"I never met a girl who makes me feel the way you do."
GET READY BY The Temptations played soundly in Sam's room as she got dressed for school. She hurriedly threw on a shirt she picked out the night before, a striped pale blue shirt, and slid into her jeans. She reminded herself to wear her thick socks as she searched for them in the midst of the small mess in her room. Her gym teacher wanted them to play dodgeball today, and it was better if she wasn't slipping in the shoes that Joyce outgrew.
Sam used to think that gym was fun. She used to think that school was fun. She used to want to go and learn something. Lucas once told her they taught anything and everything at school, as long as it stayed in the lines of the curriculum, or whatever that meant. She thought she'd learn about the small bugs that no one could see until they looked closer. Or about the bloody noses some people would get out of no where. She knew why she used to get hers, but why people without abilities got theres - without any physical reasons- was a mystery to her.
There was some part of Sam that still thought that school could be fun. She still liked to learn about things that would heal the younger side of her that never thought about things like photosynthesis or math equations that ended with letters instead of numbers. She still liked finding out about new things that dig deeper into what she thought was the end. She also liked art, especially painting.
She liked how it kept her awake in class, which she seemed to have a problem with. She was terrible at it but it was fun and whenever Will seemed to get the smallest smile out of looking at what she painted, she thought it was worth it.
"Whenever I'm asked who makes my dreams real, I say that you do," the radio hummed softly. Sam mouthed the lyrics to herself. "You're outta sight."
She even liked music. However, she didn't like that the girl next to her with the broken arm would blow her flute into Sam's ear whenever the teacher wasn't paying attention or how the same girl would step on her foot, rather harshly, to get Sam to go off key during practice and Sam would get called out in the middle of the class. When that would happen, the teacher would make them start over and for the rest of the class, everyone would send her nasty glares. Including the girl who was to blame for it in the first place. How quaint.
She was happy to ignore that when she had a soccer ball in front of her and a field full of girls her age. It was easy to pretend that no one was watching her then. It was also easier to pretend as though not having any friends didn't bother her. She made sure it didn't. It was easy to pretend things didn't bother her when she didn't have the time to focus on them.
Whenever someone brought it up, she'd change the topic. She'd avoid the question overall. She knew now that when Joyce asked her how her day was at school, all she had to do was say it was good and walk away quickly. She learned it from Jonathan.
For a little while, things became fun for Sam. She talked to people on the soccer team. She was kind of a team player, and she was improving better at becoming the goalie. That was until she learned that one of the players on the team that she'd been replacing because they'd been injured, was the girl that stepped on her toe during music. The same girl who tugged on her hair all fourth period. The same girl that purposely tried to humiliate Sam at any chance she got.
Sam had gotten into a few fights with a few girls on the soccer team afterwards. Over things that weren't worth it according to the principal; stealing her things at the beginning of class, sticking gum in her seat when she wasn't paying attention and watching her sit in it, even locking her in the locker rooms after practice. Sam was always sent to the principals office, to hear the same old speech. Something, something, behavioral issues, something, something, fourth warning, and the closing, you have so much potential.
