birthday candles | the inheritance games

part two

"know it's for the better" - phoebe bridgers

"expelled!?!" I practically shout at her, Amelia is as pale as a ghost next to me.

"a car will arrive to take you to your hometown at 5:30 this evening" she says glancing at the clock on the wall which shows the time as it is a little past 4:30am,

"don't be late"

she says before excusing us from her office.

the secretary gives us a look of pity as we walk past her desk, once we are back in the long hallway I stop walking and turn to Amelia,

"hey, you know it's going to be okay, right?" she doesn't say anything.

"say you know that" I repeat, she clears her throats and says, "I know that".

but I see the hesitation in her eyes, "come on, let's go pack up our stuff" I say leading her to the staircase that leads up to our dorm room.

the upstairs halls are quiet, the other girls must've gone back to bed already.

we finally make it to our room and I see our roommate, Elizabeth sitting up in bed.

she is looking at us with a curious expression on her face, "what happened?" she asks, I sigh as Amelia trudges over to her bed and begins to pack.

at that Elizabeth raises an eyebrow.

"okay is someone going to tell me what's going on?"
she asks,

"we got expelled"

Amelia says, her voice cracking as the words slip out of her mouth, Elizabeth slides out of bed and her feet land on the floor with a thump.

"your joking" she says looking at Amelia, but Amelia only looks back down at her bag and continues to pack.

"oh my god" she lets out in a small breath, "your not joking".

her voice contains both confusion and sadness.

"not joking" I say pulling my suitcase of out my closet.

as I pack I fill Elizabeth in on what happened, she smiles when I mention the adventure we had, and I swear I see a tear roll down her cheek when she asks what we're going to do.

I don't have an answer for her, not a good one at least.

It's 8:12 am by the time me and Amelia are both done packing, Elizabeth went downstairs for breakfast about half an hour ago however we decided we weren't hungry.

packing up your life from the past two and a half years really takes away your appetite.

"we should go get our final grades" Amelia says, I'm surprised by her words since she hasn't made a single sound for over an hour.

I nod my head in agreement and we both head downstairs to face our teachers, Amelia's history teacher has her final grade so we separate as I head towards the math classroom.

Mrs. Stilinski, who I'm sure by now has heard the news. was easy to talk to, she said a few words to me about how much she and this school will miss me before handing me an envelope holding my grades for all my classes.