Ashley ✓

Twenty-Two | Guilt

SOTC: Death In My Pocket by Machine Gun Kelly

"HURRICANE KATRINA, TORTILLAS!"

No one in seventh period History even flinched as Ms. Zigenhorn yodeled her extraterrestrial announcement after she went to the bathroom towards the end of class, that woman deciding once again to slam the door with her fluorescent yellow rubber rain boot.

I slowly lifted my head from my pencil-graffiatied desk, another hollow shell of a breath passing through my nostrils as my fingers combed my hair back. Slowly blinking, I then allowed my fingers to graze against my head— a head with a brain. A brain unable to contemplate how I woke up in my bed six nights ago as a train wreck with ringing ears, running mascara, and a severe hangover.

A brain that re-ran that scene over and over, which intensified the gutting, ugly feeling now re-arranging the souls of my organs and psyche like a slow burning kill. What was worse is that I had no iota of an idea of what this feeling was to any extent.

Except that I maybe knew it once.

Anyway, my crazy teacher continued talking. "As y'all wakadoodles probably recall, everyone wrote a timed essay utilizing the texts from Unit One to back up a three-point thesis and more specifically claims from that thesis. Conveniently, my oddball Tinder date accidentally inhaled a peanut and I stabbed the Epi Pen in his face, so the date was cut short and I finished grading your essays early!"

My classmates burned a what-in-the-holy-Jesus stare into each other until Ms. Zigenhorn then announced:

"And for the first time in my five years of teaching here, someone got an a hundred!"

Everyone in the class— and I mean from the Hot Cheeto girls to the Edgars— began whispering quietly. I even averted my gaze elsewhere, except for a different reason. While I barely survived paying no mind to Jordyn, who was trying to turn me into a medium-well Texas Roadhouse steak with her irises for the bazillionth time, my gaze fell on the seat that had been unoccupied for days on end.

For six days, I pondered if I was the reason why it remained that way.

RING!

Upon the sound announcing its existence throughout the school, my classmates left the hellish four walls faster than the intrigue of the mystery person who got an a hundred percent, their backpacks slung over shoulders. I had done the same.

Almost.

"Miss Ashley the squirrel, stay back here a moment!"

I walked back to Ms. Zigenhorn's desk upon the words leaving her mouth.

"Um.. what's up?" I muttered.

She crossed her legs. "I wasn't going to mention it last week after your class did the essay, but you cited evidence to a paragraph concerning Anne Boleyn's final words before execution. In your commentary, you connected it to specific diction in a speech by Susan B. Anthony— even mentioning the specific words. But here's the weird thing, squirrel: I've watched you pick up the textbook one time in the entire month that I've seen you."

"I don't cheat off of anyone," I muttered truthfully after a pause.

"I would've thought you were lying to me about that a couple weeks ago. However, my mind has changed since this class did that first ever essay." Ms. Zigenhorn smiled. "You know why that is, Miss Squirrel?"

"What?"

"Because you were the perfect score on the essay. Actually, you've been getting high scores on everything in my class. I thought you were cheating in some weird style Houdini way because to be honest, no one around you is worth cheating off of. However, I tapped into your grades and saw that you've been getting scores to this level in all of your classes."