By The Book

Four

Second hour was usually the best hour for me. In my opinion, and in the opinion my mom makes me have. Here's why...

I like second hour because the guy I have the hugest crush on, is in that class. My "real" crush. The guy that I actually wish I could have a crush on. I have to keep it in my head. Because the crush I'm supposed to have is from Mom. The guy that Mom makes me like is a guy named Jonathon. But the guy I really wish I could say aloud that I like is Anthony Clay.

Don't get me wrong, Jonathon is sweet, and funny, and not to mention handsome. But I honestly just don't see me with a guy like him. I just look at Anthony and I feel happy. He seems so nice, and when Mom has let me talk to him before, he was super amazing. And, I just kind of... knew.

It may seem weird. Like, if I barely even get to talk to him, how am I supposed to know I like him? I ask myself the same question all the time, and truth is, I don't know. It just... seems right.

Anyways, I headed to second hour and put my stuff on my desk. I slumped over in my chair, and waited for my teacher to walk in. Mrs. Lodd was my teacher. I could never tell if she liked me or not. Well, I knew she didn't not like me. She never really talked to me. She probably doesn't even know my name. But I don't really care, it's not like she was my favorite teacher anyways.

The bell rang, and a bunch of people stumbled in the room before the last minute of passing period ended. A few kids were late, which I could tell, always made Mrs. Lodd mad, but she tried not to make an outburst.

There he was. Anthony Clay. I tried my best not to stare. And I tried my best to act like I was madly in love with Jonathon, because that's what mother wants. I hate what mother wants. I mean, if course I hate what she wants. It's not what I want. But you already know that.

I don't think I need to go in detail about class. It was the same old-same old. I tried hard not to stare at Anthony, tried hard to stare at Jonathon, got some work to do, and even a little bit of homework, then got the heck out of that class.

Our schedule for lunch is kind of weird. My lunch is right in the middle of sixth hour. Basically we just stop class, get released to lunch, and come back when lunch is over. We were in the middle of talking about algebra, when the teacher looked at his watch and said "Alright, guess we gotta go to lunch now!" So the kids piled up, and walked out the room, speed walking to the cafeteria, even though it's guaranteed that everyone will get lunch. I didn't have to worry about that though. I always pack my lunch. I don't trust the school lunch. I think you can understand why.

Everyday I sit with Lauren, and my other friend Kaci. But there's other chairs at the table too, so anybody else that we don't even know could sit there if they wanted. Our table is in the same spot everyday. That's just how it seems to be with everyone. Every group of people seem to just have their own territory of a table. Every once in awhile, to our surprises, some other group might take our table, and we have to find somewhere else to sit. But for the most part, we sit in the same place everyday. It's nice, because we don't have to struggle around, trying to find a place to sit. It's just there. In the same little corner it always is.

I sat down at our little usual table, Lauren was already there. She usually is. Her teacher is nice enough to let them out of class early to get the the cafeteria. I sat down, my tray in my hands, and my purple lunch box on top.

"Hey C." Lauren said. I knew she would say that. Not because Mom said she would, but because she always does anyway. I said hi back, and we had a conversation. Yes, a conversation that went exactly how mom said it would go.

Then Kaci got to our table with a tray from the school lunch. She started to dig in to the cafeteria's food, and me and Lauren looked at her, disgusted.

"Kaci, how can you eat that??" I asked her. Mom had told me to say that, but even if she didn't, I would have said the same thing anyway. She stopped, and looked up, staring at us in a confused way, with food in the side of her mouth.

"What?" she said, with a mouth full of hash browns. And me and Lauren just laughed. She smiled back, with her mouth still full of that disgusting food, that somehow she found appetizing.

While Lauren still laughed, I stopped a little. My brain made an echo of all the sounds around me. Everything that was happening was assigned to me. Everything happening was exactly what Mom told me. And I don't know why it made me dizzy, right then and there. Because it was exactly the way it's always been. My entire life. My days were always planned out. And yet, I was freaked out, I was scared by what my mom does with my life, every single day.

But I still just go with the flow. Because that's what I'm supposed to do. I'm not supposed to ask questions, or think anything of it. I just act like it's my day. Like I make every decision on my own. Right after my mom says those three words,

Back to reality.

And that's
when I fainted.