Life Unscripted

By Judy Lunsford

Stacey Thompson is about to start her senior year of high school. On her first day, she encounters not one but two guys that keep demanding her attention. Brian, sweet, considerate, and star of the school play, asks her out. Mariusz, bookish and rebellious, keeps getting her stuck in detention. As Stacey navigates her way through the school year, she must make a decision about how she will deal with each of these boys. She also must deal with her most cunning adversary, herself. Between facing her fears, leaping off rooftops, and sabotaging the Prom, Stacey must come to terms with life, injustice, and maybe even death itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Judy Lunsford
• Release date: Jun 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463813126

Judy Lunsford

Born and raised in California, Judy now lives in Arizona with her husband and Giant Schnoodle. Judy writes with dyslexia and a chronic illness & is a breast cancer survivor. She writes mostly fantasy, but delves into suspense, horror, romance, and poetry. She has written books and short stories for all ages. You can find her books and short stories at your favorite online retailers.

Book preview

Special thanks to:

Trent Lunsford

Don & Cheryl Williamson

Dr. Daniel Freberg

& Amy Kiser

For Brett

BY THE WAY...

I found the letter in the typewriter in the attic. It was unfinished, like she was distracted while writing it and had just stopped in the middle and didn’t get back to it.

My aunt wrote it, on her old manual typewriter. The page hung out of the top of the machine, yellowed with age.

It was a letter to the man who she fell in love with back when she was young. She was planning on marrying him, but then my grandmother got sick and he went off to join the S.W.A.T. team. She spent all of her time caring for my grandmother and slowly lost her own life as it disappeared into the life of being a constant caregiver.

She was writing a letter to him to tell him that she was still in love with him, and that she was still willing to marry him.

I looked at the yellowing piece of paper and saw that it only needed an ending. I tapped a key and was surprised that the ink was still good enough to show up on the page.

I sat in front of the old machine and tapped away on the keys. I will always be waiting. Forever yours, Amelia.

I glanced down at the table next to the typewriter. An envelope was already addressed in my aunt’s handwriting. I wondered if he still lived at that old address. I knew he wasn’t currently married, so I carefully pulled the letter from the typewriter and gently folded it into thirds and placed it in the envelope.

I went downstairs. Aunt Amelia was in the kitchen making dinner. She had never married and was now taking care of my younger sister and me while my parents were away on yet another jaunt, this time to the Andes. I found a stamp in the desk in the living room and put it on the envelope.

Where are you going? Aunt Amelia asked, as I ran past her out the door.

I’ll be right back, I called over my shoulder. I just have to run down to the mailbox.

CHAPTER 1

I’m spending the summer with my aunt this year. Part of me is angry that my parents are taking yet another vacation without us, but part of me is glad they’re gone. My parents took pride in the fact that they were world travelers, and constantly bragged about it to anyone who would listen. Whenever we were at some dinner party or some other sort of social engagement, my sister, Kelly, and I would roll our eyes at one another and make gagging faces as my parents went on endlessly to anyone who would listen. That was all they ever talked about. It’s annoying and pretentious, as far as I’m concerned.

I like my aunt though. She’s spent her entire life taking care of other people. She deserves to be happy. In a few years, Kelly and I will both be too old to need to be looked after while my parents are away, and what would Aunt Amelia have left? Nothing. She didn’t even have a cat. I guess we could buy her a cat, but that’s not the point.

No. The point is that she should finally be able to live her life. Her own life. She should be with the man she loves and be able to spend the rest of her life with him.

So that’s why I decided to mail that letter for her.

*

I’m so happy after that letter slides down the shoot of the big blue mailbox that I practically skip home. I haven’t skipped since elementary school.

I guess my aunt’s house isn’t really home, but we’re there often enough that it feels like home.

I come in through the back door just as Kelly is setting the table.

It’s about time, she says in her snotty 14 year-old way.

I was gone for 5 minutes.

That was a long 5 minutes, Kelly shoots back. Of course it got you out of setting the table.

