retrograde.

;eight

chapter eight: start a fire just to watch it burn.

The next day, my school fucks me over in the best way possible.

After a scheduling malfunction, I'm no longer in my English class. It all started when I strolled on to my third period American Lit. class, ready to delve into the writings of Ernest Hemingway and his For Whom The Bell Tolls, I'm told by my lovely teacher, Mrs. Lee, that I'm no longer in the class. Even after arguing and potentially embarrassing myself in front of the entire class, she doesn't listen. Even after I reminder that I've been in this class everyday since the beginning of the school year. But she simply tells me to "Talk to guidance about it."

So I walk across the school building to talk to guidance about why I no longer have an English class. After five minutes of trying to talk to the lady behind the desk, who's busy yabbering on the phone, I finally get a chance to air my grievances.

"I'm not sure what happened, but Mrs. Lee says I'm not in her class anymore. I tried to explain it to her but she told me to come down here and talk to you guys." I say all in one breath.

The lady quickly explains, "Changes to the schedule are susceptible in the first few weeks of the school year. This seems to be your case."

She takes the green paper out of my hand that is my schedule and crosses out American Literature and writes something else in its place.

"You will now be taking Creative Writing." She says with a forced smile and hands me back my schedule.

Creative Writing. Something I never thought I would take. That was for people who were talented with words and were actually, well, creative, as the name of the course says. That was not my specialty. Because I had no idea how to write a story, poem, a play, or anything of the sort.

I have heard of the teacher, though. His name is Mr. Rolland. He's either in his late-twenties or mid-thirties, an English major graduate, Jewish, and is known for assigning large amounts of homework to his students. So for this reason, I know for a fact an F is in my near future.

I look on my schedule and see that it's on the 2nd floor, room 218. Shoving the schedule in my bag, I tread on to the room with nothing on my mind, but a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach because I just know for a fact that all eyes are going to be on me when I enter that room. Through the window of the door, I see that there's about twelve other students in the class. One of which is Ansley, and the other is Violet. My eyes almost pop out of my head when I see the girl I'm completely infatuated with and the girl I want to be friends with.

I sure hope they don't change my class again.

My hand reaches for the knob, and I turn it. When it creaks open, Rolland stops teaching and the students stop listening. Their eyes dart to me, expressionless. I look at Ansley, and her eyebrows are raised with curiosity. Violet, is the same.

"May I help you, sir?" Rolland asks.

Rolland is a man of middle height. He's wearing a blue dress shirt with slacks. His hair is brown that's balding in the middle, and a full beard that he keeps trimmed. He wears square-framed glasses. In his left hand he has a blue thermos that's seemingly filled with water and a marker in his right. On the board, written neatly in black marker, reads "Creative Writing".

I awkwardly shuffle, and hold up my green schedule and keeping my eyes glued to Rolland to avoid looking at the people who are looking at me. "Um, I was switched from American Literature to this class."

His face lights up and he speed walks to his desk, "Ah, yes. Casper Clark, right?"

I nodded and pursed my lips, keeping my gaze only on him. "That would be me, sir."