Ailith

2

"By the way," Thomas said, giving me a nudge to grab my attention, "Those dreams you've been having...did they stop?"

I quickly snapped out of my thoughts, pushing them aside for later on. "Oh....the one where I am escaping you mean?" I asked.

He nodded. "Has it gotten better?"

I shook my head. "I...I heard a voice this time...it was a woman," I said, "And I was also struggling much more than usual in this dream."

"Struggling?" Thomas asked, "Struggling to escape?" 

"Yes, and just as I was about to give up...the voice kept telling me to push on, that I'm stronger than I believe," I said, "And....that I had to save....I don't know....it kept repeating itself as 'the others,' but I didn't know who these 'others' are."

"Was it something that came with the dream?" he asked, "Like...something you knew you had to protect...you just didn't know what or who it was?"

I nodded. "I just knew I had to find whatever it was...." I said, trailing off.

I could tell Thomas was just as confused as I was. Normally, he did not follow such subjects as spirituality and phenomenons that were unexplainable. He loved topics that were more...logical in a sense. However, he knew how much this was bothering me, and he was willing to help, despite having personal issues of his own. 

Thomas may seem like the joker and carefree friend one could ask for, but deep down, there were some hidden battle scars that he carried since he was young. His mother left him when he was 7 years old without an explanation. No letter, no phone call, just...vanished. He was a huge mama's boy back them, so this hit him hard when his mother turned his back on him like that. To this day, we still do not know what happened to her, only that she wounded up moving to California to possibly escape the small town life.

Thomas's father stepped up to the plate and took on the role of mother and father. The two grew close, and when I came into the picture in middle school, Thomas's father encouraged the friendship, thinking that while I could not fill in as the mother figure (that would be pretty weird, honestly), I could be the friend that Thomas never had when he was younger.

All of that made me understand why Thomas was so keen on helping me, but it still made me feel like shit that he was helping me rather than himself.

________________________________________

Pulling up to the school, Thomas and I walked to our respective lockers. The sound of students running around, slamming lockers, and the disgusting lip smacking horny ass teenagers were making up against the lockers filled my ears. Once again, my Superman hearing was coming back. I groaned and silenced the extra noise as I made my way to the locker. Honestly, I am surprised my hearing hasn't been scared for life considering the bullshit I heard when I could not control my hearing. 

I grabbed all the books I needed for that day and stuffed it into my book bag. Yes, I intended to carry all of my books at once because quite frankly, with all the hallway traffic, there is no way I would be able to go back to my locker, struggle with opening the lock, getting the book out, and making it to my next class in under 2 minutes. Thomas always jokes about how I will have a broken back by the time I am 30, but honestly, it isn't that heavy.

As I closed my locker, I went through my head on what needed to be done for the day, and then I had the realization that would make any kid my age groan.

Math test.

Correction: Algebra II Test

"Goddamn it," I mumbled and punched my locker.

Now, normally, when a kid punches a locker, they would regret what they have done because they would severely hurt, or even break, their hand. Me, however? I regret it because I am now staring at a huge dent I have created...

Shit shit shit shit...The fuck have I done! Shit!

Hoping no one noticed and reported it, I scurried off to my Algebra II class, head down and an imaginary tale between my legs.

_______________________________

I made it to my class just in time. I wasn't stopped once to be asked about the dent in my locker, possibly because a majority of everyone in the hallway were either looking at their phones or rushing to the next class. I was the last one to arrive, yet when I closed the door, only a few people glimpsed up to see who it was, only to look back on their phones again.

Taking my seat in the middle row, I took out my pen and my notes to look over the notes I used to study. I knew, as per usual, no matter how hard I studied, I was going to flunk this class. Probably because we were not allowed to use calculators and we had to write everything in pen. The teacher, Mr. Jackson, has some weird hatred of pencils being used because, according to him, "Erasing makes a huge mess."

Two minutes into looking over my notes, Mr. Jackson walked in, causing everyone to scramble to put their phones back in their pocket. Another rule we had to abide by; if a phone is not put away by the time his suitcase hits the desk, he will confiscate it for the rest of the day. If you are lucky, he'll give it back by the end of class, but if you happen to catch him in a bad mood, he'll take it for the rest of the day. Usually, someone's phone would be confiscated by now, but today, everyone had them away as Mr. Jackson took out our test, cuing the chorus of groans.

He passed it out to each of us, reminding us to, once again, use our pens, no calculators, blah blah blah...

I swear, this is some kind of fuckery the school system pulls on purpose to test our patience. 

He then gave us the notion to turn our tests around and begin. Looking over the first part, I thought at first that this was finally going to be the test that saved my ass from a shit grade. As time went on, though, the problems got harder, and I swear, half of the questions weren't even shit we learned! How can you test someone on something they never learned?? Aggravated at everything at this point, I stopped twirling my pen and begin to squish it between my fingers, when all of the sudden, my only pen snapped right in half, spilling the ink right on my test.

Fuck fuck fuck! I cursed at myself, Why me....why the fuck me! Right now! Out of all times!!

I began to let out a huge growl of frustration, when I heard Mr. Jackson begin to bark at me. "Brianna! Be quiet when there is a test out!" he said, "You, out of all people, should know that, considering you cannot afford another fail!"

Everyone at this point was staring at me, either giggling or just seeing what was going to happen next. I looked at the other students who were giggling, about to tell them to mind their own fucking business, but when I gave my desk a little punch...well...let's just say the desk thought it was a huge punch rather than a small one...