It was your turn anyway, I push past her to see what’s on the stove.

You can put the salad on the table, Aunt Amelia says. The dressings are on the door of the refrigerator.

I know the salad dressings are on the door of the refrigerator. They’ve been there my whole life. Not the same ones, of course, but that’s just where she’s always kept them. It seems weird to me that someone would keep salad dressing in the same place for over seventeen years.

I grab the salad dressings and the salad and carry them over to the table.

It wouldn’t hurt you to make more than one trip, my aunt smiles at me as I dump over two of the dressings trying to get it all on the table.

It would be a lot easier if we all just used the same salad dressing, I set them back upright.

All right, my aunt says. Then you both will eat my salad dressing and we won’t bother to buy yours anymore.

Gross, Kelly says. No. Shut up Stacey. I don’t want to eat honey mustard.

Fine.

I don’t want to eat honey mustard either. I like ranch and Kelly has to have her light vinaigrette. I think she’s too young to be worried about her weight, but she’s obsessed with it. She reads all of the fashion magazines and is constantly on a diet. I don’t know why she bothers; she’s stick thin as it is. But she wants to be popular. Unfortunately for her, being thin and blonde isn’t a sure thing for popularity. For some reason, she just isn’t in the popular crowd. But that doesn’t stop her from trying.

I on the other hand am a little bit more on the wild side. And I like it that way. I could care less about the popular crowd. In fact, the farther away from me they stay, the more I like it. Currently, my hair is black with a couple of blue streaks in it, but the blue is kind of a pain to maintain, so I’ve been thinking about changing it. But my sister has the perfect blonde hair, in the latest trendy style. I look in the door of the microwave as I walk past and see that my hair is getting sort of shaggy. I’d cut it short and spiky for the summer. I thought short hair would be a lot cooler in the heat.

Kelly is upset that we’re at my aunt’s for the beginning of the school year. All of her friends are too far away for her to be able to spend time with, since she isn’t old enough to drive. But since I’m seventeen, I’ve already got my license. My parents even bought me a car. Which was actually really nice of them, even if it was out of guilt that they bought it. It isn’t anything fancy. In fact it’s an older car. Just some beater that they figured I’d total at some point as a beginning driver. But a car is a car, right?

When my sister saw it, she said she wouldn’t be caught dead driving a car like mine, but she sure doesn’t mind being in the passenger seat. Okay, she does slump down so no one can see her while I drive, but that’s fine with me. I don’t particularly want anyone to see me driving around with her in my car anyway. A trendy blonde chick in the seat next to me might ruin the image I’ve achieved up to this point, even if she is only on the B list at school.

Now I don’t really try to be a bad girl, but that’s just the way things have worked out for me. I usually say what ever comes to mind, without actually thinking about it first, and that tends to get me into trouble at school. It’s not like I try to come up with this stuff, it just sort of happens. My father calls it verbal diarrhea but I don’t like the image that brings to mind. I like to think of it more as brutal honesty, but that usually doesn’t go over well with most people.

As we sit down to dinner, I’m more tolerant of my sister’s complaining. All I can think about is how happy my aunt will be when her old boyfriend contacts her. I sort of have this image of my sister helping her to get ready for their first date and me opening the door for him when he comes to pick her up. Because of course, with my sister helping her to get ready, my aunt would definitely not be ready on time. Then I’ll sit in the living room with this guy and grill him for a few minutes. You know, find out what his intentions are and the like. This guy’s going to be my uncle; so I should get to know him a little bit. I wonder if he’s still on the SWAT team or if he’s retired already. I guess he’s a little too young to be retired yet; he’d only be in his forties. But still, it’s nice to know he has a good job. Maybe then my aunt wouldn’t have to get a cat. She’s not really a cat person anyway.

I’m thinking these thoughts to myself as we eat dinner, smiling in a completely dumb kind of way.

What are you smiling about? Kelly kicks me under the table.

Don’t kick, I kick her back. It’s none of your business.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were thinking about a boy, Aunt Amelia says.

Well, in a way, she’s right.

