Fall Apart

Chapter 21

We had just finished Math, my last class for the day, and I went up to the teacher to tell him about my tour. I have already messaged all my other teachers but I forgot to tell him. 

"Professor Bengali? I just wanted to tell you that I won't be in class all of next month" I say

"Oh, that's okay, but just to inform you, when you come back you will only have 5 more days that you can be away from my class for the rest of the year before it starts affecting your grade" Professor Bengali says. 

"Yeah, I understand that, thank you sir" I say, going to walk out of the room.

"Wait, before you go..." Professor Bengali says, "You know the new girl Hannah? She hasn't been doing very well and she was wondering if you could tutor her before the test next week?" 

"Sure, I would love to!" I say, nodding.

"Thank you Miss Hart" Professor Bengali says. 

I leave the classroom and go to my dorm. I see an email from the head coordinator saying that there are no classes tomorrow, which is a relief. So I headed to an office building uptown for a radio interview. 

"Hi! How are you?" I ask, and I can tell they are already filming. 

"I'm Barry" says the camera man.

"That's a good intro," I say laughing.

"We are going to start with a few practice questions first," the interviewer said, "Is your full name Maya Ann Hart?"

"Yes," I say.

"Are you turning 20 soon?" she asks.

"Yes," I say.

"Are you nervous for this interview?" she asks.

"No," I say laughing. 

"In a previous interview the host said, quote, "You were really good at dodging questions"" she said, and I laughed, "Do you believe that to be true?"

"Absolutely," I say, trying not to laugh.

"Are there going to be any questions that you are going to dodge during this interview?" she asks.

"Absolutely," I say.

"Which question?" she asks.

"Probably the ones that I don't want to answer, Just those ones" I say, laughing, "I'm not coming into this planning on lying, if that makes you feel better"

"Okay, let's start with your life," she says, "When you check into a hotel do you always use your real name?"

"No, not always, sometimes I have it under a fake name," I say.

"Have you ever gone under the name of this person?" she asks, showing me a picture of Mrs. Doubtfire.

"Yes," I say, laughing, "Mrs. Doubtfire, that was my alias for a while because I love to troll and I love getting off a plane and seeing like a guy holding a sign that says Mrs. Doubtfire. They were always very disappointed when it was me, but then after a while, some people started to catch on. So it's not that anymore."

"You said you also sometimes go by the name Peaches," she said.

"It's my Zoom name," I say, smiling, remembering who gave it to me.

"Does Peaches also have her own separate personality?" she asks.

"No, she's actually a lot like me, I think," I say, "It was really just like, you know, someone gave it to me and then it stuck"

"Who gave you this name?" she asked.

"I don't remember," I say, flicking my hair and challenging her to ask more questions about it with my eyes.