"Message received, I know how upset you are, but please tell me where you are. Your suspension ended three days ago and you're not here. Or anywhere, really. Call me, Brent."
The voicemail ran through my mind again and again, each word like an icepick to my head. My eyes flitted this way and that, too anxious to focus on one thing, too sleepless to concentrate. My pencil felt wrong in my hands and I let out a ragged sigh that caught the attention of my teacher.
"Tourmaline," she said in a sour voice. "Would you like to answer the question on the board?"
Suddenly everyone's eyes were on me. My pencil slipped from my fingers, clattering onto my desk, and I stood up. I made my way to the front on shaky legs, kept my eyes forward, and stiffly retrieved a dry erase pen from beside me to write my answer.
"You make problems, Tourmaline."
I held the pen to the board and tried to steady my quivering fingers.
"I want her to hear what a deadbeat you are."
I gazed blankly at the problem in front of me but it looked like Gibberish. Squiggles, letters, Roman numerals--this meant nothing to me.
"Tourmaline?" The teacher piped up, impatient. "Would you mind solving the problem?"
I heard a few poorly-concealed snickers from behind me, and I put the pen back in defeat. "I can't."
With a sound like a grunt she sent me back to my desk. I trudged back without complaint and hid my embarrassment behind a curtain of cherry-red hair.
Ten minutes later the bell rang. Students began to vanish through the doorway and I waited behind, too weary to try and fight my way out like the others. As I was leaving, the teacher watched me, but said nothing.
After class Laurie spotted me in the hallway and took me forcefully by the arm. She led me around a corner, then released me with an exaggerated sigh. "You look really, really bad," she told me.
"Thank you," I replied tersely.
"Why do you look really bad?"
"I'm just tired, Laurie."
She let out a loud laugh that made me flinch. "I don't believe that."
"Please drop it," I said, a little too loudly. A few passersby glanced over at us, and I turned my back to them.
She rubbed her chin in deep thought. "I know. You're part of a covert government experiment, you started a internet startup company and now you're wildly wealthy and busy, you're too busy getting your freak on with strangers to get ready for school, things like that."
"Alright," I confessed. "I started an internet startup company."
"Damnit! I was hoping it was the strangers one," Laurie joked. A large smile played on her lips. "No, but really, I'm going to bother you until you give me an honest answer."
"Later. Maybe you can come over, or something. But not now, okay?"
She looked at me, hard, then deemed herself satisfied. "Fine."
And then she was gone, lost in the ever-shifting current of students, leaving only me. I glanced to my left, then to my right, and then I headed off to my next class.
***
I stared at my sloped ceiling, trying desperately to think of things that might induce slumber for more than an hour or two. I shifted to my right side and pulled the comforter over my head, frustration swelling in the pit of my stomach.
YOU ARE READING
Tourmaline
Novela Juvenil"Some people are just simply and utterly unlovable." He fell silent. His breathing was rhythmic and manual, as if he had accidentally fallen asleep. I took a moment to listen to the soft whistle of his exhales, the sound of his fingers tapping a fas...
