Escapade of the Dawn

Chapter 2

The day had continued on the same, with first, second, and eventually third period; all three reviewing the work from the week before. The class that Maya had always dreaded the most had come as her fourth period, and that was her English class; filled with far too many people and a much too strict teacher. Too many students with actual friends and courage to make new ones, and a teacher not seeing a problem in forcing the quiet teenagers to socialize and be in groups when they perform perfectly well on their own.

All Maya usually did in this class was lay her head sideways and stair at the tiny, dotted patterns of her desk. Some days, when she was a little more tired than today, she'd try and make out designs on her desk. Other days, she'd doodle in her notebooks and assignments. She'd specifically bought those notebooks for class assignments, but she very quickly lost the motivation to actually try and make assignments look good.

Today, thankfully, was a much easier day for English, since the teacher had decided a movie would be a good idea for an assignment. Maya had seen this movie far too many times in the past for past English classes, so she'd figured it'd be better to rely on memory for the assignment rather than hurt her eyes by staring at a bright screen in the dark room. 

"Maya!" A stern voice was heard across the room, from the teacher's desk. Maya had fallen asleep about five minutes into the movie; most likely from the lack of sleep the night before. "How many times must I tell you, this isn't your bedroom. This is a classroom." Maya sighed, frustrated. "Yes, Miss Lona." 

Maya saw that she had been given an assignment, same as every other student in the room. Everybody was talking amongst themselves, whether it be about the assignment or about what they planned to do the moment they left school after their next two classes. Maya sighed, and opted to just doing her work, and just day dream the rest of the class. 

She grabbed her back and zipped up the smallest pocket the bag had, looking for her earbuds. She plugged them into her phone, and started one of her playlists she had named after her favorite song. Fittingly, that very song was what started playing once she pressed shuffle. After a while of working, Maya felt a tap on her shoulder. She froze, the tingling feeling on her shoulder lingered, and she felt a wave of discomfort. Slightly shaking her head and ignoring it, she turned around to see who was trying to get her attention. 

"Hey, did you finish the worksheet?" A well-known boy by the name of Briar sat there with a slight smile. Friendly-looking. It took Maya a second to register the question, "Oh, yeah, I just finished it actually. Why?" She questioned. Maya wasn't the smartest when it came to English assignments. Not only that, nobody really knew her, so why was she being asked by someone who actually does have some kind of reputation, other than 'the quiet student.'

"Oh, I don't entirely get what we're supposed to be doing." That's a lie, Maya could tell. She would sometimes entertain herself with ideas of flipping people off and telling them to do the work themselves. Other times, she'd think of what would happen if she genuinely tried helping and ignored the lies. "Hmm. Well, if you paid attention to the movie, then you should have no problem with the questions." As she was about to turn away, Briar had put his hand on her shoulder to turn her back. She tensed, feeling the dread once more. As she tried shaking Briar's hand off, he continued. 

"Well, you weren't paying attention at all, so you can't really tell me anything." He smirked, knowing full well that it would spark more of a conversation. Maya saw it differently, "I've seen this movie about a hundred times, I don't need to waste my time watching it again when I practically have it memorized by now." Maya stood from her seat before Briar could touch her again, and made her way to Miss Lona's desk. 

She handed the paper to her teacher, "I understand you're perfectly capable of doing your assignments, but at the very least try and stay awake during my class. Home is where you rest, class is where you work." Maya huffed, hearing these words come from her English teacher's mouth time after time again got rather frustrating. "You should know that by now. You're in the tenth grade, not kindergarten." 

As Maya sat back down, she heard Briar ask the kid next to him like he had asked her. She sighed quietly, and grabbed a notebook from her backpack. Maybe now would be a good time to pass the time with mindless writing. Stories, notes, poems, and occasionally song lyrics filled this specific notebook up to about half the pages.

Time passed by, both so incredibly fast, and so incredibly slow. Something that happened whenever Maya allowed herself to shut off her attention span and just write whatever came. She rarely had these moments, but whenever they came, it always had a much more relaxing tone than her own pills had. There were specific nights she remembered where all she did was write, trying to fall asleep from the calming relaxation it gave her. It may have been more effective than her sleeping pills, but it inevitably led to multiple all-nighters and larger bags under her eyes. 

She never minded not sleeping, though. She hated the sleepiness and drowsiness she would get from her pills. It was her pills, her tea, and the pressure of sleeping she hated. Maya knew she needed sleep, but she also knew that telling her off and yelling at her wouldn't do anything good for her sleeping issue. She learned to live with the yelling and pressure, though. She didn't mind it anymore, and just let things happened as they happened. 

It's never done her wrong to go with the flow before, so why start worrying now?

Howdy, not sure if this was a good chapter, but I like the idea of doing 1000 words each chapter, at least. Anyways, hope you enjoyed this chapter. :))

Words: 1028

The video at the top is just the song I listened to the most whilst I wrote this chapter. You can interpret it as the song that Maya was listening to as well, if you'd like.