Viper House

Little Box

I lost Maia after the assembly, but that was okay. I didn't need the principal's bitch to learn where my classes were.

It was lunch that was the tricky part. The cafeteria wasn't a place I wanted to go with so many people packed into one place, and I most definitely was not going to eat at the outside area that was meant to make everyone feel like they belonged. She could have at least thought of a more creative lie than that.

I took the cold lunch option and left the crowded cafeteria, wandering down the hall until I found an empty classroom. I tossed my backpack onto one of the empty lab tables and sat down, running a hand through my hair as I shoved the food away.

All the classes had been the same. Syllabi, information about the teachers they thought were interesting, checking in to see how the first day was going, and, worst of all, icebreakers. I grasped at straws for all of them. I didn't have a pet. I didn't have any siblings or an amazing talent. The movies weren't something I'd gone to since I was a kid, and I had always been too high to care about television. There were books that I'd read in juvie to pass the time, but no one wanted to know that I'd been in juvie. Or, if they did, all they wanted to know was what I'd done so that they could decide how afraid of me they needed to be.

I sighed and reached for the food. Roughly one hundred eighty school days stood between me and graduation. I could make it. I'd been clean longer than that and that had been the toughest thing I'd ever gone through. Still was. It didn't matter if I made any friends, at least it didn't to me. I was sure someone else would comment on it and claim I wasn't making a true effort if I didn't have any friends. I didn't think they'd appreciate the one person who had willingly spoken to me during the day. He was probably someone I'd gotten hooked on or at least someone who knew someone I'd been involved with. It was a big town, but the drug side of it wasn't.

I glanced up as the door opened, expecting it to be Maia or a teacher kicking me out, but a boy walked in. He paused when he saw me, but then walked in and put his backpack on one of the far lab tables. I picked at my lunch as I watched him out of the corner of my eye.

He sat down and pulled a textbook out with a high-tech calculator that I was sure I would never use. He ignored me as he bent over his work, typing numbers into the calculator, and writing them on a piece of notebook paper he'd pulled out of his book.

I looked away. He was one of the smart kids. None of my classes had assigned any homework yet. I rummaged around in my own backpack and pulled out the planner my foster parents had bought me. To pass the time, I slowly started copying the dates from the syllabi into it, knowing that I probably wouldn't look at it. If Naylor asked about my effort level, though, I could pop that bad boy out and show him. Not that that's what he would be looking for, but it was progress. At least I looked at the syllabi outside of class instead of throwing them in the trash like most of my peers.

The period dragged by and eventually, the boy put his things back into his backpack. I followed his lead and a few seconds later, the bell rang. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and walked out of the room without saying a word to him. Slowly, I made my way back to the office. I wished that my free period was last period so I could have ducked out early, but that was also probably the reason they had made it after lunch. I couldn't skip out during lunch or at the end of the day.

The secretary was trying to calm some nervous freshmen when I pushed open the door. She didn't look up at me as I squeezed past them and walked down the short hallway that turned and branched off into four different offices. I'd been in three of them already. One was for the guidance counselor, the other for the regular counselor, and the one for the principal. The only one I hadn't been in was the assistant principal and I hoped that it would stay that way as he was the one who was supposed to deal with behavior and not Rosas. Somehow, I had fallen into her grasp upon my arrival.