Starry skies and Gardenias

Chapter 182

The place was familiar. Too familiar for her liking.

Her feet carried her through the hallways of the school easily. She had been here for many years after all. 

She searched her bags as she walked down the corridor, then froze. She had forgotten her things in the lockers. 

Turning heel, she ran down the way she had come and straight to the lockers she had left a few minutes ago.

Hoping that she hadn't forgotten her assignment at home, she wrenched the metal locker door open. There wasn't much in there anyway, so she found the bundle of paper she was looking for easily.

She shut the door and turned around, only to bump into a boy passing by. 

"Whoops!" he cried as water splashed down her shirt. 

"You alright?"

"Yeah," she sighed, biting back her frustration.

She had two options. One, rush to the bathrooms, clean herself up. Two, go straight to class, she had only five more minutes to submit her assignment. 

Ah, screw this. 

She bolted down the corridor. Her shirt would dry itself, and she could just pull a jacket over and zip it up and nothing would matter. She never got sick easily, she could stay out in a snowstorm for ages and she'd be fine. What's a bit of water going to do?

Sometimes she wished she could just fall ill, just take a leave from school and lie in bed without panicking and thinking that she had accidentally forgotten something very important and lose sleep. 

She ran into class just a few minutes before the bell rang and put her bundle of paper onto the stack of assignments on the teacher's table.

'Investigative Journalism and the Watergate Scandal. 
A report by: Y/N L/N'

That day was the last day to submit the assignment. She had just been very late to do it, and their teacher had pushed back the date so many times. She was so losing grades for late submission anyway. 

She shouldn't have procrastinated. But she had other things to do!

Then she should have managed her time better.

Hurrying to her seat in the middle of the classroom, she plopped down onto the chair, and grabbed her jacket from within her bag and pulled it on. 

Zipping it up just as their teacher entered the chattering classroom.

"Afternoon, yes, yes, sit down," he said lazily glancing at the bundle of assignments on the table.

"Really?" he huffed. "You do realise that I'm going to cut off a few marks for this?"

At least he would grade it now. If it was any later than today, she wasn't even going to get a grade.

"How many of you?" he laughed. "All pros at procrastinating, eh?"

She felt a pang of guilt at this. She should really learn how to manage her time properly. 

Why did no method ever seem to work for her? 

The teacher picked up the first assignment and riffled through the pages and her heart jumped to her throat when she noticed that it was hers. 

Oh, crap. Please, don't say anything. Don't say anything.

"Miss L/N?"

Fuck.