petrichor - w.clark

II

SILENCE FILLED THE ROOM as amaris waited on a response from mr erickson. he wasn't taking long to reply, in fact it was only a few moments, which felt like minutes to her. she always felt anxious when asking for more time on her assignments, papers or projects and recently it had been a lot.

the truth was that her family wasn't financially stable whatsoever. for grocery's, they primarily depended on food stamps. amaris worked a part time job at a local shitty movie theater but they barely had been scheduling her recently due to being over staffed. she didn't have enough money to go out and grab at least fifty dollars worth of supplies for the project. she was already helping pay the electric and water bills for the household, she could barely even pitch in with that at the rate of money she was getting.

"alright, i'll give you an extension. just a few days though, i don't want you falling too behind in class and all worried up on this assignment. i know you're a good student, you've got a big future ahead of you." mr erickson said as he sat half way on his desk, arms folded across his chest. he looked at the worried girl, tilting his head. "is everything okay at home?" he asked her.

she froze. "i-yeah. yeah! yeah, getting so much better. things are better." she nodded. that was a clear lie, he could smell that one from a mile away.

mr erickson taught chemistry along with physics. amaris was lucky enough to have him for both of those classes. he was the best teacher she had in her opinion, he was understanding and he never pushed anything with her. he also was the one to get her some more help with getting into counseling during her sophomore year.

the man let out a heavy sigh, he felt bad for her situation, he knew she had no control over it. nonetheless, he was proud of her always for pushing through it all. "amaris, you and i both know that's complete bullshit. you know you can go to the counselors anytime you need to get resources for help especially if you're in need of financial help." he once again told her. it seemed like he always said that phrase, like he wanted her to get the help she needed, and he did want that for her, just like he would for any other of his students. "trust me, they want nothing more but to help. you know i can't help you with this all, it's against the rule of conduct... but there's people to help." he reassured.

"yeah, of course, i know. hey, thank you so much for the extension, erickson. i really gotta get going to lunch. i promised dani i'd talk to her this time at lunch instead of cooping up in the library or in here." she said, offering a brief smile before hurrying out of the classroom.

speaking about her family life was not easy, not one bit. she always froze up when they were brought up, she didn't want anyone worrying too much, she didn't want herself to be a burden to others. she wasn't sure if her logic even made sense to others, but it did to her and that's what truly mattered. she wanted the help she needed and deserved, but she couldn't pull herself together to go get it. she wanted to prove to herself she could make it to the end of the dark tunnel by herself.

she walked down the hallway, past the light that always flickered, just by her locker. she always hated that light, walking past it always gave her the creeps. when she was alone by her locker, it often felt like someone had been watching her. she wished someone would just fix the light, maybe her nerves would settle if it was fixed. all four years of high school it flickered, other students older than her always said it was flickering their whole experience of high school as well. perhaps no one cared enough to fix it, or maybe the school was just too broke to fix it.

she walked up to her locker, quickly putting the combination code in and popping it open. she looked into the small purple framed mirror, fixing her hair up a little bit before grabbing out her text book for her next period class. she closed it and locked it back up before turning to head back to her class when she'd come face to face with no one other than james perry himself. he was a member of band, not a sports kid like most thought he was. he was sweet, different than most of the weird band kids. it was easy to tell that there was a fine difference between band kid and person in band. "hey!" he beamed with a bright smile.