CHAPTER 2

School starts the following Monday. We’d gone back to school shopping over the weekend and my sister and I are now overflowing with notebooks, folders, organizers, and anything else my aunt could think of to buy for us.

This is our first year at the same school together since elementary school. I’m a senior, and Kelly’s a freshman. I think Kelly’s torn between the status of actually knowing a senior at school, and the fact that I’m in the group unaffectionately known as the freaks and geeks. She’s very worried what this could do to her popularity status when she arrives at school.

Of course, I don’t care. The cheerleaders are way too peppy, the football players have the combined IQ of a carrot, and the student council is constantly hitting you up for volunteer work and increased school spirit. All of these attributes make me want to vomit, so I make sure to stay far away from all of them.

I drive us to school. Kelly asks me to pull over a block away from the campus and let her out. I oblige, tired of hearing her whining, and let her out.

I find a parking space over on the hill behind the school, where most of my friends park. We avoid the parking lot because that’s where the cute and fuzzy bunnies hang out. That’s our name for the popular people. My best friend Violet and I saw this old John Cusack movie called One Crazy Summer and that’s what his character called the popular crowd. So, of course we adopted the term.

As I get out of my car, I’m immediately ambushed by Violet, who’s probably been at school since six o’clock this morning. She’s in the marching band and they have early morning practices. I can’t imagine getting up at the crack of dawn to come to school and blow into a flute, but she loves it, so I deal with her morning perkiness.

Hey! Stacey! she squeals as she comes up to my car. We’re seniors!

Yeah, I know, I drag myself out of the car. I’m not a morning person.

What do you have first period? she asks.

How much coffee have you had?

Only three cups, she says.

Do you have any more? I ask, pulling my backpack out of the back seat.

She holds up a shiny silver thermos and smiles.

I love you.

She unscrews the lid and hands it to me. I drink directly out of the container. My aunt doesn’t like us drinking coffee, so I’m coming from a caffeine-free morning.

French vanilla? I ask.

Yep, she says. Give me your schedule.

I hand her my backpack and she digs around until she finds the crumpled up piece of paper that is my class schedule.

Why do you do this? she asks, flattening it out. You’re going to lose it by the end of the day and you’re going to have to go to the office to get a new one.

Then I’ll get a new one, I drain the last of the coffee from the thermos with a loud gulp.

Great, she says taking back the thermos, You’ll be tolerable to be around once that caffeine kicks in.

She pulls out her notebook and her schedule is neatly slid behind the clear plastic cover on the front. Guaranteed not to be lost, ripped, or hard to find through the course of the day.

We don’t have a class together until third period, she says with disappointment.

Now, Violet already knows this. We’ve already talked three times on the phone since our schedules came in the mail on Saturday. Why there isn’t a small, laser printed copy of my schedule already in her notebook slid in behind the back cover is beyond me. All I can think is that she didn’t truly believe that I read my schedule correctly to her over the phone. It’s not that she doesn’t trust me; it’s just that it’s happened before.

Well, I guess I’ll see you after second period, she says. I’ll meet you at our lockers, okay?

Okay, I pick up my backpack without zipping it up and sling it over my shoulder.

Violet can’t handle this, and reaches over and zips it shut before happily running down the hill to get to her first class, waving at me as she goes.

I casually stroll towards the back end of the hill, to my first period class. I have to start the day with math. Not a good start to any day. I hate math. This is not the typical hatred of math that most students have. I genuinely, truly, and viciously hate math.

I’m taking algebra II this year. Basically the college-prep course, so that when I get to college, I can actually be a step ahead of the game. This is not a worthwhile consolation for me. As shortsighted as it may seem, I would rather put it off until college. All I can think is that I have math, now.

I walk into the classroom right as the bell rings and sit down in an empty seat in the back of the class. My friend Skip had been holding my seat for me. She and I also compared schedules over the weekend.

Thanks for the seat, I look around at the full classroom.

No problem, she says. No one even asked to sit here.

