Ally walked through the halls, ponytail swinging from left to right, on her way to math class. The freshman was in Algebra 2, an advanced class for her class at her school. It was a class full of juniors and sophomores. She made eye contact with the people racing through the halls, the passing periods only three minutes compared to last year's five. There was already an epidemic of tardies. No one could make it from one end of the building, to their locker, and then back across the building with all their books and folders and binders along with the required student handbook that was to be carried at all times in case of random hall inspection where everyone in the hall way would stop what they were doing and wait for the safety monitor to come and take them to their lockers so that every locker was inspected. Sometimes entire classes were missed for the inspections, but after last year, no one was upset. Everyone understood why: all the teachers had adjusted their schedules so that they would always have time after school for kids who didn't make it to class.
Ally smiled when she saw a familiar blonde pressed against a locker with a female pressed against him. How he did that and still made it with the barbaric passing periods was beyond her. But, nonetheless, she remained invisible to him, too scared to actually talk to the boy, who was very talkative on the bus, that she had gone to school with since they were seven years old and in the third grade at school. She just pretended he knew who she was at school when in reality, he acted like she was a stranger when anyone but Trish was around. If it was just the three of them, they had intellectual debates about teachers that were laid off, or when the kids at school were talking about the recent marijuana legalization. After years and years of these debates, they had realized they had very similar views on things and for the most part, the arguments were between themselves and the school mates that weren't actually there.
Ally reached the classroom and sat at her usually table. All alone, but in the middle of everything. It was the only place where every place in the classroom could be seen. She faced the windows, relying on the bulletproof and locked door to cover that side.
She rolled her eyes when she heard the giggling of the four cheerleaders in that class as they walked in doing hand gestures that slightly resembled cheers. Cassidy was in the middle. She wasn't quite the top dog, but she was up there. Ally averted her eyes. She couldn't stand to look at that.
Cassidy played the viola in Ally orchestra. When they had met, Ally in the 7th grade and Cassidy in the 8th, Ally had been the first one to welcome her. Cassidy wasn't mean to her by all means, but Ally couldn't stand that the only time she acknowledged her existence was in orchestra. Ally was the first chair violinist. She took that spot seriously. She took the blame if her section messed up and worked with the two other first violins to get their parts down. In an orchestra of only 13 players in all, it was crucial that every person mastered their parts.
Ally looked down at her bright green folder that held all her homework for every class. On the very front, it had Allyson Dawson written calligraphically. Totally useless to anything pertaining to school, but fun nonetheless. Pulling her math homework out of the first pocket, she went over it. Finding errors that she had made the night before. Her teacher, Mrs. Willis, came over with a scrunched up face that made Ally think she might have ran into a wall, like in the cartoons.
"Where's your homework?" She said in a condescending tone.
Ally pointed to the six sheets of quadratic functions and graphs.
Mrs. Willis nodded and moved on, checking each person's homework, marking a few off for F's in the grade book. When she was done, she walked up the projector and sat down to go over the problems people had issues with.
Ally looked at the clock. The hour hand was pointing to the square root of 144. Only an hour a fifteen minutes to go.
(Line Break)
Ally practically ran out of that class when the bell rang. It was lunch, the period where her and her friend caught up with their reading, which consisted of them sitting next to each other while silently reading the same book. She and December made a good pair.
December was a military brat. She had lived in Turkey, Arizona, South Carolina, and probably other laces too. She was the nicest person you could every meet and people often asked her what she saw in Ally because Ally was slightly… anti-social and standoffish. December would ask them why they asked her. They would usually reply with a, "She's just so weird and mean."
December would then tilt her head, after of course giving them the benefit of the doubt, before saying, "It's obviously something I don't see in you."
And then she would walk away. If you were Ally's enemy, you were December, and vice versa. Ally had never had a friend like that until freshman year had started. December had arrived halfway through 8th grade year, but Ally hadn't liked her peppy happy self. It had gotten on her nerves. But now, it made her smile too. It made her happy to be around someone that happy.
