Mind Or Matter

Chapter Twenty Two - Eight Years Later

2005

 "Oh, I'm Lilly!" Michael yelled. "I'm a crazy bitch! Oh, Will! Hit me harder! Agh! I hate everything!"

The whole class was laughing, except for a few girls reading their books in a circle by the corner. But fourth period was full of a bunch of popular kids that William despised. They all made fun of William and Lilly, forcing them together in their cruel scenarios.

The teacher was always late for class. He would go to the teacher's lounge between class periods, and he was always coming back around 11:45 am – fifteen minutes after class started.

Now, William and Lilly weren't exactly "bullied", they were just the main topic people seemed to talk about whenever they were bored.

William sat three desks away from Michael. If he was any closer, he'd probably find the courage to punch him in the face.

Lilly sat in the corner, typing on her laptop. She had been working on this one book for seven months, and it was almost seventy thousand words long.

Michael sat atop his desk, making fun of William some more. But William wasn't paying attention – he was too busy brainstorming characters in his notebook, the one his mom had gotten him in kindergarten. It was a huge book, at least five hundred pages. William was close to the end. But William didn't write his books in the notebook, no, he typed everything on his laptop, just like Lilly did. She had gotten him one for Christmas last year, and she taught him how he could sync his files and folders to his dad's computers in the home office. Lilly also showed William how he could organize all of his files into neat folders, each one named after one of his books. In its folder were all of the notes and ideas for the book, including the actual book. For an example, William had been writing a book called Telephone. The folder was called Telephone, and it was inside a folder named Stories, which was inside a directory called William, which held all of his things.

11:39 am. Just six more minutes and Mr. Brockway will be here, William thought to himself, making notes on Thomas's background. Thomas was the main character in Telephone, and boy did he have lots of self-struggles!

11:40. Michael was talking to his girlfriend, Ellie. Ellie was a cheerleader, and she was really flexible. Ellie had straight, black hair that was shiny but clean. Ellie had sky blue braces and had a laugh that annoyed both William and Lilly, yet everyone else seemed to love it.

Mr. Brockway walked into the room, holding his papers. William looked over to Lilly, her eyes still locked on the small laptop screen, fingers dancing rapidly across the keyboard.

William slipped his laptop out of his bag and opened it up, emailing Lilly.

Hey. What's your word count? Which book are you writing? What's going on?

William pressed SEND and waited. He knew that Lilly always had her email program open.

"Clear your desks," said Mr. Brockway, standing at the front of the room...

Eighth grade. Michael was still an ass towards both William and Lilly. They had three classes together – language arts, Spanish, and science.

William and Lilly were both currently in science at the moment. Mrs. Snitch, the teacher, hated that Lilly always had her laptop out. She was the type of teacher that assumed that all teenagers were lazy, stupid, gaming creatures that never did anything productive.

Michael stood on his chair, his black jeans barely clinging to his waist. He always wore these baggy jeans, which apparently made him look cool. But, if anyone asked William, he'd tell them that they looked stupid.