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★
AMARA GRABBED THE HOT plate of pancakes out of the microwave, and handed them to Silvia, who sat at the kitchen table. "Alright, you woke up late so you better chug your orange juice and stuff those pancakes in fast. We've gotta hurry."
Silvia frowned, "how come we have to walk instead of getting dropped off by a car?"
"Because we don't have a car," she answered, rushing to pack their lunches. "We're broke."
"Can we get un-broke?"
"Yeah, sure. Maybe one day." Amara abruptly clapped her hands together, "hurry up! We've gotta be at school in ten minutes—and it takes fifteen to walk."
★
Amara leaned against the sink in the empty bathroom at school, currently ditching third period with Lip, Ian, and Karen. The other girl was perched on the windowsill, smoking a cigarette. Amara watched her with a disgusted look on her face.
"So, are you guys going to the parent-teacher conference tonight?" Karen asked, and the other three all let out humorless chuckles.
"Bold of you to assume I have the parents for that," Amara replied, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. She still had absolutely no idea why she hated Karen so much, the girl never did anything to her. She just had an overbearing amount of bad vibes that rolled off of her, and Amara couldn't ignore them even if she tried.
"Hey," the blonde started, turning to look at Lip. "Louise got an A on the paper you wrote her for her English class. How do you keep doing that?"
Lip's head whipped up, and he glanced to Amara. "Well, I've had a pretty good tutor."
"What? Amara has been helping you write them?"
She scoffed. "Why did you say it like that? And no, I haven't. Not recently, anyway. He was never able to write a proper sentence until the eighth grade when I helped him with an essay about what we did over the summer . I mean, seriously, his sentences were all like: 'This summer I swimmed.'"
"Okay, okay," Lip cut her off with the wave of his hand. "Yeah, I used to be a pretty shit writer. Now I'm just smart."
Amara laughed, shaking her head. "Sure, sure."
The bathroom door bursted open, and two football players walked in. "Eighteen seventy!" He exclaimed, bringing Lip into a hug.
"All right!"
"Thanks man, I appreciate it."
"Perfect for the Big Ten," he told the other boy. "Happy to help, man."
"You more than helped. Now I'll definitely be a beer swilling, roofie slipping, Fighting Illini next year."
They watched as the boys left, and Karen hopped of the windowsill. "Why do we help people we hate?"
