The Hooded Figure

NINE

I loved my second semester schedule. Charlesteen High School has a different timetable arrangement than most, but whatever makes high school bearable, right? Everyday we had the same classes so I'd already taken most of my diploma exams. The only ones I still had to take in June was my Social Studies exam and Math 31. Sadly, Jade was only in one of my classes this semester and Layla was in none.

I entered Ms. Yaworski's classroom and smiled at her politely. She eyed me sternly while she returned to the work on her desk. I took my seat in the back, once again early, and to my surprise, Trey walked in. His black hood hardly moved as he made his way down the aisle and took the seat in the far left corner once again. As the class began to trickle in, I leaned on my right hand. The pain in the right side of my head had subsided, but I could still feel the occasional sharp, almost electric jolt.

I didn't know what was wrong with me, but as I started thinking about it, I started wondering if being smashed into a locker could have something to do with this. I quickly pulled out my phone before class started and looked up the symptoms of a minor concussion.

Dizziness, loss of balance, headaches, blurry vision, etc.

I frowned and fought the urge to groan and curse as I looked up how to deal with a concussion. I was surprised to find that it told me to sleep it off. I was always told not to sleep if you got a concussion, but maybe the internet is just trying to kill me, I wouldn't be surprised. I decided to take a nap once I got home.

Ms. Yaworski stood as he bell rang and held a stack of papers in her hands, looking proud. "Good morning class, I've graded your module exams and I am very proud!" She beamed as she passed back the papers. When she made her way around to me, she folded the paper and handed to me so that no one would see my mark.

I unfolded the paper and smiled as a red 97% was circled in the top left corner. I put the test in the pocket of my binder and shut it, looking around the class at people's reactions. Surprisingly enough, it seemed as if Trey was doing the same thing. He was looking around the class, a grim look on his though I doubt he could see much of anyone with that hood on. I noticed he hadn't gotten a test back and it took me a moment to remember that he just started here yesterday.

Get a grip, Amy.

It's just the concussion, I reasoned with myself. For all I knew, I didn't have a concussion and I was overreacting. I was drifting for most of the class and didn't pick up on most of the stuff she was saying, but my head was starting to pound again.

When the bell rang, I was so out of it that it took me a moment to realize that class was over. I rolled my eyes at myself and stood up, grabbing my binders and walking out of the class somewhat gingerly. I got to my locker and grimaced at Layla who looked back at me confusedly.

"What's wrong?" She inquired, leaning against her locker to face me as I opened mine.

"Nothing, just the typical emotional strain high school has on its students," I lied, throwing her a sarcastic smile for validity. She seemed to take the response as she laughed at it.

"That's understandable," she replied as she got off her locker and opened it. I grabbed my lunch and made a whining noise as I nearly hit my head on the locker in frustration, but caught myself in time.

"I'll be eating during my spare today, I've got to work in the computer lab on a project," I explained, reopening my locker and putting my lunch back into it.

"Ouch, what class?"

"Social Studies," I answered grimly, walking away from my locker. "See you tomorrow," I said, thinking about the fact that I probably wouldn't see her until tomorrow.

I made my way to the computer lab, somewhat regretting not bringing a small snack to tide me over. When I arrived, Trey was already there. I became generally angry with myself for being surprised, but I didn't know the guy, for all I knew, he was a liar and a flaker.

Thankfully, he's here.

I took a seat beside him and whispered, "Hey."

"Hey," he replied in his seemingly usual dark tone of voice.

"The librarian will get mad at you if you talk loudly. It's a real thing here at Charlesteen." I smiled as I logged onto my computer. The computer lab was located roughly in the library, surrounded by bookshelves and if I was being entirely honest, it was kind of hard to find. "Did you get lost at all?"

"I asked the librarian." He shrugged as he too typed in his username and password to log on. When my computer loaded, I pulled up my Google Slide and smiled proudly. I'd managed to set up a nice formatting even with my ancient laptop.

"Really?" He asked sounding unimpressed. For a moment I thought he was talking about the font or the colours I'd used and I felt oddly (but not unusually) self-conscious about it.

"What?" I questioned, trying to sound calm and unaffected. Trey's hand reached up and pointed to the corner of the screen where it read, Project Partner is a Dick.

"Oh my gosh, sorry!" I whisper yelled. "I forgot to change it," I added sheepishly.

"It's fine," he replied with what seemed to be a small smile on his face, but I couldn't tell because of the way he'd angled his face away from me.

I opened another tab to search up some clarification on a term I didn't quite understand, when an ad popped up. It was the #youngleofound tag and a picture of the young pop star who looked flawless in the image.

Suddenly, Trey asked, "Do you know him?"

My head turned to face him. "No. I heard about him on the news last night though, why?"

"Curious," was all he said for a moment. I frowned for a moment before returning to face my computer screen.

"So, you gonna add me to this document, or what?" I grinned and added him to the document, rolling my eyes at the same time for whatever reason. We started working and I was surprised to see that he actually knew a lot of what we were doing. I didn't comment on it though, I simply worked in peace, enjoying the fact that I didn't have to do all the work.