Miss, Do I Know You?

12 - Thursday, November 19

Bitter temperatures, for me, meant melancholic gloominess. Those barren and dreary landscapes never failed to rub off on me and penetrate deep within my psyche, too. Blank sky. Less light. Bleak surroundings. Absence of color. There was not a tinge of excitement that it brought, and the depressive feeling only doubled, leaving me defenseless and dependent on substances. Which were a gamble of their own.

In today's gamble, I had gotten not the calmness but nausea. Each step made my limbs heavy, head spinning with fatigue, and my stomach churning with sickness as I wearily trudged through the hallway toward detention. Expecting to find the usual quiet atmosphere of Alex sitting at her desk and working, I pushed the door open, but the room was full to the brim. Curious gazes met my entrance, unfamiliar faces mingling with those I knew, their attention mostly focused on the mess scattered across the desks.

Among them stood Sophia, cutting through a piece of cardboard and throwing a laugh my way. "Girl, what's got you looking like a walking corpse?"

I tossed my bag onto an empty chair, pushed back the waves of nausea, and summoned a smile. "Pacer tests."

"Ah," she breathed in recognition. "Can't take a little torture?"

"Not this kind."

When I saw Alex approaching me, I shot her a teasing smirk to figure out if I had somehow stumbled into an alternate universe. "Did you start an arts and crafts club?"

A single arched eyebrow greeted me. "Do I strike you as the type to do that?"

"Honestly, yeah. You were always the artsy type."

Sophia added her voice to the conversation, "It's for the Winter Ball."

My confusion deepened as I turned back to Alex, who answered my unspoken questions without them needing to be asked. "Since the teacher responsible for it is on sick leave, I'm in charge of the student council for the next weeks," she explained. "And you're welcome to help since you have no tests coming up."

I offered a wry smile. "Is there anything you can't do?"

Her tattooed fingers reached for a pair of scissors, extending them toward me. "I'm not a very good singer," she said, "but I am quite good at noticing when someone is attempting to flatter their way out of work."

"I must warn you that I still haven't emotionally recovered from the great scissor accident of seventh-grade art class. Scissoring anything has never been the same for me."

As Sophia's hand flew to her mouth, Alex fought valiantly to maintain her façade that crumbled in no time and got a bunch of curious gazes turning our way. "What?" she half-whispered, trying not to laugh. "What's wrong with you?"

"I don't know. I just made that up." I shrugged. "And it might have come out very wrong."

Her smiles subsided as loud voices erupted from the back of the class. But before I could look, Alex's voice had snapped my attention back to her, and the entire class had fallen silent. "I distinctly remember telling all of you to stay quiet," she said, voice resolute but laced with a dry wit. "If you don't want to listen to me, then don't, but at least keep your mouths shut and let everyone else do their work, okay?"

Suppressing my own laugh, I turned my gaze to the back to see which poor soul had earned something other than apathetic death stares from our usually stoic teacher. But upon noticing the unruly pack at the back of the room, whose crude laughter had evaporated and been replaced by stolen glances and eye rolls and masked disdain, confusion settled. Amidst them sat Olivia. When her gaze collided with mine, a momentary hesitation softened her expression before she averted her eyes and joined the laughter that swelled once more.