all the stars

~ seven ~

My alarm went off, startling me as I sat straight up and began to rub my eyes. Sunday had been a blur of movies, snacks, youtube, and, well, just more snacks. Per usual. I pull my blankets off me as my fuzzy-socked-feet hit the ground. I yawned as I made my way to the shower and grabbed my towel somewhere along the way. My eyes were hardly open, so I couldn't really tell. If you somehow got that I was a morning person, you were way wrong.

I managed to get the shower running and let the water warm up as I brushed through my hair. I traced the scars skimming my body. My wrists, my ankles, my chest... I blinked away my tears and pushed away the darkness that started to creep inside me. I tried to shower without thinking of anything, but it's nearly impossible. Why do girls tend to be so thought obsessed?

I shut off the water, needing to do something else. I dried myself and looked into my oversized closet for clothing guidance. I pulled out a pair of distressed jeans and a baby blue T-shirt. After I was dressed I dried my hair and slipped on my white sneakers. I looked into my mirror as I clasped my necklace around my neck, the star charm dangling over my throat. My eyes were puffy and bags were taking up residence beneath them. I didn't sleep well last night. The nightmares won't leave me alone.

I put on some concealer to hide my lack of sleep and some blush and mascara to accompany it. Sighing, I slipped my backpack over my shoulder and ran downstairs to get into my car. My boring car ride to school all by my lonely. I didn't have many friends in California but I do miss the ones I did have.

The ride to school was silent, painful. Leaving me all alone with my thoughts. When i arrived in the parking lot, i was relieved to open my door and be overwhelmed by noise. The school band was marching in the field, the football team was jogging down the road, and the first bell rang, demanding my presence in Psychology.

Gripping the handle on my backpack tightly, I weaved my way through the crowds in the halls. Everyone was trying to get their last free minutes in before enduring the toture that is school. I stopped at my locker only briefly to grab my notebook then made my way to 215.

"Good morning, Miss Kensington!" Mrs. Carmichael practically sang as she took attendance for the day. I politely responded, but in my head all I could think was, "good morning indeed". I set my backpack down next to my chair, perhaps a bit too aggressively, and i looked up to see Hayleigh giving me a weird look.

"What's got you all worked up this morning?" She inquired. As if she needed to know.

"I woke up too late and ran out of time to eat breakfast. Now I'm starving." It was halfway truthful, because I was really hungry and didn't have time to eat, but Hayleigh didn't look like she believed me either way.

So she just responded by throwing me a donut-yes, a literal, freaking DONUT-and I gave her a grateful, but wary smile. "Do you just carry these things around?"

"I stopped at Dunkin' this mornin'. So yeah, mostly every morning." She shrugged as if it were perfectly normal. And perhaps it was. I looked at her petite frame that Allegra would kill for and wondered how she could stay so small eating like this every morning. Maybe I'm not the only one with my super power, I laughed to myself. Eating the donut did improve my mood and the class seemed to pass rather quickly.

"So, I have decided this year I'm going to be doing something different with this class. And the other Psych classes I teach as well. I have talked it over with the principal and he thinks it is a great experiment and that it can be used greatly for future purposes. So that way the project isn't too easy, since all of you are already acquainted in this class, I will pair each of you up with someone from my fifth period group. This experiment will be based on tells and emotions. What are your tells, class? What do you do out of nervousness? What do you do when you're angry? How do you react when you're happy? All of this will be found out over the course of a month, because I believe that is the amount of time it takes to at least break open someone's shell and get comfortable. I know you guys will hate me for this, but it is a good skill to have, being able to tell when someone is lying to you, nervous, angry even though they try to hide it. You guys will have to spend as much time together as possible to get to know each other, so I'll do my best to make the pairing as painless as possible. However, school has just started, so we are not going to start on this quite yet. I will let you know who you are going to be paired with at the end of the week. Now, class dismissed!"