Saya

Throughout the rest of the class, I just about drove myself insane, second guessing my decision, trying to figure out if it was a mistake. In the end, my worrying got me nothing but a headache and a ruined bowl from when I had gripped the clay just a bit too hard and caused it to collapse.

And of course, my teacher had to take notice of me at that exact moment and say that I might need help making my next one. Before she could start that, of course Alice had to come in and say that she could help me since she had already finished her bowl, and I couldn't come up with a reason to dissuade the teacher, especially since I didn't need it getting back to the court that I was having trouble in one of my classes. Although, I wasn't sold that being helped by Alice would help me to keep my grade in this class up.

Surprisingly enough, as Alice began to walk me through the basics of making a bowl, most of which I already knew, I realised that she was actually a good teacher. She didn't try to convince me to become friends with her and Jasper again, only watching my hands as they shaped the bowl and pointing at certain parts of the bowl that had become uneven due to my hands not being perfectly steady.

By the time the bell rang, both Alice and myself had finished our projects for the month, though I could see that many people were still having trouble with it. The teacher had told us that we could either use the class as a study hall until the time came for us to work on our next project, or we could begin working on our next project now and hand it in whenever we finished. Deciding to wait and see what happened with the rest of my classes, I went back to my seat to pack my things, only to be surprised as Alice looped her arm through mine, chirping, "You did say that you'd give us a chance, remember?"

As she dragged me to the lunchroom, she seemed to know that I didn't have any sort of lunch packed in my locker. Normally I'd have tried to bring something with me, but I was too rushed this morning, what with school starting up again, so I'd left without anything.

I would have wondered at her confidence in knowing that I didn't have anything that I needed to get if I wasn't being quickly carried away by Alice's enthusiasm.

"It's great that we were able to finish our projects for the month. It'll be great to have an extra study hall for the rest of the month, especially if we get a lot of homework in our other classes, don't you think, Saya?"

Slightly confused by Alice's rapid speech and cheerfulness, it took me a couple seconds to recover enough to say, "Yeah, it'll be good if I don't have to do homework after school. Last year I had some trouble with having to do it during my breaks at work."

"That sounds tough," Alice sympathised. "But I could help you if you ever need help studying for the tests or with the homework, since we have pottery together."

"Thanks," I said, though I wasn't sure I'd really take her up on that offer. It wasn't until later though, that I realised that I had actually told her more about my life at home than I had ever told anyone else in this school since I had gotten here.

When we got to the cafeteria, Alice led me to a table where Jasper was already sitting with three trays of food in front of him. As Alice let go of me, she kissed him on the cheek before sitting down next to him. Seeing me behind her, Jasper smiled at me and said, "I hope you don't mind, darlin', but I grabbed some food for you while I was getting ours."

As I sat down, I said, "Sorry to bother you like that. I'll pay you back," while also assuring myself that it wouldn't be an issue with my budget so long as it didn't become a habit.

"No need, darlin', I got it for you because I wanted to."

Seeming to sense my hackles going up, Alice quickly cut in, "We don't mind doing things for you, Saya. We want to help you."

Sighing, I decided that I had more important things to worry about than the fact that these two had bought me lunch, and besides, I was pretty hungry anyway. As I took a bite of pizza, I remembered why I'd never had an issue with the fact that I didn't buy school lunches.

Damn, how are people supposed to survive off of this stuff?

Seeing my expression, Alice said, "The food at this school isn't any better than at other schools, is it?"

Swallowing, I said, "That's right, you guys just transferred here. Where did you live before?"

"Alaska. Our family seems to always wind up in cold climates," Alice said cheerfully, apparently not minding freezing.

I started looking at my tray, trying to find something that didn't look like it would kill me when I realised how far off topic I had already gotten since we had sat down. What was it about these people that managed to always make me forget what I need to do?

So here's a short chapter, and I have some more bad news. I'm going back to school next week, so my updating schedule, as loosely as I've been clinging to it, is going to be dismantled after this Saturday. I'll try to update as often as I can, but until I figure out what kind of workload I'm going to be having, I'll either be able to update really quickly, or I won't update for a while. So hopefully, I'll be able to see you all again soon, but no promises.