Call It What You Want To

Chapter 1: Taya

My eyes flicked back and forth from my notebook, to the smartboard, then to the clock that's ticking above the door frame of my seventh period statistics class.

Nine minutes left.

Some of the other people in my class were so tuned out that they had already put their laptops, notebooks, and just about everything else into their backpacks already. There was no doubt about it, that we'd likely be getting a "the bell doesn't dismiss you, I do" lecture from Mr. Whitt.

"Taya?"

I snapped my head back to the board and teacher, looking at Mr Whitt and his "I definitely should have retired last year" face.

"Yes?" I asked, completely unaware of what he was asking me.

He was visibly frustrated with my lack of attention as he repeated, "What's the combined percentage of groups A and B?"

Yes, thank you. That helped me understand everything, thank you for the clarification.

"Um," I trailed off, scanning the four choices that were listed beneath the problem. "42?" I answered, questioning myself and really hoping that I didn't pick the obviously wrong answer in front of the few people that were still paying attention.

"Cor-rect," Mr. Whitt said, putting a ton of emphasis and enunciation between the two syllables.

He started to go on about how and why my answer was right, but as soon as his attention was off me, I was as inattentive as I had been in the minutes prior. I slowly closed my notebook and started moving it closer to my backpack. We weren't even supposed to have our bags with us in last period, but a lot of the senior teachers gave up on that rule within two weeks of the school year.

With my notebook out of the way, I looked down at my daily "To-Do List" that took up almost all the space of my planner for today's date.

Lift @ 2:30 - 4:00

Dishes, Trash, Clean Yard

Physics Study Guide

Stats Homework

Babysit 5:30-8:30

Figure Out Dinner

Refill Medicine Organizer

Ch. 7 The Bell Jar

Wednesdays were always pretty full days, but not terrible in comparison to some. My planner was what kept everything organized, because if I didn't fill it out everyday then I'd probably be failing by now and it's only the second month of the school year.

Finally, the bell, which is more of a monotonous beep, went off and the school day was over. Mr. Whitt yelled out our homework assignment one last time before he trudged over to his desk, narrowly avoiding the stampede of seniors and juniors.

Since I already had my bag with me, as soon as I got all my stuff together, I set off for the weight room. Practice didn't start for about fifteen minutes, but in that time I had to change, slam my preworkout, then start my warm-ups and get stretched.

After pushing through the hallways of Axe body spray, borderline pornographic displays of PDA, and everyone who decided to become "quirky" Day in My Life vloggers after quarantine; I made it to the weight room door where I highlighted "Taya Beckett" on the clipboard to sign in before heading to the locker room.

The unfortunate part, we had to share locker rooms with the cross country and cheer teams. The fortunate part, the powerlifting team usually made it there before any of them. I slipped into the changing area and started switching out of my jeans and top, and into my spandex shorts and massively oversized t-shirt.