Broken

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

For a moment I was too busy mentally flogging myself to hear Britney's question.

"Have you been to Vegas yet?"

"No, we just got here last night." And I've been too busy making doe eyes at gorgeous boys who are completely out of my league to do anything like take a shopping trip.

Britney perked up at my answer. "We so have to go down there soon. It's the only place within an hour and a half where you can do any decent shopping."

Normally the prospect of driving for hours to watch someone else spend money I didn't have, sounded roughly as appealing as laying out naked at the pool until I had second degree burns on my whole body. Then again, maybe burns wouldn't be so bad if they let me disappear into the anonymity of a large crowd in an actual city rather than dealing with hick hostility.

"That sounds great; I can't wait to get out of this stupid town."

A couple of people started at bit, and I heard a locker slam shut with surprising force. The eavesdroppers were predictably pissed I was dissing their home, but I didn't care. It served them right. Don't listen in if you aren't prepared to hear something you won't like. As long as my comments hadn't offended my new pseudo friend, I was just fine.

Britney laughed, "You said it. There is so nothing to do here. You can't even go hiking anymore..."

I'd already realized Britney wasn't the type to think twice before words actually left her mouth. Curious.

"What do you mean we can't go hiking?"

She was looking around at the other students. "Nothing, come on. We're going to be late for class."

I followed without a word, even more intrigued now. 'Cool' people don't sweat tardiness and Britney really wanted to be cool.

A slender, frumpy-looking woman looked up from her desk as Britney and I walked in. I held up my form, which she took without reading it. "No doubt something to ensure I know you're my newest student. Sit over there where you won't distract Britney from just how poorly she's doing in my class. There's an extra book on the shelves in the back.

Britney rolled her eyes as she went to her assigned desk, but I suspected she was actually relieved we'd been split up. Mrs. Campbell didn't seem like the kind of teacher you could get away with ignoring, so I retrieved an algebra book from the back of the room and sat at my desk.

Any thoughts about finding out why hiking was off limits quickly melted away once class started. Math had never been my favorite subject. I'd always managed to pull A's or at least A-'s, but hated all of the little nit-picky rules.

Unfortunately, after missing a whole month of classes, I was at least as bad off in Algebra as I was in Biology. Mrs. Campbell was solving problems with so many variables in them it was like watching alphabet soup spontaneously re-arrange itself on her overhead projector. Not only that, things were being squared and cubed, an operation with which I had only passing familiarity.

I struggled valiantly to understand what was going on. I got the sense the operations being applied to the formulas were being explained very well, I just didn't have the vocabulary to follow what she was saying.

By the time class finally ended I was fighting not to become emotional. The fact that Britney looked for a moment like she was debating whether or not to wait for me before finally stopping next to the door with her arms crossed, didn't help.

I threw my book and binder into my backpack and tromped up to the front of the classroom. Mrs. Campbell looked up when I reached her desk. "Here's your form, among other things."