locket closed with such force Teddy had to tightly clench it in his hand. He chuckled to himself and put the necklace around his neck.  “This will teach her something” He thought, grabbing the broom and beginning to sweep up the glass. The doorknob slowly began to turn and Mr. Gardener, the chemistry teacher, dragged his heavy body through the door frame.

“Oi! What a mess!”  He said, walking around the maze of glass.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I’m cleaning it up now.”

“No worries,” he said, his eyes catching the gold that seemed to shine on Ted’s neck without light.

“Got yourself a special somebody?” he asked, placing his briefcase on the counter.

Ted flinched at his incorrect grammar usage. He was a brilliant man when it came to chemistry, but his grammar was absurd.

‘What makes you think that?”

“That locket you got around your neck!”

“That locket you have around you neck” he corrected. (In his mind of course)

“Well, I guess you can say that this heart contains someone very ‘special’”  he said, patting the locket with unnecessary force.