The Life I'm Running From

2\ That's A Pretty Pathetic Excuse

The next morning of school was similar to the previous day—minus almost getting hit by a football—and I couldn't wait to get to lunch. Turns out you get a lot of homework when you miss the first two weeks of school. I didn't know if I could ever catch up with all of it.

When the bell for lunch rang, I went back to my locker to put away my textbooks from that morning. Adriana met me at my locker like yesterday, and we braved the stampede of students all heading down the stairs to the cafeteria.

"What's the special today in the cafeteria?" I asked as we sat down.

Adriana dropped her bag down on the seat beside her. "It's Tuesday, so tacos. Why?"

"Just wondering."

She raised her eyebrows. "You're not actually thinking of getting some, right? Because as a friend, I'd have to convince you otherwise."

"Don't worry, I brought a lunch." I smiled. Though we had only known each other for two days, Adriana considered me a friend. That easily made up for the fact that I had mountains of homework.

We both pulled out our lunches we had packed—mine a sandwich while she had brought Dunkin' Donuts—and started to talk about our English class that morning. Our teacher had completely blown up at one of the girls for forgetting to turn in her assignment, but the girl had barely batted an eyelash.

"I can't believe she didn't care. Does she want to get into university or what?" Adriana shook her head, unable to register the fact that some people weren't worried about their futures.

"Yeah," I agreed, because I didn't want to admit I had no desire to get into university either. "Also, I had no clue you were going to be in my English class. I'm glad you were."

Adriana nodded. "Me too. We should compare schedules to see how many classes we have the same."

After taking another bite of my sandwich, I unzipped my backpack and pulled out the folded piece of paper. I smoothed it out on the table. Adriana put her's beside mine, and we searched for similarities.

"We don't have very many classes together," Adriana said sadly.

I squinted at the paper. Will Solace's contacts worked surprisingly well, but I still have to concentrate for the words to stay in place. "We have Home Economics together against period though. What's that?"

"Home Ec.?" Adriana pumped her fist. "Yes! You don't know how happy I am that you're in that class. It's a food-making class, and literally everyone in there is an idiot. We've got to be partners."

Food-making class? Now that sounded like a class that wouldn't bore me out of my mind. "It's next period. It sounds exciting, I can't wait!"

★彡 ★彡 ★彡 ★彡

Turns out my excitement was misplaced. Yes, we got to make food, and yes, the class was even preparing food today, but no, I was not able to participate. As the Home Ec. teacher, Mr. Gullman put it, it would be "unwise to put me in a kitchen" when I hadn't learned all the hazards and proper safety measures. Yay. Loving this class already.

So now I was in the office, copying notes off of a printout. Why I couldn't just keep the notes I was reading from, I didn't know. Teachers love to torture you I guess.

The office was deadly quiet. I wasn't sure if that was because it was right after lunch and all the teachers had gotten their chatting done with, or because all the interesting conversations were behind solid doors. Either way, I was alone and bored in the back room. The door was propped open so Mrs. Livent, who was "supervising" me, could be sure I wasn't on my phone or anything.