Nothing but Hurt

Chapter 4: An Idiotic, Overdone Password

The next day at school, the news of the math project spread like wildfire. The average was 63.5 (Yes, some kid had somehow managed to get all the grades and calculate the average) and only one person had gotten 100 because the other two had worked together on the solo project and copied some online prompts. The next highest after me was 87.5. As soon as everyone started pouring in for the day in English, Val took the empty seat next to me. Today, her hair was in two side buns, purple streaks purposely wrapped around the bottom.

"Do you know who got 100?" She asked me, excitedly while texting someone on her phone. She had dark circles under her eyes.

I let out a sigh. "Yes."

"Wait?" She turned to face me so quickly, I felt bad for her as she rubbed her neck thanks to whiplash. "Who?"

"Me?" I regretted telling her instantly as her eyes widened and she stared at me with so much excitement, she looked like a kid who was promised a trip to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

"Actually? That is so cool I can not even imagine how proud you are like feeling right now. Like, how did you do it? Like I spent so much time on it and I got such a bad grade." I nodded slowly to her words, feeling a sense of deja-vu at the overuse of the word 'like'. "Can you like help me with math?" Then she gasped. "Oh my god, did you like cheat?"

"What? No!"

"Oh thank goodness. You know, I was actually like friends with the other two kids and they were like even going bragging around about like how smart they were and stuff then also told everyone how they like worked together and stuff and cheated which was like so dumb cause' like the teacher heard about it and she was like really mad and even like confronted them this morning in like the library or something," she rambled on.

I tried to keep up with her words and my mind had a delay as I tried to sort them all out. "Right, of course."

"So are you like really that smart? Like what are your average percentages for your other classes?" She gasped again. "Wait, aren't you like in Applied Engineering or something?" Before I could confirm, she continued talking and I groaned inwardly. "That's cool I heard you guys were like making rockets or something."

"Bottle rockets," I interrupted before she could worsen my headache. "And I think we just need to focus right now... Ms. Moraz looks like she'll start the lecture anytime soon."

Val waved it off. "Oh, it's fine," she said, drawing out the syllables. "She doesn't ever start until like 8:05 and it's 8:04 right now."

"There are 12 seconds left," I said in a deadpan voice. "And she's already pulled up the PowerPoint presentation and stood up."

As if on cue, Ms. Moraz clapped her hands, bringing all the noise in the room to a stand.

"Everyone, please open your notebooks to the next blank page. Who would like to read our prompt for today? Jose? How about you do it today?"

***

As soon as the class finished I rushed out of there quicker than you can say 'Holy moly'. My locker was right in front of the class and thanks to a glitch in life where I don't always have to put in the combination to open it, I grabbed my books for science and quickly rushed out of the hallway to one that was the longcut but less used. Mrs. Moraz had given us a partner project, but I could worry about that later.

For the following 4 periods, I had some quiet, but as soon as I stepped into my math class, I knew that happiness would be over. Val came running up to me, her two buns bobbing up and down on her head, as I enviously watched them, silently wishing my hair could stay like that for more than half a second.