i hate it here

Chapter 4 - Green Eyed Monster

River is staring intensely across the room at Eve and someone who looks vaguely familiar. Maybe someone she's seen in the hall or something. She barely registered her name during attendance and after that, she was trying to read lips.

What were they talking about?! Ms. Prissy Pants was on the verge of an anxiety attack in the hall and now all of a sudden she's playing nice with... Chloe? She didn't really have time decency to remember since River's brain capacity is half focused on the context of their conversation and the other half confused on why she gives a damn.

When she's snapped out of reverie it's because everyone starts shuffling around and they haven't a clue why. Everyone starts moving to the back of the class and she quickly gets up and finds themselves ducking and dodging around others to get to Eve. They convince themselves that they're just going to ask her for help and not... they're just going to ask for help.

"I could bring more tomorrow if you'd like" She hears...Kim? Ask Eve, but River doesn't give her a chance to respond.

"Hey Ms. Straight A's" River teases. Eve must be used to the name calling at this point because she turns around like it's her given name.

"Oh hey River! This is Claire!" She says and gestures towards the other person. They give her sort of a half-wave.

River just replies with a "Hey" and turns back to Eve as if Claire had just disappeared "So what are we doing. I kinda zoned out and I figured you would know" sounding a little too friendly.

"Oh, I actually don't know. I was about to ask Claire before you found us." And she turns back to Claire.

"Oh, we're just grabbing sketchbooks, pencils and erasers." But the whole time she delivers their teacher's orders, she gives River this puzzling look, like she's trying to figure out why she even exists.

"...Right" River says, not being able to look away from that look.

"Ok then. Watching you is like watching a very slow game of tennis" Evelyn and Claire share a glance and start laughing.

"Um... okay?" River is mostly confused and just a tad hurt. It's like they're making fun of her.

Eve wipes away an absent tear "Sorry, sorry it's just that..." she looks back to Claire and starts chuckling.

"Okay were you gonna spit it out or..." River crosses their arms over their chest, starting to get a little irritated.

"Right, sorry. It's just that Claire and I were recounting some of our tennis matches." And there goes Claire laughing again.

"Wait you play tennis. Y'know what that actually makes a lot of sense" River says

"Whadda you mean?" Eve says tipping her head to the side. Goddesses, If looks could kill.

"It's just so...." River gesturing toward Eve "you."

Eve and Claire look at each other and just shrug and then looks back at River, almost simultaneously.

"Whatever" River just rolls her eyes and walks past them, brushing by Claire. She grabs her things and makes her way back to her seat.

"Well that was weird" They hear Claire say as she is about to walk past them for a second time. In the heat of the moment, she kicks the back of her doc martens, because of course she wears docs, causing Claire to be off-balance for a second.

As she passes them, they turn to walk backwards and says "Oh my gosh! I am so sorry" and turn around to go sit down.

Ok so maybe that wasn't the right move, but what's done is done. By time the teacher starts explaining the work, they turn back to look at the two looking back at them.