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Chapter 2: Pathetic little prude

I start forward around the hallways and ascend the stairs as my stomach lurches. I seem to be on that group's mind as I catch fragments of their conversation, petty insults, lazy jokes, and barely concealed slurs.

Targeted at me and Raquel of course.

As much as I relished telling Raquel all about it and watching her slice every single one of them, I remembered that I was not going to engage in situations like these and neither was I going to allow Raquel to stoop to their low, very low, pits of hell-low levels.

As I arrive at my classroom I notice a few of my friends scattered around who are nice enough but just not Raquel. They smile slightly at me but it's only slight because the rest of their face appears to be searching for an appropriate expression. Guilt, sorrow, or understanding today? I smile widely at them as if to spoon-feed them the right expression they should be greeting me with before the teacher instructs us to sit according to the demonic seating plan displayed on the projector.

Firstly, I'm nowhere near any of my friends, I mean bad enough that Raquel and I are taking different subjects but worse now that I have barely anyone to bitch to or work with. I'm with a few acquaintances but they're around their bffs so exactly why would they choose to work with or talk to me? As well as being nowhere near anybody really decent, I'm instead around a horrendous group of people who embody literally every single type of discrimination there is. And they're almost all POC.

And to really place the final demonic piece on this horrendous chessboard, I'm sat right next to the most mind-bogglingly eye-wateringly irritating pick-me girl I have ever met in my life and that may seem like an exaggeration but when I tell you this girl embodies every single early 2000s Disney channel female MC I have ever seen. She's vanilla as hell, clings on to attention for dear life and has a mouth like a fucking megaphone. If exercising your mouth was a sport this girl would scoop up bronze silver and gold effortlessly and it seems like she's gunning for platinum as she drones on and on around me while my brain starts to throb at her relentless buzzing coupled with the ruckus the group I overheard this morning are making and I swear to god if one of those two foghorns doesn't stop blaring I am going to throw myself full length across this fucking classroom.

Eventually, the noise dies down, the group are threatened with a 2-hour detention after school, and Ivy, the vanilla pick-me is threatened with permanent removal from the class which seems to be the only thing that shuts her up seeing as she's grossly obsessed with one of the cunts who insulted Raquel and I earlier.

And as it turns out, her crush is a violently homophobic cunt.

And as insanely aggravating as this girl is, I can't help but feel bad for her because unrequited love must really fucking suck.

"Celeste!"

I dart off of my train of thought and attempt to immerse myself back into whatever the fuck this pasty-ass middle-aged man is droning on about.

"Yeah, sorry what did you need?" I drawl awkwardly.

"Yes, what did I need, Celeste that is the appropriate expression" he corrects and I hear some groans and a few chuckles in disbelief at how embarrassingly extra this man is. Pasty, pathetic, and pedantic. He'd fit right in the English department.

"Ok sorry, so what do you need?" I ask again.

"I asked you to the front to demonstrate how we solve this equation which you would have known and managed to complete if you had been paying attention and not spacing out. Make sure it doesn't happen again or there'll be consequences. Now come to the front and solve this" he instructs, holding a crusty marker in his veiny arms.

Fuck my life.

I take my sweet time getting up and pulling my chair aside, feigning some sort of disagreement with Ivy and making a dramatic show of putting my bag away and picking up some pens that I accidentally-on-purpose dropped on the floor, arranging them in my pencil case industriously. My friends burst out laughing, the cunts roll their eyes and my teacher looks ready to have an aneurysm.

"Leave that alone Celeste, hurry up and solve this question. You are wasting our time" he says exasperated. He looks as if he's gonna break out into a cold sweat and start convulsing so reluctantly I move.

I sigh and trudge towards the front of the room but stop dead when I overhear Ivy's crush, one of the most vocal girls of the group still nattering away about me to her friend whose makeup is always half done and looks ready to glide off of her vile face. I finally give in and let it rip still facing the board and writing.

"Imagine being that mentally ill that you're obsessing over the only two out people in the year, you've gotta be a real fucked-up cunt to be pulling that kind of bullshit right Ivy?" I say out loud, fed up with this group at last. Fed up with this bitch at last. Several oohs, laughs and jeers break out suddenly and for once, for a sweet and glorious once, Ivy is speechless.

Completely and utterly speechless.

The bliss is short-lived sadly.

"And who the fuck do you think you're talking to, you pathetic little prude" she counters, more heated than I've ever seen her before. Her face is almost as red as my hair, it's like somebody's set her cheeks aflame. She slams her hair tie off of her desk, gathering up her silky brown curls with so much vigour it looks as though she'll shred them in her current state. Her half-done friend yanks her arm with such ferocity I'm sure she'll lose the whole thing in a few seconds.

Well, she'll lose something if she isn't careful.

No! I award myself a pinch for my stupidity. Focus Celeste, it's 2 years and I'm out of here. Just 2 years.

As I set her with a frosty death stare, I meet the class' assortment of expressions and catch my friends' looks of pity, shock, and disappointment.

You see what I mean?

They just aren't Raquel.