Black Elm College | 18+

Chapter 7: Elsie

Being late brings all the attention to me and incur my Math teacher's wrath.

I slip into the same seat as yesterday, already tired, and set a notebook and a pen on the table.

Suddenly, a foot violently nudges my leg and I am ready to send a dirty look to someone when I lift my gaze to a familiar face. My annoyance collapses into dust.

"Alix!" I whisper-hiss happily.

She doesn't turn her head but I can definitely see her smile. For a moment, I am afraid she will start ignoring me so as not to damage her reputation, just like everyone else seems so adamant to. I put away my enthusiasm when she nods, almost imperceptibly, toward what I realize is the teacher heading toward me.

As I lift my gaze up, she sends me a dirty look and gives me a once over which seems to displease her.

Well, someone is uptight about punctuality. I am too, so I can't blame her.

Fortunately, I just have to show her the piece of paper for her to stop leveling me with looks but she still behaves angrily, especially toward me.

As math still bores me out of my mind, I scribble on my notebook, draw even if I suck at it. First, she first asks me to answer a trick question just when I was finishing the frame of a penguin in the margin. Then, as soon as I mouth "Hi, how are you?" to Alix, she asks her to do the logarithm study on the blackboard. And as much as I am lucky this is a subject I excel at, this is definitely not Alix's forte and I just put her in a bad situation.

I finish all the exercises and keep drawing for the remaining time.

"Sorry." I apologize to Alix as soon as we're out of this class.

"That's fine." she chuckles. "As long as Bryan doesn't hear about it, it's worth the face she made when you answered the question and she couldn't find anything to say about it. How are you?"

"Fine, I guess... You?"

"I'm good. Why were you late, by the way?"

I'm glad I'm not one to blush easily and just roll my eyes.

"Timothy made me late." I glance at the late slip. "Can every dom just justify lateness with just a piece of paper? That's..."

She winks at me.

"Only yours. I've got to get going. See you at lunch."

The morning turns out a lot better than the last or than I expected. I put my headphones on my way to the next class, my current favorite songs play and just like that, I am in an amazing mood. Moreover, the wary looks I was at first given are still there, there are some scowls but also some tentative smiles.

In Business management, I sit at the back, just next to a very friendly guy. His name is Nicholas, he is slender. The first thing he says is "I know I look like a mop. Don't laugh, I need a haircut." as his brown hair falls in front of his eyes most of the time. He cracks jokes every few minutes, shyly at first but more freely when I joke around too.

For the next two classes, my neighbors aren't as outgoing but at least they say "hi" and I still get on with Claire, a shy girl that I don't know much of. Needless to say, lunch is frosty. Tim is friendly although reserved with everyone at the table except me. Of course, he has to be nasty with my annoying self. Every time I think our interactions will get better because he behaves barely nicely — which for him is "not being a total asshole" — he proves me wrong by being even worse just after.

Savanna is I don't know where, and I don't complain.

The afternoon is when everything goes to hell. I really have no clue why but out of nowhere, a lot of people give me judgemental looks every two steps I take. My headphones come in handy and I withdraw into my own world until the next class. Twice, the same girl tries to trip me up. I easily dodge and just roll my eyes. But of course that's not it. I glance her way once and spot her and her friends chat in a low voice, snickering while glancing my way.