By The Book

Eight

Today was not a good day for orchestra. Holding my bow in my hand hurt because of the cut. I could feel it digging into the gash a little bit, but I couldn't just stop playing. I managed to get through it, but I was so relieved when the bell rang. I grabbed my stuff, and went to my second hour. But today, I wasn't too excited to be there. I just slumped down in my chair, and wanted to burry my face in my arms. And it was pretty much the same thing for every hour. I just felt this blanket of sadness cover me, and I didn't know how to take it off. I would just wait and wait and hope that the bell would ring fast, and then immediately get up, and run out of the room. And eventually lunchtime came around.

As I walked into the cafeteria, I took a deep breath. Last time I was in there was when I fainted. And because I fainted, I now have scars on my hands. I wasn't going to go through that again. I brought my lunch over to the table, with Lauren sitting down, and Kaci not there yet. The usual.

"Hey C." said Lauren, with her regular greeting.
"Hey." I said silently. I didn't want to talk either. Besides, I already know what the conversation would be. She looked at me kind of weird, like she was confused why I seemed sad or something.
"So how's your essay coming along?" she said, started to bite into her sandwich.
"Fine." I replied back with quickly, knowing what she would ask anyways. She looked even more confused.

Suddenly, Kaci sat down, with her tray of troll food, and started shoving it in her mouth, like a Thanksgiving meal. We sat there for awhile, and I thought I could see Lauren gesturing towards me to Kaci, like something was up. But I didn't want to barge in. Eventually, Lauren started up the conversation. Every quote the way it was supposed to go.

"In science, we are going to be dissecting a frog on Tuesday!" Lauren said with a huge grossed out look on her face. Lauren was totally a girly girl.
"Oh that sounds awesome!" Kaci said popping a grape into her mouth. And well, Kaci... was not. Lauren shook her head. I just fake laughed, like I was having a great time.

Lauren finished the last little drop of her bottled peach tea, and let out a big breath.
"Let's go dump our trays." Lauren said, picking up her tray with trash on it, and held her lunch box. I slowly stood up and followed after her. Kaci also stood up with her lunch tray, barely any food on it left, and followed us into the dishwashing station, or whatever they called it.

Kaci still picked up foods from her tray while walking, and popping them into her mouth, and then she finally just dumped the food in the trash. Sometimes after lunch we have the option to go outside for a few minutes to sit down at picnic tables and sitting areas to catch a breath and stuff. But it was way too cold for that, and it wasn't in my direction.

So the other two and I just walked out of the cafeteria and hung out in the front entrance. That's where basically everybody from our lunch was. There was only a few people who actually were crazy enough to go outside. We leaned up against the concrete slab walls, and talked about whatever I was supposed to talk about, and then some teachers motioned for our classes to come back. We had to split up now, since we weren't in the same sixth hour.

"See ya Rita!" Kaci yelled, whipping her head back as she walked into a classroom, and blew me a kiss.
"Bye C." said Lauren, turning a corner. I kept walking until I ended back up in my sixth hour classroom, and kept working on whatever worksheet was put in front of our faces.

Eventually the dreadful day was over and I could go home. When I got on the bus, I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn't throw up. First of all, because I was on a bus, and second, because well, I wasn't allowed to. So I just had to find a way to seem to keep the sickness inside of me.

I was so relieved to walk up the drive way, up the porch steps, and through the front door, into my sweet cider smelling home. Although it was around thirty something degrees, I felt hot, and there seemed to be sweat dripping  from my head. I ripped off my coat, and felt the nice, cool breeze of the air conditioner, against my back, of which my shirt was sticking to. And even though the air was very subtle it felt so good to have it blowing against my hot body.

After awhile, I thought back to the morning of mom telling me my schedule. Good, I thought, I remember that she just told me to watch channel 11 on the tv after school. I sat on the couch, still moving slowly, because I felt better, but still not the greatest, and grabbed the remote from the coffee table. I flipped it on with the red power button in the top right corner, and the television made the ringy and click sort of noise, and a commercial was playing. I punched in 1,1 and channel 11 popped up, and I watched until Mom got home.