Left Behind | ONGOING |

Chapter Two: A School Day

L E V I

Pro tip: never lend your favorite pencil to the person sitting next to you in lecture hall. 

Unfortunately, I can't seem to take my own advice, since the brunette next to me was chewing on my pencil. 

There was no way in hell I was taking that shit back.

I'll probably make some sort of excuse, like "Hey, you know the pencil I lent you? It's something that I'm weirdly sentimental about. But hey, that's perfectly fine! Take my pencil since you're already taking up my armrest as well!"

Yeah, that sounds perfectly reasonable. 

Drumming my fingers lightly against my thigh, I tried not to give her the stink-eye while zoning back in to my professor. All he was talking about is the syllabus for the first semester. The thing is, however, was that I searched everything up on the school website before classes even started. Everything Mr. Jenkins was talking about at that moment was scribbled down neatly in my notebook, allowing me to observe my surroundings. 

I was currently in my first period class - English - and the lecture hall I was sitting in was holding  sixty students. In fact, there were around two thousand students in freshman year alone. How they made any of this work is a wonder to me. 

I was squeezed in the middle of my row, surrounded by inattentive teenagers texting on their phones, or just zoning out. I can't really say anything, though, I wasn't really paying attention either. At that moment, the bell rang, and students began to gather their possessions. 

"--and that's all the time we have today. Have a great day everyone." Mr. Jenkins smiled, gesturing towards the exit. 

As I made my way down the staircase, a voice from behind me made me turn around. 

"Oh! Here's your pencil." 

The brunette who had sat next to me held out my precious writing utensil. The once sharp tip was down to a stub, and there were teeth marks on every inch of it. I shot her a strained smile. 

"It's alright, you can keep it." I replied through gritted teeth, trying to keep a glare off my face. "I didn't like it that much anyway." 

 Without another word, I spun around and entered the bustling hallway. 

~*~

At least the school isn't stupid enough to have every student eat lunch at the same time. All freshmen did have lunch all at once, though, which was chaos in itself. 

Entering the cafeteria, I took note of how many people were in each line, and made for the shortest one. Even then, there were at least twenty people in front of me. Letting out a heavy sigh, I began to wonder if I would even be able to eat lunch that day. Shrugging my bag off my shoulder, I began to rummage through it for my student ID. Pulling it out, I scrutinized my photo in all its bad-timing glory. 

My light brown hair was messier than usual - which is always a plus - and my pale hazel eyes were squinting in bewilderment. To top it off, my mouth was pulled into a beautiful scowl. Essentially, I looked like a disaster. 

Then again, what else was new?

When I finally got to the front of the line, I scanned my ID, smiling at the frizzy-haired woman behind the register. 

'Free lunch?' She mouthed, taking into consideration that I might not want those behind me in line to know. My smile grew wider as I nodded. I honestly didn't care - food was food - but it was nice that she thought about my feelings.