Storm Boi 🌩️ (ON HOLD)

Part 8

Mercifully, I made it down the three flights of stairs to English Lit before the tsunami of students crested, giving me a few minutes to collect myself. I nodded in silent greeting to the other early arrivals - Molly Green, Kyle Mercer, and Sarah Eastman, the same four of us as always. Each of them had the badges that marked them as fellow outcasts; Molly another manga tome, a different one each day; Kyle with his thick-rimmed glasses that had been broken and retaped a thousand times; Sarah with her phone, a Pokemon-style game cued up and glittering on the HD screen like a fallen star.

I had...well, me.

I let my backpack fall to the floor with a heavy fwump, pretending not to notice as Mr. Burgess shot me a peevish glare from behind his desk. His selective hearing was one of the worst-kept secrets at Grant High; everyone knew it was just a couple more years until his retirement pension kicked in, so like the rest of us, he was just riding things out until he could escape.

Pride and Prejudice was as good a camouflage as any as I slumped down into my desk at the back of the room. I opened the book to a random page, pretending to be catching up on today's assignment as a way to keep myself from staring at the door. Accidentally making eye contact with anyone who came in after the four pariahs was an invitation to trouble, and I had enough on my mind this morning.

The girl. Somehow it felt weird not knowing her name - not that I wanted to, of course. Names made everything harder. If I was lucky she'd be a grade below me and I'd never have to run into her again...but I'd never been the lucky type.

I hunched lower, knitting my eyebrows into a determined scowl as the first of the arrivals from the cafeteria began trickling into the classroom. My eyes moved over the page like a sopping sponge, not absorbing anything, and I focused on the typeface, glaring at the sensible flourishes like I was trying to burn a hole in the book with some hitherto-undiscovered laser vision.

My skin prickled unpleasantly as I heard the main herd approaching from down the hall, their boisterous laughter echoing off the cinder block walls like Scar's minions.

Here we go...another day in hell.

The comparison was too apt, if anything. I instinctively looked to the doorway as the cacophony crescendoed, only to find myself staring right in the face of evil.

Danny's hand moved to his temple as he swung around the corner from the corridor - probably just brushing a dirty blonde curl off his forehead, a mindless habit of his, but to me it always looked like something more. The deep, crimson laceration was mostly gone now, but I could still pick out the ghostly pink line of the scar, even from this distance.

Danny was talking to Maya Archibald, something that'd doubtless make Vanessa howl with well-founded jealousy were she here to see it - but as he passed in front of Mr. Burgess's desk, he looked right at me. The corner of his mouth jerked upward in a tight smirk as his watery blue eyes narrowed, and I knew the gesture was on purpose.

Wad.

Something squeaked just below my ear, and I realized I'd been clenching my jaw hard enough to make my teeth protest. Not like a lack of molars is gonna make this any easier, Hartley. It took immense effort to relax, and I mostly ended up transferring my barely-restrained loathing into my fingers, gripping the book hard enough to make the cover warp.

Danny sauntered over to his desk and made a show of languidly settling himself in. It wasn't an illusion, either; I could feel the entire class orienting toward him, the popular clique's hangers-on desperately trying to catch his gaze while everyone else just as desperately tried to avoid it. If Grant High had its own personal Joffrey, right now he was sitting fifteen feet in front of me.

Some of the more cruel and unusual teachers assigned seats, but at least Mr. Burgess was checked-out enough to let us have that tiny scrap of autonomy. The empty seats stuck out like lunar craters, pockmarking the otherwise tumultuous array of conjoined chair-desks, but I could see everything here from my back corner. It afforded a decent view of today's just-before-the-bell torture, as Danny's best friend Caleb "accidentally" slammed against Molly, sending her book tumbling to the grimy linoleum floor.

🌩️

Thanks for reading!!

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter for news
& announcements as I write STORM BOI for NaNoWriMo!

New chapters (more or less) daily :)

🌩️