Evan Farrington's Confession | ✔️

two

The mirror was so smudged that Evan's entire face looked distorted, almost like an oil painting. She propped her glasses up onto her head and rubbed her eyes. The intense lights of the girls' bathroom swam behind her eyelids and the smell of the soap from the dispensers cut her nose. The bell had rung a few minutes ago and students were flooding the corridors on their way to the front doors. The school never seemed to have so many pupils as it did when the final bell told everyone to go home. Evan listened to the bustle outside, waiting for it to dispel. She had a question for her maths teacher and going against the current of pupils was a battle that Evan did not have the strength to fight. She gingerly opened her eyes when the racket dimmed. The buzz in her ears from the brightly lit bathroom morphed into fuzz in her vision from acute case of glasses-lessness. Evan reached up for them on her head. Her hand flattened on her skull. No glasses. She patted down her entire head with her eyes half closed.

"Shit," Evan muttered.

She squinted and began to scan the floor for her metal frames. Suzanne would not be pleased if Evan lost her glasses. Evan didn't even know if they'd be able to afford a new pair. She would be stuck with a pounding head and premature wrinkles from constant squinting. A thick shadow with blurred edges stilled Evan's darting pupils. Her breaths suddenly felt like they were filtering through her eyes and cooling them dry. A small object on the floor shone in the shadow. Her glasses. Evan took a second to exhale before grabbing them. As soon as the lenses were safely settled on her nose, the shadow shrunk into nonexistence. She had just dropped them on the floor. And her eyes were bad, there wasn't any shadow. Even so, Evan spent a good minute frowning at the spot of floor where the shadow had been before she left the bathroom to find her maths teacher.

The hallways were deserted. It was that sweet spot between when the students were all rushing for the doors and the cleaners had begun to tow trolleys and mops and hoovers all over the school. The ghosts of the day were materialising. An empty crisp packet here and there, a few abandoned papers, an open locker. The corridors were stationary save for Evan's rhythmically falling Converse and even they barely squeaked on the shiny floor. Evan went over her question in her head. She wanted to make sure she didn't seem rude but also didn't seem stupid. The balance wasn't difficult to find. And Mr Watt was everyone's favourite so she didn't think he'd give her any trouble. She approached the classroom door and lifted her fist to knock. A bang made her whip around. Her knees suddenly felt about to buckle. A locker door was swaying on its hinges after being blown shut in an unfelt gust of wind. Evan shook her head hastily and knocked on the glass pane of Mr Watt's door.

He beckoned her in and swung his legs off his desk as she slid inside.

"If it isn't my favourite pupil," said Mr Watt, grinning up at her from his chair. "How can I help you, Evan?"

"I was just wondering, in the homework..." She trailed off, the words she had been about to say suddenly floating around the room somewhere. There was something in the classroom, snaking its way between the desks. Mr Watt raised his eyebrows in expectation.

Evan faltered, "Um... I was just... There was..."

"Evan? Are you okay?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head once, sharply. "Yeah, sorry I..."

The classroom was empty. Desks with abandoned chairs at erratic angles, a couple of borrowed rulers and calculators hiding on the floor. Evan pinched her lip.

"So what was it?" asked Mr Watt. He hooked his thumbs through his belt loops and rocked forward on his toes. "About the homework?"

Evan didn't hear him. She shivered, trying to ignore the chills snaking down her back.