Monday was off to a horrible start.

First, I slept through my alarm clock. So I was rushing around trying to figure out what to wear to school. I know some people (cough Mary Anne and Dawn cough) would say that my room is a pigsty but honestly, I have a system. I have my clothes all sorted in different piles around my room and I know where everything is.

Except for when I'm running late. Then it's like I can't remember anything. And it wasn't until after I was totally dressed and hurrying to put on my shoes that I remembered that I was basically wearing the same outfit I'd worn on Saturday for my disastrous date with Alan.

Total disaster.

Ugh.

And I can't repeat an outfit from a bad day. That's just begging to have it happen again. So I looked in the mirror. Do I change the shirt? Or the dress? The dress was adorable. It was the little black baby doll dress with a flared skirt. And it looked so cute with my hand painted white t-shirt and gray cardigan. And okay, yes, it was a completely different shirt but the whole thing was pretty much the same thing, especially since I still wanted to wear my pink Doc Martens. So, the dress had to go. I couldn't wear a black skirt (it'd look to much like the dress). And maybe I should just never wear white shirts again. Even if I do make some pretty amazing designs. I chewed on my lip for a minute but then remembered I had a lavender mini skirt. That would look really cute with my shirt. Especially if I ditch the grey cardigan for my teal and magenta scarf. And with the leather jacket?

So much better.

I felt like a new person. But now my hair was all wrong. I groaned and glanced at my alarm clock. I literally had to be out the door already if I wanted to make it to class on time. But I couldn't just leave my hair in a side bun again.

"Claud, if you're ready, I can take you to school this morning." My mom said, sticking her head in my room. She frowned. "You said you'd have your room cleaned before school today. It's disgusting. How do you even find anything?"

I sighed as I swept all of my hair up into a ponytail. I wanted something kind of nineties. God, I wish I still had scrunchies. Or those weird plastic cone things from when I was little. Everything in the stores now are so practical and boring. I settled for a hot pink hair tie and scrounged around my desk for my teal hoop earrings.

"Mom, I promise, I'll have my room cleaned tonight." I said. I could only find one teal hoop. But there was a purple one! And my silver stars. As I was putting them on, I heard my mom sigh.

"Fine. Hurry up. We need to leave now if you want to get to class on time."

SHS is like a fifteen minute walk for me. Which means it's less than five minutes by car. They were the most awkward five minutes of my life. I pretended to be busy with my makeup and my mom pretended to be concentrating on the drive. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her begin to say something but then she'd stop herself.

I guess that's one good thing about not being super close to my mom. I never have to talk to her about stuff with Alan.

"Thanks so much for the ride, Mom." I said as she pulled into the parking lot. "I better get going. I want to study my notes before the test in first period."

Mom kinda pursed her lips a little. "You know, your father and I have been really impressed with how much progress you've been making in school…" she began slowly.

"Thanks!" I said way too brightly. Like, really, it did mean a lot that they noticed but that was not what she wanted to talk to me about. "But I really have to get to class. The bell's gonna ring in like ten minutes."

Mom nodded. "Okay. We'll talk tonight, alright?"

I was already out the door and slamming it closed behind me.

"Bye Mom!" I said with a quick wave and hurried toward campus. Thank God, I avoided that bullet.

But there was still another bullet I had to face and my stomach was all kinds of butterflies as I hurried to my locker and grabbed my books.

I have the really bad luck of having my locker in the same hallway as Cokie Mason and Grace Blume. I don't get how they always have their lockers together every year. It's not fair. Alan and I always end up getting our lockers in such random places and it's such a hassle for him to walk me to my locker or whatever in between classes. But Cokie and Grace always, always have the best lockers. And it's so awkward having a locker by them because they always talk way too loud about everything.

"Wait, what?!" Cokie was practically shouting as I hurried past her. "He's with her where?!"

"In one of the labs." Grace was saying. "I saw them just like, stroll in. Like, just so whatever about it, you know?"

"Oh hell no." Cokie said, slamming her locker shut. "That bitch is going to die."

I rolled my eyes as I worked my locker combo. She's so jealous all the time. And everybody knows she and Logan aren't even a real couple. He just goes out with her sometimes because she will not leave him alone and she threatens to beat the crap out of any girl that so much as breathes by him. But I guess that's probably why she's so jealous. I can't imagine what it's like liking someone and knowing that the only reason they put up with you is because you force them to.

"Claudia, hey!" Grace said as soon as Cokie was out of sight.

I sighed and closed my eyes. Grace was the last person I wanted to talk to. Well…second to last person.

I didn't totally turn around. I just made it a point to dig through my backpack for my binder while I wasn't facing my locker.

"What's up Grace?" I asked. I noticed she was wearing brand new Doc Martens and a white shirt with the logo from Saturday's Bathwater and Broken Dreams concert. With a gray cardigan and black skirt. At least her hair wasn't in a side bun. But it was still unwashed and greasy. I don't get why that's a thing right now.

Normally, it doesn't bother me when girls copy my outfits. Like, I don't mean to sound conceited but Stacey says it happens a lot. She always gets mad because I guess they copy both of us a lot. I don't normally notice unless Stacey points it out but I mean, it's a good thing right? What's the saying? Imitating is how you flatter someone. Or like, sincereness is…something about letting people copy you. I don't know. Either way, I don't care. I come up with some cool stuff. And Stacey set up this thing on Etsy for me, so people buy stuff I make all the time. It's pretty awesome.

But Grace and I aren't really on very good speaking terms. I mean, we have kind of a twisted history. And Mary Anne is one of my closest friends. How am I supposed to be friends with someone who deliberately stole her boyfriend? So yeah, seeing her copy my outfit? I was not feeling any sincereness for her.

And I think she could tell because didn't step too close. "Hey. So that concert…that was pretty cool, right?"

I frowned. "Really? Why would you even say that?" I finished grabbing my stuff out of my backpack and jammed the rest of my stuff in my locker.

Grace shrugged and dropped her eyes. She was fidgeting with her skirt. "Well, I mean…what are the odds that you're friends with the band? And like…you getting to go up on stage with them?"

I shook my head. "Yeah. Well, Alan would have been up onstage with me if he hadn't pissed me off." I slammed my locker shut. "But it would have been pretty rude of me to have him ditch his friends, right?"

"Well, we didn't know it was like a big thing." Grace said. She stepped in front of me, blocking my path to class. "Like, honestly, I had no idea we were meeting up with you guys at Chez Maurice. Pete had said we were just meeting up for dinner and then the concert. There's no way I would have—"

I huffed. "Well, we didn't even know you guys were showing up." I said flatly. That actually did take some of my anger away from her. But it wasn't really helping things with Pete. "Just tell your boyfriend, next time he wants to crash somebody's date just…just don't. That's rude. It's just rude."

Is it mean, that I hated how she just kind of hunched her shoulders and stepped aside? Like, I hadn't been super mean to her but she had acted like I'd gone off on her or something. And all I could really think as I passed her was just, how pathetic is it that she just lets people push her around?

"We didn't crash the date." Grace called after me. "Alan had told us to come."

And that is how I knew today was without a doubt the worst day ever.