Dead Girl Walking ― Aaron Minyard

15. this is me trying

i've been having a hard time adjusting
i had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting
― taylor swift

♦

MORNING PRACTICE ENDED AT EIGHT THE NEXT MORNING so the Foxes could get to their first class on time. Mara had been unlucky enough to be saddled with eight-thirty classes Monday through Thursday, which she blamed primarily on Andrew's insistence on picking out her schedule. She understood the need not to be alone better than anyone (she'd grown up with the same pair-system rule as every Raven), but she didn't appreciate being forced to take such early classes just to prevent it. 

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she had general psychology with Aaron, who looked just as pleased about the early morning class as she did. 

She let him lead the way to their class, trying to memorize the route as they went. Every eight-thirty class she had was in Cothran, which was the building that housed the social science classes and, by pure luck, Mara's freshman composition class. 

Everywhere she looked she saw orange. Apparently most of the athletes at PSU had enough school spirit to wear their jerseys on the first day of classes. Strangely, Mara stuck out more in a plain t-shirt and jeans than in the obnoxious school colors. 

Even so, hardly anyone gave her a second glance. She'd gone with Renee and Allison to the mall the other day to pick up a full-coverage concealer. It was a bit overkill, since she'd be outed by the ERC tomorrow morning and everyone would know who she was (tattoo or not), but she wanted one day where people looked at her and didn't see a number. 

Was that really too much to ask?

"Come on," Aaron said as they reached the building. "You're going to make me late."

Mara glanced at one of many clocks on the walls (seriously, wasn't five in one hallway a bit much?) and scowled at him. "It's eight-fifteen. Class starts at eight-thirty."

"If you're not early, you're late," he said, leading her to the stairwell. 

Mara rolled her eyes. "Teacher's pet," she mumbled under her breath, pretending not to see his glare. 

Aaron led the way into their classroom, and she belatedly realized this was the first time she'd ever been in an actual classroom before. She'd been homeschooled in one of the conference rooms at Evermore, and before that she'd been "homeschooled" at her father's house (with more knives than pencils involved). 

They were the third and fourth people in the room, since they were fairly early. She and Aaron sat down at one of the two-person desks, a row away from the very back. 

"I'll walk you to your art history lecture, then Nicky'll walk you to the library for your tutoring hours, but since it's the first day, it'll just be a meet-and-greet with your tutoring adviser," Aaron said. "Andrew said Renee'll meet you outside of the library for lunch."

Mara raised an eyebrow. "I'm aware of my own schedule. I thought Andrew was the mother hen out of you two."

Aaron made a face. "For all I know, you have a shit memory."

"Well, I don't," Mara said.

It wasn't long before their professor—a surprisingly young woman who seemed far too awake for an eight-thirty class—arrived and class began. 

Introductions and questions about the syllabus took up the entire block, and eventually she and Aaron were heading to their next classes. 

The walk from Cothran to Johnson and Davis took about ten minutes, though Mara estimated that a good three minutes of that was because of the foot traffic they had to deal with. She and Aaron separated at the fork in the path.