It Will All Work Out (Intersex gxg)

Chapter 16

I wasn't the only person who'd missed orientation, but luckily the school was prepared for it. Right outside the office was a table set up with three teachers who had all of the schedules that hadn't been picked up sorted alphabetically. I went to the first line, which had all the people whose last name started with A-K, and quickly got my schedule and a small, photocopied map of the campus.

I'd left Shay behind as she headed to her own classes, and I was on my own navigating the new school. I found my home room class on the map, and headed there happy that I didn't have to deal with any lockers. The East Greenwich High School had ripped out all the lockers, and all work was now done on school issued laptops, so I didn't have to deal with switching books out or anything. I liked that.

When I got to the homeroom class, I collected the laptop from the teacher, who already had one bearing a sticker with my name on it, and then took my seat. I looked over my schedule, and then the map, marking each classroom in the order I had them. It looked pretty easy, there were no long walks, and I didn't have math first thing in the morning, so my brain didn't have to kick into a high gear too early. My homeroom was my English class, and then I had Spanish, Biology and Math before lunch, then a basic Social Studies, Art and a study hall after lunch. That was doable. Having a study hall that late would let me knock out homework before I left, which would be even better.

All I needed now was to hope that Leigh, Lynn and especially Nicky weren't in many of my classes. So far, that was looking good, as none of them were in my homeroom. Truthfully, I had a good feeling about avoiding Nicky and Leigh, as they weren't very good students, and I should be in the more difficult classes than they were. I couldn't tell about Lynn though.

I got lucky. I made it through my first three periods with no sign of them before Leigh was in my math class. It was just Algebra, which I enjoyed, and not the kind of class that I'd have to worry about any kind of group project in, so that was a bonus. Leigh gave me a nasty look, but otherwise just ignored me, and I was okay with that. There were still some other kids that I'd see, people that had once been friends before Nicky started in on me, but I just pretended they didn't exist. Honestly, the way life was, I was beginning to understand Shay's desire to just get out of school and onto college. 

We'd never talked about what we'd do after that, it never came up. I guess we were just both so wrapped up with getting through our current life, that the future wasn't something we thought about. Since she was two years older than me, she'd be out of college and hopefully working somewhere and away from her family sooner than I would be. What did that mean for our friendship? I had no idea, but I guess that was something we'd have to deal with once we got there.

As far as Leigh was concerned, I just kept my gaze away from her. She was mostly more of a minion for Nicky than an instigator, though I had no idea why, since her parents were incredibly wealthy in some insurance company and could probably buy Nicky's dad, who ran some sort of a trucking company. According to what she was saying that first morning to some of the boys and girls in the class, she had summered in France. I guess it was too much to ask for her to stay there, eh?

At lunch, I ventured to the cafeteria, which was about what I expected. A large room filled with rows of rectangular tables with their attached benches. It wasn't terribly exciting, and I just found a remote table with an empty seat at the end and plopped myself down. There were a couple of guys at the other end of it, but they were ignoring me in favor of looking at some sort of trading card game that they were sharing. That seemed perfect to me, as I didn't really want to be bothered.

I unpacked my turkey sandwich, carrot sticks, and a bottle of water and started eating. It wasn't anything that made me drool, but it was probably the same lunch that I'd be eating for the rest of the school year. I'd eaten half the sandwich when a tray was placed down opposite me, and Shay took a seat.