The Ripple Effect

Decisions

Alexis Smith woke up on December 10th in her room on the basement floor of her parent's house to the feeling of her mother's old phone vibrating under her pillow. The girl got up slowly and let loose a long yawn before getting up and looking at the digital clock on the lone table in the room which read "7:42PM." Alexis wasn't used to waking up to an alarm of sorts, let alone waking up on time to go to school. The girl wasn't entirely sure of what she should do, so she simply dressed into her cleanest clothes before brushing her teeth and took the backpack which she had prepared the night before with her while she got into her car and drove to school.

When Alexis arrived at school, she went to the front office and asked for them to print out a copy of her schedule for her so she didn't accidentally walk into the wrong class. After this she went from class to class getting told off by her teachers for ditching before sitting down and genuinely paying attention and raising her hand to ask questions on things she didn't understand, which was close to everything. Alexis never got used to the glares she got when she walked into each class or the feeling of people blatantly ignoring her when she asked for help. Even some of the teachers were hesitant to help the girl due to her being absent for so long. Most teachers felt the need to clarify that Alexis wasn't going to get a credit for the class due to her truancy, but the girl tried just as hard regardless of whether or not she was going to get a credit.

Alexis had originally began going to class so she would be at school at all times to protect Acacia, but after her affair with Daniel she was beginning to feel other motivations to be at school. Part of her hated herself for what she did, as she knew that Acacia liked Daniel, but with the way he talked to her Alexis couldn't help but do what she did. She had been through a good amount of relationships despite her only being in her sophomore year in high school and had learned through all of them that she was too quick to jump the gun and get into a relationship with any boy she liked which usually ended up in her getting heart broken.

Due to the girl being in so many relationships in such a short amount of time, she had a firm belief of what love really was and was fairly confident that she had never fallen in love with anyone. Even with this belief she still had somewhat strong affectionate feelings over Daniel. Alexis wanted to stay out of a relationship with the boy to see if those feelings would ever begin to die down as she expected them to, or if they were genuinely strong feelings that she didn't know she had until now. Alexis hoped it was the former of the two poisons due to her caring much more for Acacia than she cared for herself.

After a few long classes for Alexis, lunch period had finally rolled along. Alexis didn't have any money or food for herself so she did as she usually would and simply walked to the table where she normally sat with Acacia. Alexis felt weird to be at the table earlier than everyone else since she normally got to school just as lunch started or shortly after it started and took her sweet time to walk to the cafeteria and meet up with Acacia. The girl sat there for a few minutes before Daniel walked up to the table and took a seat across from her.

"Hello," Daniel greeted.

"Hey," Alexis returned with a slightly somber tone.

"You alright?" Daniel asked in concern.

"Yeah," Alexis started, "I'm fine. How've you been today?"

"I've been fine," Daniel replied, "What about you?"

"Not too bad," Alexis said.

"Did you actually go to class today?" Daniel teased.

"Yeah," Alexis said with a proud tone, "I do that now."

"That's great," Daniel said with a smile.

"So," Alexis started, "About that kiss yesterday..."

"About that," Daniel said as a blush reached his face, "I didn't know you liked me."