Classroom X

day one: guilt

There was no one inside the girls's washroom except for Nike. She'd shut herself inside a toilet and plopped herself down on the closed closet lid. She turned a steel tap open all the way and shoved a bucket beneath the gushing water, creating a suitably loud racket inside the cramped space. Then she slapped herself hard across her own face.

Not a second later, she slapped herself from the other side. Back to the first. Then the second. Left cheek, right cheek, until her palms burned and her face went numb from the pain.

Stupid, stupid, stupid girl.

Crazy bitch.

Just beat yourself to death.

Nike didn't know if she would have felt this guilty if she had voted for Emryse too. But she hadn't. She'd voted for Eliot Gardien. She'd cast her vote on the boy she loved—the first and only boy she's ever loved.

What would she have done if Eliot had actually been the one who got killed instead?

The thought made her send another merciless slap across her face.

For someone who was convinced she was the smartest girl in class, she was still capable of performing the dumbest acts.

She'd went to nearly eleven months worth of classes with Eliot before she even noticed him. She'd seen him in passing plenty of times, but nothing about him had stood out, he was too meek, too unremarkable. Someone who was destined to be invisible his entire life. He wasn't ignored on purpose like Emryse was, he just never seemed to leave an impression on anyone.

Until one day Nike was biking down a dark alleyway of the city and ran into a gangster fight. A bunch of thugs in their twenties was beating up a screaming boy to a bloody pulp. The sight made her wince: it was that bad. But she resolved to slip away— wisdom dictated that she stay out of other people's businesses—only to turn back when she saw a slight silver-haired boy step in to stop the fight.

It took her an entire minute to even recall that this boy was called Eliot, and that he went to her school. She was curious. What was this maiden-faced, gullible-looking boy going to do?

Somehow Eliot didn't have to shout to get the thugs's attention. They became conscious of his presence without him needing to do anything to announce it. They stopped battering the kid to bark at Eliot for showing up at places he shouldn't be in.

"Leave him alone," Eliot had pleaded. "He's hurt pretty bad."

"You his brother or something?" one of the street boys snapped at him.

"I don't know who he is."

"Then stay out of our business." The thug pulled the bleeding, bruised boy from the cobbled floor and went to punch him again. But then Eliot grabbed his arm to stop him. "Stop. That's enough."

"This piece of turd here owes us thirty thousand bucks. We won't leave him alone until he pays up to the last coin."

"Please," the boy pleaded. "Give me a month. I can arrange the money by then."

The thug sneered. "We extended the due date for you three times. You don't get any more chances."

"But please. This time I really can do it."

"Do it in your dreams." The thug twisted the boy's wrist and even from where Nike stood, hidden among the shadows, she heard the ensuing snap. The boy screamed aloud.

"Beat him to death. Then we'll plunder his house. He's got a beauty for a sister. Maybe we should try selling her for the money."

"No. Don't." the boy begged through his pain.