Aberration

Chapter 50

I attended school for the most part for the rest of the week. Skipping some classes and zoning out in others. Never the less my grades were rising, despite the fact I was doing little to almost no work in my classes.

I hadn't talked to Ashton since Monday, the day I had learned what happened. I could tell he was still nervous about Harry's threat, even though I had texted him that night. Telling him I had taken care of it. I really didn't take care of it but I doubted that after the fight Harry would have the nerve to make a move.

He sat silently in front of me as the teacher finished up her end of class lecture. The bell ringing and interrupting her mid sentence as students began to file out, ignoring her shrill demands of "I dismiss you, not the bell!"

I stood up, half expecting Ashton to wait up for me like he had before earlier in the year. But he didn't, and my hopes dropped as I clung to my books tightly, taking out my many emotions of the day on them. I followed behind him silently, watching from afar as he opened his locker, grabbing his books and turning off down the hall.

The urge to yell out his name, to catch up with him and apologize a thousand times over and beg to be friends again and to stop the ignoring, fought with me mentally. But instead, I turned on my heel. Briskly stopping at my locker and heading to seventh class.

"Set your ovens to 450 degrees, we will be beginning shortly." Mr. Knack commands, setting his own oven then proceeding to walk around the room to observe us.

Every 2 weeks in Cooking class we get a grade on how well we can bake and follow a recipe. It was the end of the 2nd quarter in school and every baking grade prior to this one had been horrific for me. I had never been a great "chef" in general and that was my basic motivation for taking this class. Unluckily for me, that had been the same thought for every self centered prep in the school too. And miraculously, we had all gotten seventh period together.

I did as told, knowing once my oven was set on the correct temperature I'd be on my own with this recipe. It was more of a safety hazard than a helping hint for us to be told what the needed temperature was for the dish. The last thing the school wanted or needed was for a classroom to be set on fire because of a teenage Neanderthal thought it was a good idea to try and crank the oven to 700 degrees.

I glimpsed around the room as my oven warmed. We had been given the option to do this individually or work in a pair. Of course, most everyone would rather work in a pair than suffer by themselves, as would I. But you see, I'm never that lucky. 

I stood alone in this assignment, because no one would want to be partners with Ava right? Right.

The oven beeped and I began to work, mixing all the obvious ingredients and trying to ignore the whispers from around me. I knew they were talking about me. They were always talking about me. And I don't say that in the conceited, bitchy way. I say that in a way that someone who's become almost immune to the taunting would say.

Despite my lack of kitchen skills, I had one of the best grades in the class. It really was an easy A, but in order to get in A, you actually had to do the work. And that's where most of the others failed.

I peered up from my bowl and whisk, looking around at the other students stations to see that at least 90 percent of them hadn't even heated their ovens yet. This is one of the reasons the whispers and humorous glares continued. Because I had actually started.

I always failed to see the light in my peers thinking processes. To be honest, I had once thought that not having many friends would steer me more in the clear in high school. That I would be able to focus on where it was I wanted to go, and avoid all the drama that came with irrelevant high scale people and many friends.