Free Moving On Without You by Kiarah Whitehead

telling you how I am grading it right now."
    The class let out groans. Tracy read through the
sheet while her teacher went through the major grading points everyone should
focus on.
    "You must work as partners and I am choosing
the pairs for you."
    Tracy immediately sat up in her chair. She felt
her mouth going dry thinking about working with another person in the class.
She barely spoke to anyone. Chloe was in the class, but she knew the teacher
would never allow them to work together. She bit her lip waiting for her
teacher to finish his speech.
    "I think the best way to do this is to stick
the names in a hat and I will let you choose. Someone has to write this down
for me."
    Jessica jumped up and ran over to the chalkboard
trying to beat an invisible competitor to it. The rest of the class looked
around with anxious eyes waiting on their fate. It was silent in the class,
other than Mr. Chase's shaking hat rustling the papers around inside of it.
    "Okay, lucky number one."
    He pushed the hat out to each student in the first
row. He made it about halfway back before he stopped at MD's desk. Tracy said a
silent prayer to prevent herself from being chosen.
    "Tracy," MD said to the teacher.
    "Mohammed and Tracy!"
    He was like a game show host shouting the names
out for Jessica to write down on the board. Tracy cringed hearing their two
names recited together. She had all of the rotten luck in the world. It was
better than being paired with someone she did not know at all or the guy who
chased coins and ate his own boogers in the front of the room. Chloe giggled to
herself.
    "You two are made for each other," Chloe
said.
    "What?" Tracy said.
    "You keep running into each other and now
you're paired together for this project. It must be something to it."
    "This whole thing is rigged."
    "It's not that bad."
    "You're not the one who has to work with
him."
    "He's pretty smart."
    Tracy put her head in her hands. The teacher made
sure everyone had a partner before moving on to the rubric. The project was
long, but Tracy knew she could do it alone. She just had to meet with MD a
couple times. They could type it up alone and present it on the last day of
class. It would be simple.
     
    Tracy and MD had three weeks to finish the written
portion of the project. The oral presentations were scheduled for the last week
of school. She wanted to be anywhere in the world except in the library with
this guy, but they still had not chosen a topic.
    "What do you want to write about?" Tracy
asked.
    "I don't know. Do people even use library
books anymore?" MD said.
    "Yes."
    "We could find all this stuff online."
    "We just need to figure out what the topic
should be to get some kind of direction."
    "I don't know. What do you think we should
write about?"
    Tracy pressed her toes into the floor and dropped
her head into her hands. She lifted her head to see MD's plain expression.
    "Maybe we could talk about gun laws."
    "No, that's no fun."
    "I don't think it has to be fun. There are
plenty of examples we could use for gun laws."
    "It's boring."
    Tracy let out a deep breath and looked at the
bookshelves lining the walls. She was not sure if MD was going to be any help
at all. She could have started writing already if she was doing the paper
alone.
    "What do you think about abortion?" she
asked.
    "Nope, not falling for that one."
    She rolled her eyes and rapped her nails on the
table.
    "Immigration?"
    "That's not bad."
    "Look, you don't have to like the topic. We
just need to write it up with lots of details. No one cares what your stance is
as long as the presentation is good."
    "How can I present something I don't believe
in?"
    "It's politics. You just pick
something."
    "Fine. Immigration laws could be
interesting."
    She began searching for books on immigration laws
while he watched her. After writing down reference numbers for three books, she
went to the law section to go search for them. When she got back to the table,
she found her partner web