I sit in my dark classroom, waiting for my early morning AP Literature class to begin, preparing myself to be surrounded by what feels like a sea of single-celled amoebas. Those low-life beings are no match for my obvious academic superiority. I always feel trapped in classrooms of mouth breathers who haven't even read War and Peace, which I read when I was 8 years old.
My solitude is unfortunately interrupted by the heavy-footed imbeciles that begin to stream into the classroom. I watch one of them, Trent Peterson, take his seat, two desks in front of me. He winks at the group of "popular girls' ' seated near the back of the classroom, triggering a wave of bone-chilling giggles behind me. I started to get queasy when I realized that I wish he would wink at me like that. This one particular imbecile is looking better than usual today. My dim-witted teacher tells the class we are reading Dante's Inferno, which makes me shudder and put away my economically friendly flip phone. I roll my eyes to the back of my head and shoot my hand into the air " Ma'am, are we reading it in its original Italian text or in the butchered westernized English version?" Everyone snickered, unbenounced to me why they would be making light of such a serious inquiry.
"No, Emmëline" Ugh, I loathed my name. Its roots are traced back to my deep heritage in Deutschland and remind me of my parents, something I don't like to be reminded that I have. I noticed something though, Trent didn't laugh like the rest of those plebeians did. I made eye contact with him as he turned around to look at me, and I realized that there was a glimmer in his eye that wasn't there earlier when he was looking at the girls behind me. I tuck a lock of my jet-black hair behind my pierced ear, it had fallen loose from one of my messily put-together space buns. I swear he smiled before he turned back around.
Finally, the bell rings, freeing me from the torture of these feeble-minded organisms. I hastily pack up my things, shoving my binders into my bag. I pick up all of my books, my arms teeming with literature. As I walk towards the door, one of the girls from the back of the classroom shoulder-checks me, causing me to drop one of my books, one I haven't read yet. I start to bend down to pick it up, when suddenly a hand comes in and picks it up for me. All of the sudden, I'm looking Trent Peterson in the eye, and the entire world melted away. "Hey, I like this one, I read it last summer," he says with a smile, handing the unopened novel back to me. Just as soon as that happened, he was getting up and walking out of the classroom. I smiled to myself, I guess I'll read this book next.
