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"I can't even believe I'm here right now."
My gaze drops to Tiegan's bobbing knee, the tight grip of her manicured nails around her thigh, the whitening skin stretched thin against her knuckles. Despite the cold, this morning she's opted for tightless legs, so her rows of goosebumps are on full display, onset by the gusts of air that sweep through the automatic doors every time they peel open. I don't even have to ask to know there are million places she'd rather be than here, not only because she lets it be known every few minutes, but because I too would rather be almost anywhere but Ocean View, at the crack of the morning, on a weekday. The closer the clock ticks towards our break, the smaller the distance between each of my heartbeats.
I expected I would've missed Ocean View a lot more than I really have, but clearly, I didn't. Maybe it's because instead of being in a lesson, I'm seated beside Tiegan in front of a meeting room, peering fruitlessly through the frosted glass window of its door and trying to pretend I can't hear the heated discourse between Taze, Valentino and Tilly—Tiegan's mum—and Mr and Mrs Stevenson, our headteacher and head of year. Finally moved to their senses, our parents and respective guardians gave in and scheduled an EHE meeting—Elective Home Education—to switch us to homeschooling and pull us out of OV altogether. Before they get to that, they've clearly decided to discuss all the palaver with Kenzo and Dominic, and the school's failure to punish them appropriately. Tilly's mum is raising hell and Taze is on a mad one, but I can't even blame them; Kenzo and Dominic have gotten away with murder.
