Unhinged [h.s]

chapter 15

a/n: strap in. she's a beefy one

"Are you excited for English class?" Cam asks as she passes the cigarette back to me. The trees engrossing us casts shaped shadows over our faces, Camila's eyes glowing in the peak of sunlight that drown out her vision.

"Funny." I reply before taking a puff of the cigarette.

Currently it's our lunch period of our first day back from winter break. Neither of us wanted to sit in the grimy cafeteria surrounded by our measly peers, so we snuck out to the forrest behind the school to waste our hour long period. We've been caught back here far too many times without real punishment to care about the consequences.

"Oh, did you hear about the project in Calc?" She asks while wrapping her arms around her knees. It's way too cold to find this enjoyable, but we find comfort in the burn of the glowing cigarette.

"Yes, it's so stupid. We haven't even learned the material and she's assigning a project." I groan in retrospect of the class. Our teacher, Ms. Hallen, gave us a huge project for a summative grade on something that none of us have the first clue about. "Why are they even allowed to assign projects in math. That's practically an oxymoron."

I pass her back the dwindled down cigarette and pull the sleeve of my sweater back over my hand to encapsulate any warmth possible.

"I don't know but I'm just going to pay some junior in my class to do it for me." She declares confidently as she taps ash onto her rubber soled shoe.

I laugh at her remark, thinking about her viability in class and even college. "What happens when finals come around and you don't know any of the material on the test?"

"Bitch, I have an A. I'm exempting." Smoke dances out of her mouth and into the sunlight as she speaks. Her voice sounding like the texture of leather right now due to the repeated inhalation of carcinogens.

I snicker at her as I pick up my phone from on top of my back pack on a pile of leaves. "Shit. We should probably get back now. The bell rings in a few." I tell her as she passes the roach of the cigarette to me and I indulged on the last few inhales.

We gather up our belongings and dust off the dirt from our pants. As we walk back into the building we spray a few spritzes of an old, floral smelling, cheap perfume to mask the smell of tobacco as best as possible. It's no secret to the teachers that we engage in illegal activity behind the school during class breaks, but at this point they only send us to the office if they smell marijuana instead of cigar ash.

The late bell rings just as we get through the door to our classroom, taking our seats across the room from each other. This is one of the few teachers who follow the "strict" rule of school seating charts.

"Okay students." Mr. Turner says as he stands from his desk chair. "I do hope you guys finished your books, those of you who hadn't yet already."

He makes dead eye contact with me, even though I'm in the back of the class room. I avert my eyes to the wall as fast as possible.

"You surely had enough time." He continues as he grabs a marker from his table and walks to the white board to begin writing. As he spells out the words that have little importance to me, I pull my phone out of bag, this time checking it instead of briefly looking at the time.

I have one new text that peaks my interest, making me lean forward and crouch down slightly below the table top of desk.

You working tonight?

It's a text from Harry that he sent about half an hour ago. I try not to overthink his message or even my response, but it's hard all things considered. I open up my email to check and see if I even am working tonight. I assume so since James didn't tell me I shouldn't, but I check my email anyway.