Nothing in Between

05

"Alright, class is dismissed. See you all tomorrow."

Clyde immediately jumps to her feet, noticing her classmates rushing to pack their things up so they can leave this place. She panics, swiftly grabbing her backpack from the floor and haphazardly dropping it onto her chair, grabbing her things from the desk.

She manages to put her pen back into her pencil case, but when Clyde has to put it back into her bag, that's when she fails. Clyde shakily glances up, watching as more and more people rapidly walk out of the classroom, and there she is, truly struggling.

Why do these people have to be in such a rush? Literally nobody is out there to get them, and they need to chill. They need to be more relaxed, because their rush is making Clyde panic. She doesn't want to be the last one in the classroom, even if no one cares.

When Clyde manages to only shove her pencil case into her bag, she looks up to find her friends waiting for her. They are patiently standing around, but that only makes her panic more, making one of her notebooks fall onto the ground, which she picks up.

Though, when Clyde puts the notebook onto her desk, she places it down too forcefully, causing a random pencil to fall. She briefly leaves her bag and immediately tries to pick the pencil up from the stupid ground, but it keeps rolling away from her reach.

"Guys, help," Clyde asks, running after the dropped pencil.

"Alright, calm down," Mia says, "Taylor isn't going to hate you for being a second late."

"I don't wanna be the last one here."

"We're waiting for you, Clyde. We're all gonna be the last ones here."

And Clyde gratefully smiles. She takes a long, deep breath and picks the pencil up before walking back to her desk, seeing Mia close the zipper on her backpack. While her intense panic hasn't faded, hearing Mia's words made Clyde's mind stop screaming.

She takes her backpack and carefully throws its straps over her shoulders, pocketing the pencil she retrieved before treading out of the classroom. Clyde's friends walk behind her, willingly allowing her to not be the last person inside, like Clyde truly wants.

When everyone is in the hallway, Clyde fully slows her walking to make sure that she's the person behind everyone else. She lets her friends walk in front of her, unworried about the looks of confusion she, somehow, always receives whenever this happens.

Mia glances at Clyde, and she just shrugs in response. They walk Faye and Matt to their locker before saying bye, now walking towards the direction of Taylor's classroom. Clyde says nothing as they slowly walk, keeping her face completely emotionless.

But when Clyde turns at a certain corner, she can't stop the sides of her lips from curving upwards. They are finally at Taylor's classroom, and Clyde can see her walking out of the door. Clyde's eyes gain a specific glimmer under the light, and Mia smirks.

"Calm down, Romeo. You look insane," Mia jokes.

"Shut up. I just wanna ask her about our project."

When Clyde hears Mia let out an unbelieving hum, she nearly slaps her. Clyde keeps her composure, though, happily walking to Taylor to greet her. She forces her stupid smile to look less crazy, speedily clearing her throat with a cough before speaking.

"Hey, where do you wanna do our project?"

Taylor looks up from the floor to look at Clyde, smiling politely. Clyde almost trips on her feet from the eye contact, but casually continues walking as Taylor rapidly joins her and Mia along the hallway. Clyde treks along, but is still waiting for an answer.