Austin City Limits

Chemistry:: Ch. 7

© All rights reserved. 2015. LizzieMarie1313

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After American Lit, Paisley has to head in the opposite direction from me but points me towards Chemistry. Not wanting to be late, I speed walk through the halls twisting and turning to avoid hitting anybody running the opposite direction. The warning bell rings and I speed up my tempo a tad, thankfully I spot the right door number slip inside before the final bell chimes.

I'm so relieved that I'm not late, that I don't see who is inside. "Am I correct to assume that you are Miss Summers?" A teacher that looks to be as old as the dinosaurs stands at the front of the room. She has white fuzzy hair, goggle crease lines in her skin around her normal thick-rimmed classes and puffy red cheeks.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Great. How exciting to have a new student joining us today. And I've heard you are just a sophomore, is this correct?" When I nod, she continues, "I'll expect you to be able to take a proficiency exam to prove you are capable of knowing the material you have missed. And in this classroom we have assigned seating. We work in groups of four and there is only one group of three left, so you may join Mr. Matthews, Mr. Helton and Miss Prater." She points me to the back of the room.

This just soared to a whole new level of awkward. Zackary is waving enthusiastically while Lola sits with a scowl etched into her perfect features. Porter shifts to lean back against the back of his chair with a smirk and a gleam in his eyes.

"There are no other groups I can join, Mrs. Um," I look down at my schedule to remember my teacher's name, "Mrs. Lewinski?"

Mrs. Lewinski seems confused; she looks between my new group members and me. "Is there something going on that I should know about, Miss Summers? I can't fathom a reason for you to have caused trouble within the first day of arriving here."

Should I tell Mrs. Lewinski and risk getting reprimanded for the sake of possibly getting into another group? There's no guarantee that even if I do tell her what's going on that she will understand or rearrange groups. I decided to keep my mouth shut.

Mrs. Lewinski takes my silence as the answer. "This is not negotiable, and I expect you all to get along. I will not tolerate drama in my classroom."

"Yes, ma'am." I repeat and my feet drag as I make my way to the back of the room. Zackary is sitting between Porter and Lola, I try to take the empty chair next to Porter but he scoots his large frame over and gestures for me to sit between him and Zackary. I shoot daggers at Porter for putting me one seat closer to Lola. "Bastard." I mutter under my breath and Porter's smirk twists into a satisfied smile.

"Hell yeah! My girl is smart!" Zackary leans across me to whisper to Porter. "Porter do you remember when you were telling me how geeks can be freaks in the ..."

I slap the back of Zackary's head before he can finish the sentence. But it doesn't deter him one bit. "See what I mean? Feisty!"

The boys high five while Lola scoffs. "More like easy."

Why does she have to make it so hard to sympathize for her? Just hours earlier I was trying to stop this fake relationship so it wouldn't torture her but she just continues to throw the jabs and insults my way without remorse. I've always hated my fair complexion, my cheeks redden with every emotion and Lola must take my sudden anger to be embarrassment.

"Are you going to cry? Did I hurt your feelings?" She sneers and I grit my teeth before I say something I will regret.

"All right, settle down class. Today we are having a quiz over the Gram to Mole conversions. Does anyone have any questions about last night's homework?" No one raises his or her hand. Mrs. Lewinski looks at me, she quirks an eyebrow in question but I stay quiet as well. "Very well. I'll pass your worksheets around you have twenty minutes to complete them."