Overtime

twenty-seven ✧ || acceptance

The sound of feet shuffling into the gym echoed through the back hallway. It was dark, and fairly cold. After all, the group was stuffed into one of the back storage halls. The only entrance into the room sat between the gym's two sets of bleachers normally folded into the walls but that were extended that day for their commencement assembly.

Colten took a deep breath, the only sound created within the room, as he sucked on a cigarette. The rest of his team remained silent, basking in the sounds of students scurrying into the gym.

In a matter of minutes, they would be exposing themselves to them once more — the first time since the crowd deemed them as freaks — and would be telling them that they were here to stay.

Aubrey exhaled, rubbing her hands together frantically. The same group who had ridiculed her, who had vandalized her locker and called her names, she would be revealing herself to and swearing to forever protect them. Funny how life worked.

She didn't know what she was more worried about: their reaction to her, or her reaction when it came time to protect those who so deeply wronged her.

"Do you think this is gonna work?" Jay asked, leaning back on their makeshift seats. Seeing as all the chairs had been spilled onto the gymnasium floor, making room for students, there were none for the 'guests of honour,' so-to-speak, to sit on. Instead, they found themselves seated on a short stack of gym mats heaved against the back wall.

After all, for a period those mats were their beds. As chairs, they weren't that bad.

"I think so," Colten claimed, twirled his cigarette through his fingers, taking a deep breath of the dusty, stale air. He placed it between his lips, breathing through it again. After such, he cleared his throat, staring at the device as he continued. "At this point, we have nothing to lose."

"We're going to be here regardless." Raymond pointed out, scratching the back of his hand. "Really, this is just pleading for acceptance from the student body."

Noah scoffed. "That's what I'm worried about."

Snow took another deep breath in before staring at the cigarette in his palms. He tapped the end, snapping the device off, then slid it into his pocket.

Amidst their calm and the loud bustling of chaos just outside the door, there was the sound of faint, muffled tapping — a finger on a microphone — before a female voice burst through the room.

"Good morning everyone," she began, clearing her throat as the crowd hushed, giving her a chance to speak. "As I'm sure a few of you know, I'm your new principal, Ms. Dansworth."

From through the door, the Overtimers leered in intrigue. Aubrey raised an eyebrow. Jay, Noah and Colten leaned forward in surprise. Raymond and Dustin merely blinked. They hadn't had a chance to meet let alone see the new principal yet. Knowing that their first time introduced would be when she was welcoming them essentially onto their staff was unique to say the least.

Aubrey, pushing herself to her feet, wandered forward. Placing a hand against the wooden door, it's paint red and crumbling, she pushed it open. Directly before them was the makeshift stage the janitors had pieced together earlier that morning, and on it stood a single woman.

She had darker skin, and black hair cut off at her chin. Her bangs were swept to the right, hugging her thick, long lashes. She wore navy dress pants and a pale blue blouse, a small, pink breast-cancer pin clipped to her left shoulder.

As Aubrey pushed the door open further, it clicked, hugging the magnet stationed on the floor to keep it propped open. Just behind her, the other Overtimers piled up, desperate to see the new woman that was to be their boss.