6:14:19 → j. hale, a. cullen

03.

6:09:14

As Emery made her way to her third and final class before lunch, exhaustion began to weigh her down. It wasn't from the amount of stares she's gotten, or from the teachers finding amusement in the way she stammered as she introduced herself to her classmates. Instead, it was the amount of energy she wasted as she tried to keep herself composed. After only walking up the three short flights of stairs, she could feel the way her shoulders involuntarily began to hunch over and the way her lungs began to feel heavier.

Now, as she's standing outside of her English class, her eyesight begins to blur as she tries to recover from the lack of breath she just couldn't find.

"Hey, are you alright?" A timid voice asked from behind her. Turning around Emery saw a girl near her short stature, with glasses edging the tip of her nose and an unsure smile beginning to rise on her lips.

Emery quickly nodded and sent the girl a short grin, standing up as straight as she could muster, which wasn't much. Clearing her throat, she wrapped her arms around her notebook and syllabus, leaning against the lockers near the classroom. "I'm alright, thank you. And you are?" She asked gently, noticing the other students standing behind her, looking at her with curious glances.

"I'm Angela Weber, but you're Emery Swan." She responded, a glimmer of amusement in her eyes as she saw the eldest Swan grimace at the sound of her name. "That's me." She replied wearily, shifting on her feet as she heard the bell ring, signaling that their class was going to begin.

"If you don't want to stand in front of the class waiting for the teacher to finally notice you, you can follow me to my seat. There's a seat next to me that's empty and has your name on it." Emery felt relief pulse through her as she quickly nodded and began to follow Angela into the small classroom, smiling to herself as she noticed quotes taped on every inch of the classroom from her favorite poets.

"Are you a senior too?" Emery asked quietly as she sat next to Angela, the latter try to straighten out the creasing from the Swan's schedule to see what other classes they might have together.

"No, just smart. I'm a junior, but most of my classes are AP. Book nerd if you will." Angela said dismissively, but peeked over at Emery and grinned as she noticed the elder caught onto her humor and relaxed into her chair.

"And we have lunch together next too. I'm sure you've already met Eric. He's been talking about you two nonstop, bragging about how he got you and your sister to agree to sit with us at lunch." Emery bit her bottom lip and gently twisted in her chair to face her seatmate, a nervous look on her face.

Angela quickly placated the girl by sending her a gentle smile and reassured her that it's just a small group they'll be with, and that she has nothing to worry about.

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"Oh look, it's fresh meat." Emery heard from behind her as she followed Angela carefully down the narrow flight of stairs.

Turning around, Angela sent the boy catching up to them a warning look, but the boy simply shrugged it off and walked closely to Emery.

"So, new girl, how are you liking it so far?" The boy said cheekily, narrowly missing a girls shoulder as she tried to squeeze through the herd of other students. "Nice, everyone is extremely over welcoming." She responded, sarcasm seeping through her voice. Instead of getting offended, the boy instead cheekily grinned, throwing an arm around her shoulder, dismissing the look of bewilderment and exasperation on the two girl's faces.

"Tyler, stop touching everybody!" Angela called out, her voice raising as she flung a book at the now laughing boy.

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