“Today, class, I’m going to give you a very different sort of assignment.”

My eyes widened. Today was the one day I had hoped to do something simple. I felt awful. My head ached, my arms felt limp, and my ribs were beyond sore.

All I wanted was to take it easy, but of course that wasn’t possible, was it? We just had to do something different. Unfamiliar.

I clenched my gut.

“Everyone go ahead and take out the small boxes we gave you in the beginning of the year,” the professor continued.

I heard my friend, Roger, violently rummaging through this knapsack. I turned around to look at him, sure not to disturb my achy ribs.

He kept frantically searching, not realizing I was watching him. His round, silver-rimmed glasses almost slid off of his nose multiple times, but his fingers were too quick for them to fall.

“Crap! I can’t… find it!” he mumbled to himself as he combed his fingers through his bleached hair in frustration.

I chuckled, hoping he would see the humor in this situation. He glared at me, jumping a little after realizing I had been watching him for quite some time.

He pulled his hands out of his rumpled bag and turned to face me.

“W-what are you looking at?”

I smiled, ”Do you need help?”

“No, I a-already checked the w-whole thing. I-it’s not in there.”

I quickly looked down at my bag and saw the the sparkling black box hidden between my English book and a calculator. I reached my arm in and pulled the box out, feeling it’s coldness in my hand.

“You can share mine,” I said to Roger, smiling.