“Got to feel bad for Luke…”
“Nah, that dickhead had this coming. Took him forever to pick.”
“What're you hating on my boy for? It’s not his fault that girl couldn’t take a hint.”
That girl stood in the doorway, eyebrows creasing slightly as the rambunctious conversations from earlier turned quiet. Friends huddled closer together, dropping their heads low to whisper in each other’s ears. I scoffed quietly to myself. Why was it that those morons could only be brave when talking behind someone’s back?
Aubrey kept her gaze level, glaring in the direction of who she knew were the main perpetrators, causing them to shrink back. It had the opposite effect on the guys–once they were out of her line of sight, of course. They leaned forward to try to get a better glimpse at her. Creepy? No doubt, but she did look damn good in the tank top that bunched up to highlight her stomach and thigh-high shorts that left little of her legs to the imagination. I didn’t entirely buy into the rumors floating around about her, yet, I had to admit, the way she dressed and her dyed pink hair didn’t help squash the rumors about her sleeping around.
Her shoes clacked against the tile floor, and I found myself glancing away when her blue eyes scanned over the area I was in. She muttered something incomprehensible, and then there was a scrape of the chair being pulled away from the desk. Aubrey settled in her seat, allowing the bag hanging off her bare shoulder to slip off her arm and smack into the corner of the desk. That didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest, and she pulled out her phone from her front pocket, fervently tapping on the screen.
Everybody suddenly felt much more comfortable returning to what they’d been doing, and the room became lively again. Behind Aubrey, Nicole–the one who had instigated the entire thing–clicked her tongue and strode to the front of the classroom where her cronies awaited her.
Kenna tapped her acrylic nails on the top of her desk. “Seriously, she should just get over him at this point. It’s embarrassing.”
“For real. Biggest slut ever,” said Sophia. “She should be more like you. Nobody likes someone who won’t take no for an answer.”
An unreadable expression crossed her face as she brushed back a strand of her dark hair. It was gone in the next instant, replaced by a sickening smirk that matched theirs. That wasn’t quite right, though. Even as she laughed and joked, her lips were strained. On edge. Like she was going to lash out or run away any second now.
Who knew a piece of shit hypocrite like her could make a face like that?
A sudden elbow jabbed into the leg of my desk drew my focus to the boy in front of me. “It’s been tense in here recently, huh?”
He was half turned around, resting his pudgy cheek on his fist, and lips upturned slightly. His unkempt hair hid his eyebrows from view, reaching past his ears. There was a slight red hue to his cheeks, and his breaths came out in gasps despite having done nothing to exert himself.
I hummed a soft affirmance, hoping Jack would get the hint I wasn’t interested in this conversation right now. Subtlety never had been his strong suit. He slammed an open hand on my desk, drawing a fair bit of gazes our way. I gulped nervously, forcing myself not to duck my head.
“But enough about that. Did you see the latest episode of Magical Girl: Rising? The final battle was epic!”
A hollow laugh rang out, and I could feel my palms becoming slick with sweat. He had attracted the group of three’s attention. Their smiles had become sharper, and it was obvious they were watching us. They hadn’t been able to bully Aubrey into submission and win the approval of the class, so they were raring to pounce on this opportunity. While Jack clearly didn’t mind the attention, I needed to do my best to throw them off my tracks by painting a juicer target on his back.
I faked a grin, speaking loudly enough to ensure that the people around us would hear. “I don’t really watch that kind of thing, but weren’t you just telling me about–”
“Alright, kiddos. Talking time is over. Shutting up time is upon us.” The tap of heels down the middle aisle between the rows of desks announced our teacher’s arrival. Her face was pale and there were dark circles under her eyes, to say nothing of her nearly stumbling every few steps. She slumped across the podium, trusting the rickety metal frame to support the entirety of her weight. “It’s been a crap morning already, so I don’t need any crap from all of you. Any questions, comments, concerns?”
Nobody said anything, and she somehow slunk further down the podium. “Great. Aubrey, put the phone away.”
The girl didn’t bother looking up. “Don’t want to.”
She snorted in response. “And there’s a lot of things I don’t want to do either like having to show up for work or bother with teenagers and their cellphones. Yet, here I am, doing both.”
Aubrey refused to even acknowledge Miss Halsey, doubling down by kicking her feet up on the desk. A few other kids snickered at this, while Miss Halsey did the bare minimum to push her head off her arms and at least look in the direction of her student. “You can head over to the office. I’ll see you after school.”
Not bothering to respond, Aubrey hunched over to grab her bag before heading toward the door. Nicole and her friends watched her go, murmuring to one another. Their obnoxious giggles didn’t appear to bother our teacher until Nicole decided to take it one step further. “Bitch had it coming.”
“And I guess I’ll see you as well, Nicole.” The sigh she let out sent her bangs flying in all directions. “And now I’ve got yet another thing I didn’t want to do added to my plate. Lucky me.”
She grumbled but didn’t object otherwise. There was no real use arguing with Miss Halsey because A) she could give less than a shit or B) you would wind up in the principal’s office if you took it far enough. Neither option really led to a productive outcome, so most of us realized it wasn’t worth the hassle. Not that I usually found myself disagreeing with her. Despite her best attempts to come into school every day portraying a Hollywood zombie, she was still reasonable. She was hot too, which went pretty far getting everyone to shut up.
Actually, it would've been hard to argue with her since the most I usually spoke in her presence was a few syllables. That led to a rather pathetic parent-teacher conference last semester, and an unending barrage of jokes from my dad. Mainly about how I was never going to get a girlfriend if I couldn’t even manage to talk to my hot teacher.
He never listened about how it wasn't her good looks that intimidated me but her personality that put me on edge.
Today, however, it was clear she was taking no prisoners. It would be best if I could hunker down and not draw any attention to myself. That idea fleeted quickly when I became front and center of her line of view. I hunched my shoulders, trying my best to occupy as little space as possible in the same manner I imagined a hedgehog would–minus the cool spines. Of course, that didn’t do anything except make her snort some more.
“You might as well stick around too, Grant. The more, the merrier. Or something like that I think,” she said. “Hurry up and get those textbooks open already. You all are seniors, right? I don’t know why I even have to tell you that halfway through the school year.”
I sat like a deer in the headlights, cursing my inability to defend myself, while everyone else moved to comply with her instructions. To the best of my knowledge, I hadn’t done anything to upset her. Nor had I broken any classroom rules, not that she was especially strict on those to begin with. So what reason did she have to keep me after? Knowing the answer wasn’t magically going to come to me, I grabbed my textbook out of my backpack and flipped to the assigned page. Not like I wanted to get myself in any more trouble than I was already somehow in.
The lesson passed by fast, a whirlwind of grammar and notes that left me little time to worry about it all. At the chime of the bell, everyone filed out, not wanting to stay here any longer than they had to. Papers and books were shoved away, and they escaped to sweet freedom.
A pity I didn’t know what I had until I lost it.
My teacher plopped into the chair behind her desk, spinning in circles a few before her momentum came to a halt. She stared at the three of us in barely concealed distaste. “Let’s get this over with.”