Maybe the artwork on your arm had something to do with that, I look at the paisley design she’s obviously spent a large part of the morning inking onto her left forearm.

Possibly, she says as she keeps drawing.

Skip always impresses me. She’s an artist in the true sense of the word. She’s drawing all the time. And I mean all the time. She never stops. And it doesn’t have to be anything that will necessarily last either. The ink on her arm is going to wash off (eventually), but it’s still the most intricate thing I’ve ever seen. It’s almost as if, if she stopped being creative, she would stop breathing.

The teacher comes into the room from the door in the back that leads to his office. I’ve heard about this guy. Mr. Reynolds teaches history and math. Rumor has it that he loves his history students, and he hates his math students.

He stands up in front of the class and starts talking about what will be expected of us and he hands out a syllabus as well as a list of rules that we are to abide by in his classroom.

I take the pages from the person in front of me as she passes them back. I glance them over as Mr. Reynolds reads them out loud to us.

We can’t chew gum? Skip says in dismay.

That’s not the worst of it, I say, running down the list. It says there’s no talking at all.

That’s right, Mr. Reynolds slams his hands down on my desk, startling me way more than I’d like. The caffeine must’ve finally kicked in. There will be no talking in my classroom.

Geez! I can’t help myself. When people get all drastic like that and start making loud noises at seven thirty one in the morning, I have to say something. What’s your damage?

I beg your pardon? he says, towering over me.

You just startled me, that’s all, I say.

Are we going to have a problem in this class? he asks.

No, I say, biting my tongue.

Apparently we are, he says. You can’t even refrain from breaking the rules in the first two minutes of class.

Dude, oh no. Any time I start a sentence with the word Dude, it’s usually something that gets me into trouble. Maybe you should relax a little on the first day, you’ve got a whole year ahead of you.

The look on his face says it all. I pick up my backpack as he says, Go to the office. NOW!

I head down to the office. It’s not an unfamiliar place to me. Unfortunately, everyone who works there knows me by name. I walk in the door and see Mrs. Hope sitting behind the desk with a pencil already stuck in her hair. I wonder if she went home at the end of the day and wound up pulling six or eight of them out of her hair like that scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Well, Stacey, she says as she sees me come in through the door. This must be some kind of record.

I take it he already called down? I hate technology. Teachers can call down and give their side of the story before I can even get to the office. It doesn’t seem fair.

Yes, he did, she says. Mr. Bradley is already waiting for you in his office.

Mr. Bradley is my guidance counselor. I’ve probably spent more time in his office than in all of my classes combined.

I walk in and there he is, Mr. Bradley. He wears the same tie every day and I’m not sure he’s ever had it cleaned. Stains from his brown-bag lunches are more prevalent than whatever the design is underneath. Someone should buy this guy a new tie for Christmas. Maybe that would butter him up for making sure that I actually graduate this year.

Mr. Bradley has one of the biggest noses I’ve ever seen. It’s a Cyrano de Bergerac type of nose. I always find myself staring at his nose instead of actually listening to what he’s saying. It’s almost hypnotic. I spent most of my freshman year trying NOT to look at his nose, for fear of being rude. But I’ve pretty much given up on that prospect and I just let it mesmerize me into a stupor. It makes our meetings much more tolerable.

Well, Miss Thompson, I see you’ve set a new record for being sent to the office, he says.

My file is in front of him, but of course he doesn’t open it. He has it memorized. He just puts it there for effect. Like I don’t actually know how many times I’ve been in his office.

Yeah, Mrs. Hope said something to that effect, I slump down into the uncomfortable chair in front of his desk. Do I win a prize?

Yes, actually you do, he grins. An all expense paid trip to detention.

He actually thinks that comment is funny. I guess it would be if I didn’t have to explain to my aunt that I’ve gotten detention on the first day of school.

What? I object. I don’t even get a second chance?

You used up all of your chances in your freshman year, he says. Miss Thompson, I’m going to be extra hard on you this year. You need to straighten up. I don’t want to see you in here a lot. You need to be thinking about your future.

