𝙎𝙖𝙛𝙚𝙩𝙮 𝙉𝙚𝙩 ❦ 𝙉𝙚𝙬𝙩 ᵐᵃᶻᵉ ʳᵘⁿⁿᵉʳ

𝟷.𝟑 : 𝚂𝐨 𝙼𝐮𝚌𝐡 𝚂𝐰𝚎𝐚𝚝

          𝙎𝙒𝙀𝘼𝙏. 𝙎𝙊 𝙈𝙐𝘾𝙃 𝙎𝙏𝙄𝘾𝙆𝙔, itchy, nasty sweat that covered her entire body in a nice thin coat. It dripped from her hairline into her eyes, from her nose into her mouth. Her skin was fried and red from sunburns and the heat was unbearable. Just that morning, four people had to be sent to the Med-Jacks because of it. Disgusting could not even begin to describe how she felt, but nonetheless, she continued to haul ass on a house-in-progress alongside Gally and the other Builders.

          Throughout the nine days of work, the murmurs of her being seen as a weak girl were driving her insane. All day, every day, a pack of rude boys would intentionally try to degrade her with their words before they even truly knew her and her capability to do just as much work as the rest of them.

          I give her two more days before she gets all bossy and needy and I run into the Maze myself... At least we finally have a woman in the Glade to take care of some light housekeeping, those poor suckers won't have to Slop anymore... She's probably just here to repopulate... She won't last another day here—she's a useless shuckin' twig.

          Despite the fact that their criticism bothered her almost as much as the swarm of gnats that refused to leave her alone, she chose to ignore it and prove them wrong, that she wasn't and wouldn't be weak and useless. She had made it through nine days of hard, tiring work in the Glade with only five days left before Nick would finally assign her a place and to say the least, she was kicking some ass at those jobs—a direct quote from Gally. The work was exhausting but it felt good knowing she wasn't allowed special treatment to slack off. They treated her like one of them; a Glader. At least, some of them did. A handful of them was respectful and willing to give her a chance and she appreciated every last bit of it.

          Gally finally released them for lunch after every last support beam was secured in place. She was excited to eat and not because of the food itself, but because of her new friends Dmitri, Scott, and Gally too. She was pretty bummed that she wouldn't be able to work with them until after lunch, but at least she could see them at lunch before it was too hot to even speak.

          It was quite an interesting story of the day they met: on her day as a Track-Hoe, a boy by the name of Simon—being the supposed clumsy person he was—had lost his balance while reaching for an apple on a too-high-up branch and fell. It resulted in Simon knocking the poor girl out of the tree. Oddly and lucky enough, just below the branches was Scott and Dmitri carrying the long and heavy trunk of a tree towards their current project. Scott seemed to be at the right place at the right time as the trunk slipped from his grip and he effortlessly yet unintentionally caught her before she hit the ground.

          "Way to go, Scott, you finally got a girl to fall for you!" Laughter erupted at Dmitri's joke and she scrambled out of Scott's hold. After the humiliated girl shamefully adjusted her clothing and snatched her missing left boot from the ground to frustratedly shove her foot back inside, Dmitri struck up a conversation and plopped down next to her to begin picking leaves and twigs out of her hair. Their company only lasted about ten minutes because Gally started shouting at them to get back to work. But since then, she ate her meals with those same two builders every day.

          And they drove her nuts.

          Never would she have thought boys could be any more wild and immature. Dmitri, Scott, and Gally seemed to have proved her wrong, they were like children. Gally was the one she least expected it from, he was always so serious about building and was usually barking orders at everyone.

          Every day someone would get food thrown at them or a chair pulled out from under them by the three rambunctious Builders. And even though it happened every day, it never got old. In a place like the Glade, really anything remotely humorous was needed and they were the ones who happened to provide it. She could hardly follow their boyish humor and inappropriate jokes, but she would pretend to every day even if that meant she had to take a grape or two to the eye (or two).