Till Next Time | completed | currently under re-edit

10

10

We were a month deep into the vortex of the school year when Richard Baker finally returned.

His absence wasn't talked about, much like his acquittal. Everyone knew better than to stir the dead puddle back to life.
Simultaneously, Harvey disappeared from our lunch table and Anastasia did not like it one bit.

"I have a very bad feeling about this." She drums her fingers against the metal of the table. "If I had legs, they'd be tapping right now."

"You do have legs. You just can't use them." We have long reached that basis of friendship.

She slaps my hand. "Don't be a smartass. I'm being serious."

I sigh. "You just have to trust him. He has already proved to be stronger than we gave him credit for."

"It is not Harvey I lack faith in. It's Baker." She shoots him a dirty look across the cafeteria and mutters, "That son of a bitch."

His back to us, Richard Baker, quite oblivious to our existence, continues to hang with his locker room buddies.

"I still can't believe he got away with it," I say.

Anastasia sneers bitterly. "You have no idea what people can and do get away with."

Previously, I had never bothered to attend my classes after lunch. Heck, I wouldn't even attend lunch. I walked right out after the bell to recess invited the whole faculty into the cafeteria, no one to cross my path and no one asks me questions, and just drove around the city.

Then one day Harvey told me if we do not meet the attendance criteria close to the semester, they call in and make you attend summer school, and I had to figure out a way to stay in.

James Madison had been one hair breadth away from escaping Washington, but for the girl in front of me who whips out her phone and gasps.

"Holy shit, Karen. Check your phone."

Mrs. Murphy, the History teacher, turns to her. "Cindy, put that device down."

Ping! Ping! Ping!

Soon the entire class is reaching inside their bags or their pockets, pulling their phones out and breaking into a discussion.

Mrs. Murphy raises her voice. "No phones in the class!" But her presence had long lost its significance.

I feel my phone vibrate against my thigh.

A new text message from Anastasia Collins.

Get out of class.

I could almost read the panic etched behind each letter.

Is everything alright? I write back.

I have a very bad feeling about this. Her words send a cold and lingering shiver down my spine. Just come to my Chemistry homeroom and bail me out, I'll tell you everything.

My classroom erupts into a clueless commotion as I stand up to leave.

"Where do you think you are going!" Mrs. Murphy shouts out in frustration.

"I'm sorry, it was my mother. Something is wrong with her, I have to go."

I do not wait for her to finish before I slam the door shut between us.

Anastasia looked close enough to tears when I excused her out of class under the pretext of her father suffering a stroke mid-office.

I wheel her and stop just outside the classroom. "I'm not moving an inch until you tell me what's up."