I roll my eyes.

I know you think this school is a joke, (boy is that an understatement) But you need to graduate if you want to go to college. Do you want even want to go to college?

I shrug. I don’t know.

Maybe that’s something you should be thinking about while you serve your detention, he says.

He sighs and sits back in his chair and just looks at me.

I can’t stop staring at his nose. It’s huge. I wonder if he has to drink through a straw. Maybe that explains the stains on his tie.

Are we finished? he asks.

What? I snap back to reality.

Was there anything else you have to say to me today? he asks.

No.

Well, then, Miss Thompson, let’s hope we can make it through the rest of the week without having to see one another.

Okay, I get up.

You can spend the rest of the period helping Mrs. Hope with envelope stuffing and then give Mr. Reynolds’s class another try tomorrow.

Wonderful, I say, leaving his office.

I walk up to Mrs. Hope’s desk and it’s buried in a thousand envelopes and papers.

I hear you’re going to help me stuff envelopes, she says.

You heard right, I sit in the chair next to her desk.

Just fold these pages into thirds and put them in an envelope and then seal them shut, she says, demonstrating how to do this.

Like I need a demonstration. A monkey could do this.

So you get paid to stuff envelopes? I ask, folding the first sheet of paper.

This is one of the things I do in my job, yes, she says, happily licking an envelope shut.

And now I have to help you with your job, and not get paid for it? I stuff the paper into an envelope.

Yes, she says, grabbing the next sheet of paper.

Aren’t there child labor laws against something like this? I ask, looking around for one of those little sponge bottles so I don’t actually have to lick a hundred envelopes.

She opens a drawer in her desk and hands me what I’m looking for. Not when your school file is as big as yours is, she smiles as I sponge the envelope closed. Think of it as community service.

I glare at her. I actually like Mrs. Hope. She’s usually pretty nice. I watch her lick another envelope shut. I bet licking glue everyday is what keeps her so happy.

I sponge another envelope flap.

So what are these for? I ask, ignoring her last comment. I don’t feel like arguing with her. I still have 30 minutes to deal with her.

They’re for the open house coming up, she says.

Why do we do that? I ask.

So the parents can meet your teachers and know what will be expected out of the students this year, she says, happily licking another envelope.

I wonder if her tongue will be glued to the roof of her mouth by the end of the day.

My parents won’t be coming, I say. So you can save a stamp if you want to.

Are they out of town again? she asks.

Yeah. It really sort of pisses me off that this happens with my parents so often that it’s her first guess.

Where did they go this time? she asks.

The Andes.

Oh, that must be nice, she says. I wish I could travel like that.

Do you have kids?

Yes, but they’re all grown and out of the house, she says.

I stare at the pile of envelopes in front of me. I imagine them falling in a giant avalanche and burying me in a huge pile on the floor. I wonder if anyone has ever died from thousands of paper cuts.

Are you all right? she asks.

Huh? I sort of wake up when she asks that. Yeah, I’m fine.

You just sort of drifted off there for a moment, she says.

Oh, sorry.

I have a tendency to do that. Mostly in class, or when my parents or someone is yelling at me in the office or a teacher is yelling at me in class. I drift off while I’m doing homework, or when I’m eating. I guess I have a tendency to drift off a lot. I just get these thoughts in my head and they sort of take over, usually because they are more interesting than whatever is going on around me at the time.

We sit and make small talk for the rest of the period while we stuff a gazillion envelopes. When the bell rings, I’m dismissed to go to my second class. I pick up my backpack and go outside.

I can’t remember what my second class is, so I throw my bag on the ground, open it up, and sift through all of my new school supplies until I find my schedule.

Great, science is next. I hate science too. Too closely related to math. And those two being the first two classes of the day doesn’t really give me a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

I wander over to the science building and find my classroom. Mr. Cannery is the teacher. I haven’t really heard a lot about him. He’s worked at the school for years, but no one ever says much about him. He kind of keeps a low profile. I guess that’s good. If he was a nightmare, I’d have heard about it.

