Something Bad

Chapter Ten: Leather Jacket, Converse, and All

      How he had landed himself into the AP English class was simply by convenience. It was the only period of juniors’ English that fit his schedule, so he was simply placed by chance. I, on the other hand, was there for a reason. Somewhere on my journey within the past three years, the administration had figured out that I actually took rather well to the class, didn’t cause scenes, and—for the most part—treated it as “real” class. Consequently, I was enlisted in AP English and, surprisingly, was not failing. I liked English.

      I sat down in the center seat of the first row, and Preston took the seat to my left, closer to the door. He began to text (either a friend of his from the sports scene or a girl), and I turned to my own devices: my notebook. I began to flip through the pages, coming across the multiple sheets that I had reserved space to write a composition for this particular class last week. Eventually, I had finished the assignment about the challenges faced by teens, and was relatively satisfied with my work.

      “Olivia!” someone called in a sickly-sweet manner that I just knew was fake. Begrudgingly, I lifted my eyes from scanning what I had written and stared up at a tall brunette girl with a headband and her hair tied back tightly, twirled into a coherent corkscrew. She was an Ivy Leaguer. Being consistent with my terrible remembrance of names and the fact that this was the only class I shared with the girl, I knew who she was, but I didn’t know her name, and, frankly, didn’t care.

      She was the type of girl who tried to act nice to everyone, but secretly was just a control freak who liked everything to go her way. Academically, she put too much (in my opinion) effort into school, accordingly becoming one of the top students in our grade. Her clothes ranged from collared shirts and colored pants to sweaters and flats. My parents had probably hoped for a girl like her when thinking about the different breeds of children there were. Based on her fierceness and dedication in the class, I guessed that she was leaning towards a profession in the law—much like my mother had.

      There was just something about her that didn’t resonate well with me. She was always so neat and organized with her planner and appearance, and never seemed to let loose. I wasn’t one to care about others’ clothes, but I had noticed that not once during the duration of the year had she worn normal blue jeans, like the majority of the population at THE Academy (sweatpants and yoga pants were banned, for the admissions department wanted the school to look “perfect” when they took perspective families around on tours). We rarely talked to one another, because I didn’t like communicating with people verbally had Preston, while she had others in the class far more “interesting” than me to converse with. Her addressing me now was a little more than strange, in my mind.

      “Hi,” I waveringly greeted.

      “How are you?” Her tone was animated, but her eyes looked sympathetic. “I heard about the,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “in-house suspension.”

      “I’m fine,” I said neither returning the question nor wondering how she had learned of my whereabouts over the past week. We went to THE Academy. Though it was slightly larger than normal private school, it still wasn’t that big of a school, so gossip was inevitable.

      “Oh, that’s nice,” she commented, sending me a reserved smile. “Did you finish the paper?”

      “Yeah,” I shrugged easily, already sensing condemnation from her forced expression. She was one of the people in the class who didn’t think that I belonged. Her class load consisted of most likely only APs, whereas English was the only class they entrusted me to take at a higher level. She knew that I could write, and was probably not the happiest about the close relationship that the teacher and I shared.