Little Annotations | Tristan Dugray

chapter six

Genevieve sat uncomfortably in her seat, shuffling around every few seconds- she could feel someone's eyes on her, Tristan's to be specific. Normally, she'd be focused on whatever was being taught, but Mr. Medina was teaching an Emily Dickinson poem, which was horribly morbid in her opinion. So she did the second-best option, she pretended to be paying attention as she continued writing her book. It was close to being finished, she was sure of it, a chapter or two more, and it'd be ready for absolutely no one to read. Tristan would've been the only person who would've had a slimmer chance to read her writing besides Delphine. Now, she was ready to die with the book unread.

"Mr. Dugray!" Mr. Medina said. She felt the desk behind her make a noise as he slightly jumped from his seat.

"Yes sir?"

"Is Miss Clairmont's head that interesting that you have yet to open your book?" He asked.

He sighed, "I already read it,"

"You?" Mr. Medina raised a quizzical brow, "You read Emily Dickinson, willingly?"

"I annotated it too," Tristan added in a tone that said fuck you, Max, I did the work!. Of course, he never dared to say it out loud.

"Right..." He said, turning back to the rest of the class, "There's a certain slant of light, winter afternoons that oppresses like the heft of cathedral tunes." He continued to talk until the bell rang. Genevieve was the first one out of the class, and immediately opened her locker. The Dickinson book on Tristan's desk looked familiar- too familiar. It had the same rips that she made when she accidentally threw it towards her ceiling fan out of annoyance, and the color-coded sticky notes and annotation tabs that she put. She was almost sure that it was her copy, and she needed it for the paper tonight.

Madeline sighed, watching as Mr. Medina walked down the hall into the teacher's lounge"I could listen to him talk all day, do you think he's dating anyone?"

"Of course he is," Louise said.

"A teacher?"

"Please," She scoffed, "Have you seen teachers?"

"He's a teacher,"

"Male teachers are different! They can still be mysterious," Louise said, which caused Hestia to make a face.

"Stop talking about him like that- he's old enough to be your dad,"

"Speaking of dads..." Madeline and Louise turned towards Paris, shamelessly smiling.

"Whoever's dating Mr. Medina is a loser, who doesn't care that he's a teacher in this ridiculous school, making a ridiculous teacher's salary," Paris said loudly, catching Rory's attention, "What are you looking at?"

"Guess someone read the paper today..." Louise laughed and Genevieve slammed her locker closed.

"Oh stop being a fucking bitch Louise! You've been making comments for the past week now!" Genevieve snapped, "Isn't your dad in jail? Do you want us to turn the conversation topic on to that?"

'Someone's upset that Tristan still hasn't spoken to her," Louise snapped back, but proceeded to walk away with Madeline on her tail.

"I don't need you to defend me Clairmont,"

"You shut up too," She said, "You know damn well that if this were anyone else you'd be gossiping right along with them. I didn't do that for you, they were starting to sound like a broken record,"

She left Paris staring at her in awe as she stormed down the hall, the opposite direction of their next class. Genevieve knew that if she planned on skipping, she would need a note to back her story up, so she decided to make one of her own. She'd been forging signatures since she was in the fifth grade, one glance of a signature, and she had it replicated in seconds.