For as long as you need me

3. And work done, means more work

I was wrong. Incorrect. Mistaken.

I groan as he enters the cafeteria, " Who in the world made his schedule?" Joyce turns around to see Calvin stroll towards an empty cafeteria seat with a gaggle of people following him, "Apparently people who hate you. Well, that's a lie. The secretaries don't hate you. Don't blame them."  I stab my macaroni and cheese with my spork and look up at her, "Then who else am I supposed to blame?"

She ponders my question for a bit and then says, "No one. He decided on the classes he takes and his schedule gave him this order." I put down the spork next to a very messy frowning face made out of the macaroni and wonder if that's what my face looked like at the moment. "So what I'm hearing is 'Blame him', yes? Joyce, I have 2 classes with him so far. Gym, English and now Business? Stop laughing at me and save me from this hell."

She continues snickering until I reach over and pull her beanie off her head. " Fine, okay, whatever. Just give that back before a teacher sees you waving that around and confiscates it." I throw it at her and she catches it with an a small, "Ouch" before setting it back on her head and smoothing it out. " You have to admit, it is funny in a way. He came back during senior year? That's crazy. And remove that pout from your face before it becomes permanent." I purse my lips, "I can't help it! It's not my fault I'm pouting, it's my face's fault."

Joyce pushes her glasses up and notes, " You really like playing the blame game today." I roll my eyes, " How observant." She holds her hands up in defense, " You usually handle your temper well, make sure you don't take that out on anyone else." I let go of my spork and bite my lip, " I'm sorry. It's just that everything is coming back to me and I despise it." She sighs, "It's fine. You're lucky I've been dealing with that attitude for 6 years." Well that's not true. "But I don't have an attitude."

She raises her eyebrows, " Not all the time, but definitely during rare occurrences like this." I make air quotes with my fingers, " 'Rare occurrences', sure. Life hates me and I need take it out on someone but I don't want it to be you guys so make sure to hit me if I go too far." She throws out her garbage and takes mine too. She grabs my hand and pulls me outside and up the stairwell, " My pleasure. I'll wack some sense into you. Meanwhile, let's see if we can convince Val to use the bathroom so we could do something stupid."

We reach her classroom and Joyce peers through the window while I duck and start whisper yelling at her. " You're going to get us in trouble if you make it that obvious! Make sure he doesn't see you." She's making some stupid signs at the door and I hope that Valerie sees her soon. I start thinking about how he was surrounded by all those people. "You know, maybe he just has lunch. There's no way he would be full IB." She snorts, "Or you both happen to take Business." I sat on the floor and rested my head on the wall.

"Yea, I mean his dad is in business." The door opened and Val came out and closed the door. She pats my head and holds out a hand and I take it, ducking under the window again. "Why do you look like absolute trash again?" "Shut up, he might have the same class as I do, he already has 3 of them that are the same."

She jumped onto Joyce's back and hooked her legs around her waist. "Hi." Her arms were around her neck and Joyce looks up and smiles. "Hi." She took her glasses and Joyce didn't stumble but squints. "Valerie, be careful that's not your prescription." She twirled the lenses around her fingers, "Yea I'll be fine, don't worry." She puts them on and squints, "I want glasses." I grab onto her shirt, "But you don't need them. They're just a burden anyways."

Joyce hitches Valerie higher and makes her yelp, and reaches a hand up and plucks her glasses off her face, "Let's not damage your eyesight, Lexi's and mine are bad enough." Valerie is still red, "Don't do that without giving me a warning, that scared me." Joyce just smiles, "That's what I aim to do, you hold me tighter when I do it." I laugh, "You should've expected it, Val, she does it every time." She shakes her head, "Where are we going, I have to be back in at least 6 minutes."