misophonia | m.c

he caught her by the water fountain

The girl was gone before any of the boys could try to follow her. She hugged her books to her chest to hide the damp spots on her shirt left by the soft drink as she rushed through the nearly empty halls.

She technically wasn't supposed to leave the cafeteria, but the vice principal who had been on lunch duty was far to busy flirting with one of the younger lunch ladies to notice a usually invisible girl leave a crowded room.

Cassidy went straight to her locker, fumbling with her lock while trying not to drop her books. As soon as she stopped at the last number and yanked down forcefully, it came popping off. She slid her arm full of supplies into the metal box and pulled out an oversized, dark green sweatshirt. Cassidy had been wearing an outfit she truly liked; which was rare for her. The white skinny jeans were hand-me-downs from her older sister, but the gray top had been something Cassidy had picked out on her own. In the last Christmas break, the girl had received a large sum of money from Christmas and birthday gifts. Her sister had finally convinced her a trip to the mall would be "fun and rewarding", so Cassidy reluctantly tagged along. She had only ended up purchasing a few clothing items, the shirt being one of them, and she really had liked it.

With a small frustrated sigh, Cassidy slid the sweatshirt on over her head. She had to pull her hair out of the whole meant for her head, it didn't sit right on her back anymore with the hood there. But she had to leave it down, she hated wearing her hair up, so she just moved it so it laid on the front of her shoulders. To make matters worse, the sweatshirt was several sizes too big and fit her quite awkwardly.

This has possibly been the weirdest day I've ever had at school, Cassidy decided as she grabbed her books for her next two classes and shut her locker again. The halls were deserted, she stll had fifteen minutes before lunch ended and then five more minutes to get to her next class.

Her eyes scanned the hall, she didn't want to stay by her locker incase a student wandered by and thought it was strange for her to be standing there and not be doing anything. She wouldn't be able to bring herself to reenter the lunch room, especially after she had just ran out wordlessly. She couldn't go to her next class because she would be freakishly early and her teacher might have a class when she had lunch.

Instead Cassidy found herself walking slowly and smoothly over to a little alcove at the end of the hall by a window and an old water fountain.

Most of the water fountains in the school had been ripped out of the walls and replaced with new, sleeker models with places to fill a water bottle that didn't require holding it at an awkward angle. Only about two or three of the old simple ones had been left in the school. No one ever used them anymore. They weren't clean; most of the time the drains were clogged with gum and the sides dripping with soda or juice people had tried to pour down them after lunch and before class. The water pressure was either annoyingly low or painfully high, there was no in between and it was hit or miss.

Easy to say, this particular corner of the school was rarely disturbed. So Cassidy slumped down against the wall about half a foot to the left of the fountain for fifteen minutes of peace.

She didn't want to risk falling asleep and being a joke for the rest of the year so she kept her eyes very open and trained out the window on a tree. The girl liked how the wind moved the leaves, it was gentle yet persistent. She liked that occasionally the wind was persistent enough to tug a leaf off a feeble twig and send it spirling towards the ground and that the leaf would always land lightly, never hard enough to break itself. She wished everything was that easy.

Cassidy wished for the freedom of falling but was terrified of hitting the ground.

After the girl thought about all this, there were still nine minutes before lunch was over. She sighed, standing up out of pure boredom.