"Neither," one of the girls said, brushing her hair softly over her shoulder. "I'm not a number 2 type of chick."
"I wanna be called by my own name. That's what my mama named me," the other girl stated, looking just as annoyed by his suggestion. "Why don't you just call out everybody full name?"
My stomach sank. Full names it would be then.
"Amy Arrow?"
One girl said here.
He continued on with the attendance, and my thighs were clenched, my nails were digging into my skin, and I was tensed as hell, until he got to my name.
"Ora Hayes?"
"Here," I answered, trying to casually look around the room to see if anyone had recognized my name.
I wasn't being burnt at the stake, so I figured that I was in the all clear. I let out a slow breath. Today probably wouldn't be easy for me in the rest of my classes, but the trick was just to try. I had to.
I still could remember the day that I was arrested, taken out of the school, and forced to finish the rest of my schooling for that year in a barred facility with the rest of the people my age. After that, I went to a different middle school somewhere else in Houston, started a new life, recovered for the most part because of the fact that the judge took pity on me because of my recently deceased mother, and I got start anew.
Eventually, I had went to another high school and I was using a family member's address for the longest. Then they moved out of town, and I had to come back to this district this year. I remember the fear on everybody's faces as we had all stared at down at the girl on the ground, blood leaking out onto the cement. The way people backed away from me and the rumors spread like wild fire.
They made it seem like I was the devil when I had just been fighting through demons. I was fed up and the girl had been bullying me all the way into seventh grade; I was already going off the rails because of my mom and...that day just wasn't the day. I didn't mean to take that girl's life but I also reclaimed my own in a way, that day.
I'm better now. And I will live.
Even if I have to keep the old me in a forgotten dumpster...I just can't let her be found.
"Linda Rogers?"
Linda raised her hand up boredly, as the teacher scanned the classroom. "Alrighttt," he mumbled, continuing.
"Hey, do you have an IG?" Linda asked me after a moment. I got off COD Mobile, and tried not to give her an annoyed look. "No. Not into that."
She looked embarrassed, like I had implied that she shouldn't be into social media either, or something.
"You gotta Snap?" I asked, sighing. That I did have. It was from ninth grade, but whatever. I didn't really even have friends to text. My other middle school one's never text me back from the one year I spent there, and all the people at my old high school were dry texting.
I'm starting to think I'm the problem or something.
"Bet," Linda smiled.
Was she hittin' on me? Was that it? I self consciously brushed my hair away from my face, trying to get a better look at her phone. "Put the scannin' thing up there and I'll add you," I told her.
After we had each other added, I went back to my game. The teacher was done with role and he told us we didn't have anything else planned for today except him passing out the syllabus and classroom expectations and shit.
