The following day
"Aren't you leaving, Akwasi?" Chad asked whilst slipping on his backpack. "It's almost 8pm."
"Uh no not yet. I want to try and finish this section of the base before I go." Putting the screwdriver down, I brushed away a few sweat beads that had found their way onto my forehead. "Our group is far behind, Shola and Deladem's groups are almost done."
"Well, we would be too, if Felix hadn't fried the traction motor." Chad rolled his eyes.
"The motor was an old thing, bro. It was bound to get faulty at some point. But hey, at least we managed to get a new one." I gave the metallic device a gentle pat. "And it's ten times better. It even has its own wiring ports."
"Oh then fixing the wires should be super easy." He drew closer.
"Yeah, my plan is to get it done before leaving."
"Oh ok, then I'm gonna leave my keys behind so you can lock up when you're done."
"Yeah sure."
He dumped them on the lab table beside the robotic base. "See you tomorrow, bro."
"Yeah."
Once the lab doors clapped shut, I was left alone. We'd just ended our engineering club meeting a couple of minutes ago, but I decided to stay behind and catch up on the work since I missed yesterday's meeting.
So far, our recycling robot project was turning out great. The electronics and welding teams had already merged their respective parts, completing the first section of the robot. Things were a little bit slow for my group since one of our motors got burnt during a testing session yesterday. But now that we had a replacement, all I had to do was connect it to the motherboard and put in some petty finishing touches.
Shola's blueprints lay in front of me as a guideline. We'd missed her at the meeting and I found myself wondering why, until the lab doors creak open. My eyebrows flew up. Speak of the devil.
"Hi, Akwasi. Good evening," Shola's sweet, accentuated voice sent my heart into a frenzy.
"Evening. I... I was just thinking about you," I said in a tone that I hoped didn't sound shaky. "How was your day?"
She blew out a puff of air. "Aah good, but tiring." She slumped onto the closest lab stool. "You know the Science Fair we're getting ready for?"
"Yeah?"
"Dr. Kankam told me today that it's going to be held here, in Penfield."
"Oh really, that's awesome." I set my tools down. "Where in Penfield exactly?"
"Not sure yet. Dr. Kankam put me on the planning committee today and we're currently still on the hunt for a venue. I initially wanted us to book the Unity Auditorium cuz it's the largest one on campus, but it seems the SRC beat us to it."
"Oh, maybe you can use Auditorium 900," I suggested. "It's not as big as Unity, but I'm sure it's still manageable. The theatre students had a comedy show there yesterday and despite the crowd, there were enough empty seats to spare."
"Hmm, that's not a bad idea," she mumbled, pushing her glasses up. "I'll set a reminder to check that place out tomorrow. Thanks Akwasi."
"Always happy to help."
The smile she sent me in return was enough to make me melt into a puddle of bright pink love-smitten goop, but before any of that could happen, I busied myself with the traction motor in front of me. Get yourself together, Akwasi!
For a while, all that could be heard were the tiny shuffles and clinks from my movements and the rapid taps from Shola's phone. But it soon came to an end when my female companion spoke up.
"Akwasi, please don't tell me you're working on the robot's base alone. It's supposed to be a group work."
"Oh don't worry about it," I replied, pushing in the last wire. "My group members did majority of the work; I'm just taking care of some finishing touches. Since we aren't meeting on Monday, I want to complete this, so we can move to the next level when we come back."
"Oh yeah Monday," she murmured then drifted off into silence.
Finishing the work on the motherboard, I sat up straight, content with everything I'd done. The next time we meet, we'll attach the base and have a fully assembled robot, ready for testing and evaluation.
"Akwasi."
"Yeah?"
"There's...there's something I've been meaning to ask you."
My gaze flew up, catching the apprehensive look on Shola's face. "Is everything ok?" I'd never seen her this anxious before, meaning that whatever she was about to say was something that I'd been on her mind for a while now.
"Yeah, everything is fine, it's just umm..." she fiddled with her thumbs then slowly pushed herself off the lab stool. "I know that...most people consider it inappropriate for a girl to do the asking, but um..."
I felt my stomach clench, realising what was coming.
Shola settled on the lab stool beside me, clasping her hands. "Akwasi... I was wondering if you'd like to attend the Twilight Valentine dance with me, as your date."
At this point, my heart was racing.
"You don't have to do the whole pick me up in a fancy car thing," she chuckled. "We can just meet there, at the dance venue and... have a great time," she grinned. "So... what do you say?"
Yes Akwasi, my subconscious snorted. What do you say?
"Uuh." I scratched the back of my head. Was it possible for a heart to explode from anxiety? Because it felt as if mine was minutes away from blowing up. And Shola's would soon follow, but with a different cause of explosion.
"Akwasi?" A warm hand touched my shoulder. "Are you-"
"I can't take you to the dance, Shola." The sentence felt like sandpaper on my tongue. "I...I already have a date."
An awkward pause joined us. I subtly stole a glance at her, feeling a fissure split through my heart at the expression of disappointment, settling into her features.
"Oh." Her hand left my shoulder. "I guess...I guess I should've expected that," she managed a giggle that sounded so different from her usual one.
"But we can still hang out," I spoke up, desperate to salvage a bit of what I'd broken. "We can meet up after the dance for some smoothies, I know a great place."
"Thanks, but...I don't think that's going to sit well with your date."
"Oh Princess won't care at all, she and I ar-"
"Wait, did you just say Princess?" Shola's eyebrows dipped low and I cursed myself for allowing that slip up. "You're attending the dance with Ethan's ex-girlfriend?"
"Only as friends," I added up. "At first I didn't want to, but she kept on begging me and I...I couldn't say no."
"Oh ok." She folded in her lips then brought them out. "Well umm, I guess I should get going then."
Before Shola could slide off the stool, I grabbed her hand. "I'm truly sorry about this."
"It's fine, Akwasi, don't worry about it." She gave me a genuine smile this time. "Hope you have a good time at the dance."
With a gentle squeeze, she pulled away and exited the room, leaving me to my raging thoughts.
Way to go, genius, my subconscious snickered.