Stella was shipped off to a boarding school for troubled kids after her foster parents died. For the next seven years, that is where she's been, but she's back, and things are not the same as they were before.
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Weeks passed, and they did painfully slow. I sit here at my desk, listening to my international business teacher drone on about the extremely confusing evolution of the Vatican city. And let me not forget that we're going to have to be doing a test on this bullshit, but nevertheless, I sit there taking notes, waiting for my teacher to start the video that we'll be watching.
After the lights are turned off and the video is on, I'm close enough to the front of classroom to see my teacher sitting back in his chair on his phone. I look around and see most of the class either asleep or scrolling, and then the occasional few that are actually taking notes. I then get a notification that lights up my desk. I look down at my phone, and I see a text message from Marcus.
Marcus👁️✨: Look up
I furrowed my eyebrows, looking up, only seeing the video on the whiteboard. I got another notification.
Marcus👁️✨: At the door, lmfao
I look up at the door, and sure enough, I see Marcus in all his charming glory, giggling at my mistake. I won't lie, I chuckled, too. And then I see him start typing on his phone.
Marcus👁️✨: Typing...
Marcus👁️✨: Come out for a sec.
Because I have absolutely nothing better to do, I take him up on his offer. Getting up from my desk and walking up to my teacher's, I get my teacher's attention after a few seconds of him just scrolling on his phone and me just awkwardly standing there.
"Can I go to the bathroom?"
"Yeah, of course." He said with a smile. I smiled back, then walked out the door, being greeted by Marcus. After going to the mall and the cinema, I ended up getting everybody's numbers and was added to their group chat. I started hanging out with them more and more, creating a little bit of a bond. Me and Lynn still are strained, but honestly, I don't really care much about her to be upset about it. We move away from the door window, so my teacher can't see us.
"What's up?" I ask.
"Honestly, I was just walking down the hall, and I saw how bored you looked and thought you needed some incentive to leave."
"Dead on." I said, letting out a laugh through my nose. "I usually have a consistently bored-looking face; how'd you know?"I asked playing with a strand of hair that came out on my zipper in my hands.
"Last year, I had a class with Mr. Kiefer. I don't know what it is, but every time he opens his mouth, it makes everyone want to fall asleep." I look back at the door with a plain view of the sleeping kids in my class, and look back at Marcus.
"No lie there." We start to talk, walkin gaimlessly through the halls.
"So, what's your thing?" I ask.
"What do you mean?" Marcus asked with a smile and furrowed eyebrows.
"Lynn has her insa model thing; Teresa wants to become a nures. Alvin has football, and even Scott has that whole travelling the world and running away from his responsibilities' thing. But I'm not sure about you." Marcus looked down at his shoes, thinking.
"I wanna become a lawyer or businessman." I tilted my head to the side, surprised by his answer. He chuckled at my reaction. "I'm Taiwanese, so it's either a lawyer or doctor; everything else is irrelevant, and if I say no, they bring up the sacrificing everything for you card."
"Danm, that sucks."
"Yeah and no; miraculously, I actually want to become a lawyer."
"Oh, so yay?" I said a bit confused on how to react.
"Yeah, yay." We start walking again.
"So what if a whole person disappeared, whom I may or may not be living with? How much trouble would I be in?"
___
After class, I end up seeing Scott in the hallway leaning ugenst his locker, texting on his phone while smiling at it. As a joke, I pluck the phone out of his hands.
"What the- Stella, what the fuck."
"Who are you texting?"
"Nobody, give it," he said with a serious look on his face. I give the phone back to him without looking at the text message, as it was not my intention; I just wanted to play a little joke on him. I know me and Scott haven't really seen each other face-to-face for some time, but I can pick up on when something is off, and something is definitely off. But before I could think too hard about it, Teresa walked up to us with a clipboard clutched in her arms.
"Hey twins." She said trying to be cheeky.
"Don't call us that." Scott and I said at the same time with blank, monotone voices.
"Ok." Teresa said meekly.
"Why do you have a clipboard?" Scott asked, taking the words right out of my mouth.
"Later, after school there's going to be a club Fair for the freshman, and newbies and as you know, I'm in dance club so I volunteered to get people to sign up.
"You dance?"
"Not really; my sister was in the club a few years ago, so when I was a freshman, she asked if I could help out, and I guess it just stuck."
"Huh." I hummed to myself.
"Actually, come to think of it, Scott told me..." Teresa started to say, then glanced at Scott, slowly quieting down. I looked at Scott, my eyebrows furrowed. In one split moment, I saw him gesturing to Teresa to stop talking, and as soon as he saw me look at him, he stopped the gestures and mouthing.