She met up with a smiling December before walking into the Spanish room where they got seats against the wall and sat down with their books. They made eye contact and imagined the cheering of a full stadium as they got ready.
"Ready."
"Set."
"Go!"
They set off, ready to see who could get farther in their books by the end of the lunch period, which was only thirty minutes long. After this, Ally was going to have to go stress about her sections lack of ability to play Greensleaves Variant.
They heard someone clear their throat. They waited the permitted ten seconds to mark their spots to officially pause to contest. The closed their books at precisely the same time before even glancing at the intruder.
And low and behold, there stood Mrs. Julio, the Spanish teacher, with Austin Moon standing awkwardly next to her.
"Ally, would you be willing to give up you next few lunch periods to tutor him. He can't speak a lick of Spanish to save his life and finals are in two weeks."
Ally looked at December, who was silently giggling at Ally's dilemma.
"Uh, sure. When do I start?"
Austin looked angry that she accepted and also downright embarrassed. They had been the competing brains since elementary school.
"Now, it you can."
Ally couldn't. She was too busy reading.
"Yeah. We had just finished," December spoke up. Ally glared at her. "I'll be in the library if anyone needs me."
WAIT! Ally was internally screaming, and that was saying something seeing as she had died a little inside when she had seen his face.
December ran out of the room, laughing hysterically in the hallway as soon as she was passed the door.
Mrs. Julio awkwardly tapped her legs before prancing back to her favorite kids that ate in there every day.
Austin sat down next to her. She could tell how embarrassed he was. He had always bragged about his grade while all she could say was she was better than him at math. He was one grade behind her. But that had been it. This was a whole new concept.
She couldn't meet his eyes, trying to get the image of him and that girl snogging each other.
They had known each other for seven years. They had taken snow machine ride together. They had gone swimming together. They had ran through the sprinkler in the lawn and thrown water balloons at each other's faces. They had busted their now senior siblings when they had been upstairs in the garage doing "homework." They had been together when their parents explained to them that they really were doing homework, that it was just their over active imaginations working. They were their when his brother told her sister he loved her. They had been together when their siblings had had the brutal break up that left them both reeling. They had been best friends when her parents nearly got a divorce.
But then the got into 7th grade. And then, all of a sudden, he couldn't even look at her. It was like she had gotten some disease.
Ally had never been… skinny. She was well over 180 pounds by her freshman year but had always felt confident in herself. But she had seen him look at her in disgust before. And then came the boobs. She was a size DD and that had not gone unnoticed by him. It was a subconscious thing, when he would stare that is. She had grown used to it.
They had started talking to each other again freshman year until she had gotten pissed at him for his staring. She told him to just stop talking to her if he was going to do that. He denied everything.
But they both knew it was true.
They hadn't talked to each other since she was his secret Santa for something the freshman class student council had come up with.
Now, it was awkward. Beyond awkward.
"So. What do you need help with?"
He scoffed at her, not even sparing her a side long look when he said, "Bowling. I can't seem to shake hands with the head pin. Maybe, it's because I'm too distracted."
It was a dig at her. "I thought we were over that."
He shook his head. "Why would I check you out, Ally? You're like the closest thing I have to a sister. In case you didn't notice, I am not a fan of incest."
Ally took a deep breathe. She knew he didn't mean it to sound like that. He wasn't very good at choosing his words. "So, pray tell me, why is it that we can talk like normal on the bus, but as soon as you know someone is within hearing distance, you can't say anything but that I am an ugly braniac."
Austin opened his mouth to reply with some, probably, witty comment that would leave her crying in the bathroom. He didn't know he had left her like that before. He was just naïve. She hadn't told. He would be crushed and then go become a monk to try and gain forgiveness. Because that is the kind of person he was. He was a tough nut on the outside, but he was nothing but peanut butter inside. He would be left flailing if he knew all the times he had made her cry.
She silenced him with a hand. "I need to go." He voice broke at the end. Damn it. She took off at a run to the bathroom. She went into the handicapped stall and slid down the wall, already in tears.
How quickly her life had fallen apart after last year.
