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Chapter 25 - Boobs of You To Assume
But, so far as class was concerned, I had to defend an argument and figure out why some arguments weren’t as good as others. After that was stuff about archetypes and mythic tradition. I doubted any of it would be well-expressed in class with all the distractions.
I winced to myself and found the words, “I’m…really sorry, again…”
Chilton gingerly set his hands on mine and assured me, “It’s fine. Are you okay? Feel any better?”
I had to shrug but told him, “I’m okay. I just wish I had normal stuff to deal with…instead of all this…I may have destroyed a friend’s entire life…”
Who knew what Ryan must have thought of the snippets of this conversation he could hear. Same went for the security people.
With one of his regular sighs, Chilton patted my hands lightly and said, “Things will work out. To keep you up to date…umm…just write a one page synthesis paper on what you remember from the last assignment. Pick one of the readings I’ve given you and…uhh…just kinda expand on the homework you turned in with those new readings but the same ideas.”
Of course, these details I’ve just mentioned are all bullshit. I don’t mean his assignments were bullshit. Some of them were, along with his timeline of expectations. I mean that after all this time I have no idea what assignments he gave me right then. The above is just something that sounds plausible. The same is true for a lot of day-to-day details. Very few people remember specific assignments they had in high school half their age in years away. Those that do either had very special assignments and/or they’re people with uncommon memories.
I could’ve had Chilton hop on the desk and begin quacking like a duck. But that definitely didn’t happen. These events just plausibly could’ve happened. It’s a story shaped out of my life. Don’t mind my bullshit where it’s obvious and where it isn’t.
All that assumed, we soon came to the end of his little tutoring session and there I was left. Ryan didn’t pester me again, although he’d found ways of entertaining himself with a pencil and the slope of the desk.
With Chilton gone, I caught some of Ryan’s infectious apathy. I really didn’t want to write out some paper, even if it was short. I didn’t give a crap about any of the authors I’d paged through. Some of them felt tossed in there because they fulfilled some literary criteria to simplify and feed us. Only the rare genre tales from Poe or Bradbury felt worth my time if I saw them in any kind of book. And I liked books.
Resting on the table, I watched the security people come and go with the main one always staying behind. More people joined us, people friendly to Ryan and his little diversions. I remained my own little island of festering apathy until a half-rendered paper spread across half the page before me. Some details of this and that. A lot of rambling sentences. I’ve never quite lost that. Skirting around the point time after time.
Mercifully, the bell released me, and I gathered everything up to head to Trig. It was at the far end of the old buildings with the gym and lunch area in sight if you left the classroom doors open. It was also within sight-seeing distance of my unintentional, stomach splatter art. Beyond that were some of the newer old buildings, especially the two long, straight rows of classrooms which reached for each other with the barest crack of light showing between.
They were the freshman and senior classes side by side. My Reading for Pleasure class was an, in retrospect, ill-advised elective full of seniors who were actually really cool to the freshman I was at the time. I liked it, but it was ill-advised because I burned through a precious elective when I could’ve used it for so many other things. Still, I got to read Raptor Red, The Hot Zone, and [REDACTED] (although I fostered a personal vendetta against the last one for a long time. I still finished it, but I wanted to find the author and throw my copy of the book at his head). I read well over a dozen books total but those were the only ones I can remember even now. Not bullshit.
I can also remember how eerie it was to walk through the dark stretch of facing classrooms. The Dark Hall, it was nicknamed. Supposedly, cursed by spirits crawling in the shadows.
If only I could leave my own curse here. Have it attack lone boys who walked the creepy hall. Walk in themselves and walk out changed…uhh…temporarily. But in terror. Might be fun to make a scary tale like that, vent some of my feelings. But all of it, Wes especially, felt too raw.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
As I turned my attention from the long, shadowed walkway, I realized I had no idea if Mrs. Horwitz currently taught Wes for any of her classes. Considering how full her classes often were, even long after the early term cullings, it was a pretty good probability.
Quietly, I hoped she didn’t have him and I also hoped she hadn’t been fully briefed by Aceves on anything. Or vaguely briefed. Also, I hoped that no one from my English class was in this class. I didn’t think so, but some people fade into the background of your mind. And furthermore, I hoped….no. I had too many hopes. Just take it all as it came.
With a deep breath, I cut through the drifting crowds, across a mound of grass and into the open door. The world didn’t end when I stepped inside. Commonly, that’s considered a good sign.
Plenty of students from the previous period were clustered around the teacher with their last questions and notes for some upcoming test I should’ve been terrified for or relaxed about. I didn’t take to Trig as well as Geometry but don’t ask me to do stuff with either of them now.
I passed by the front of the room slowly. She noticed me with a smile, but her pencil moved quickly with correcting where a student had done the wrong type of proof.
I liked her. I may have said I never did swimmingly in her classes, but I was often left alone to read or work or whatever I wanted to do. I knew a few girls in this class. There was Summer Daniels, who had shoulder muscles which could probably tear me in two. Her voice sounded like a young boy’s if you didn’t look at her. She was probably the closest to an Amazon warrior I’d ever met in the flesh. She was awesome!
Then there was Natasha. She always colored her hair. Without dye, it was a sharp tone of red that mine could never match. But she’d been through tones that turned it purple (as it was back to now), swirling white, and braided yellow. She’d recommended a few colors for me but my mom would never let me try them.
I mused randomly to myself that maybe I’d be branded with a color like something out of The Scarlet Letter we’d read late last year. Something bright might be good, like a tropical snake warning off others from danger. I held back my wince. I could never do that.
Besides, I wanted people to linger near me like Ben and Rebecca, not scurry away like I was about to eat them. Other than Summer and Tasha, that was it. I kinda knew a girl with naturally-curly brown hair near the front and that she was in the Mormon church, same as Mrs. Horwitz.
That was it. I gave a wave and a nice smile to Summer and the same to Natasha. After needlessly complimenting me on the clothes mom had forced upon me, they asked what was up and why I’d been gone. Meanwhile, they pulled out their half-completed homework.
With a shrug, I said, “There was some medical junk, but I was cleared. It might be because I was allowed to eat wheat again last weekend.”
Summer loomed and flashed her pearly teeth. “Shiiiit. I remember you said you couldn’t eat it. That sucked so hard. But you can now? My gosh…I got so many recipes from my grandma you need to try.”
Natasha reflected the same with a quick pat on my shoulder. I felt a flash of guilt for leaving out certain details, but the oasis of normal chat relaxed me. I giggled a bit and awkwardly relayed what I’d sampled wheat-wise. Both affirmed that I needed to get ‘real’ homemade pasta in me as soon as possible.
I made note of the boys nearby. Their desks were stretched out a bit, but they were still within the radius I’d sorta tested previously. I checked the clock but, like many in this section of campus, it didn’t work at all. When it did work it was usually half-a-day off or would randomly start running quickly forwards or backwards like some prankster ghost was controlling it.
Through Summer and Natasha I got the gist of what I’d missed. A little bit of test prep. A quiz. And well over a hundred book questions. More than any other subject, I always marveled at how much repetitive work a math class gave. Repeat the same type of problem over and over but each time it never quite makes sense to use the strategy you’ve been drilling, so you have to figure out the twist and that just takes more time for a mountain of questions that need proof and grrr…
Breathe, Kenzie. You're a few steps closer to freedom. Well, the assumption of freedom.
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Art by Alexis Rillera/Anirhapsodist