I see my friend Greg at the back of the room. He motions me over and I gratefully go back and take a seat on the other side of the lab table.

How ya doing? he asks as I sit down.

I spent first period in the office, for talking in Reynolds’s class.

Wow, he laughs. That must be some kind of record.

Yeah, I think they’re going to put my name on a plaque and hang it on the wall down there.

They should just give you your own office, he says.

That’d be cool, I nod. At least I’d have somewhere to go sit when I was sent down there. I had to stuff envelopes with Mrs. Hope for the whole period.

Greg laughs.

Mr. Cannery walks into the room. He kind of reminds me of that guy who played Gilligan on that old TV show. But with frizzy Albert Einstein hair.

He starts in about the rules of the class and the syllabus. The only difference being that this is a chemistry class, so rules that are above and beyond the school rules are actually necessary in here. And, he’s not a jerk about it.

Greg and I glance over the rules and then both begin doodling on the syllabus. Mr. Cannery drones on for most of the period and says that whomever we’re sitting with is to be our lab partner for the year. Greg looks up at me and smiles. I glance around the room to see who else is partnered up and I’m relieved I’m with Greg. At least he’ll make this class tolerable. I look back at him and raise my eyebrows. He laughs knowingly and passes me his syllabus to show me his drawings.

There’s an entire ecosystem drawn in the margins around the edge of his paper. There are different plants and foliage with little animal faces and bugs doodled in for a nice effect. I’m impressed. I pass it back to him and hold my paper for him to see. I have little ladybugs in a line across the bottom. They’re doing different things. Some are dancing, some are sleeping, and some are just standing there being ladybugs. There are pretty much just scribbles in other places. He says he likes it. But I just picture my poor ladybugs retreating off of my boring page and onto his, hiding among the foliage, making friends with the other bugs and mocking my lack of originality.

Mr. Cannery ends the class with passing out our textbooks to us and goes through the usual drill of telling us that we need to cover our books and that we’re responsible for the condition of the book. I think he’s a little possessive of the books, especially since he waited almost until the bell to pass them out. It’s like he wants them in our possession for as little time as possible. I picture him at home, surrounded by his beloved chemistry books all summer and dreading the first day when he’d have to pass them out to the students. I look at my book a little bit differently after that thought. I kind of don’t want to touch it.

The bell rings and I go out to meet Violet at our lockers. I open my locker and throw in my chemistry book. I realize I don’t have a math book yet and I wonder if Mr. Reynolds had already given an assignment, which I won’t have completed tomorrow when I get to his class.

Violet runs up and says hi as she starts to open her locker.

I’ve known Violet since the sixth grade. She transferred to my middle school midyear and we’ve been best friends ever since.

So how was your morning? she asks.

I’ve already been to the office and I have detention, I slam my locker closed.

You’ve got to be kidding me! Even Violet’s stunned. Maybe I’m not such a bad kid after all, if my best friend’s surprised.

No, I’m not kidding, I slump against the locker.

What happened?

Mr. Reynolds threw me out in the first two minutes for talking.

She still looks stunned. Doesn’t he realize it’s the first day of school? Everyone’s going to be talking today.

Not after he kicked me out, I say. I bet no one said a word the rest of the period.

Our school has a weird twenty-minute gap between second and third period called ‘nutrition’. It’s the high school version of recess, I guess. But it’s a nice way to recoup after two classes and before tackling the next two classes. After fourth period is lunch, then two more classes. Then we escape this pseudo-prison and go home.

I can’t believe you already have detention, Violet says, still bewildered.

What’s our next class? I ask, wanting to change the subject.

Government, she says.

I groan. So it’s really not worth me coming to school until fourth period.

Yeah, Violet laughs. All the classes you like are at the end of the day.

Funny, I say. Let’s see who else is around.

We head over to the lawn area where most of our friends hang out. There are a few people there, but my eye catches a new guy. I haven’t seen him before. He has long red hair that hangs down past his shoulders. Not a look that will go over well with most of the rest of this school, but I think it looks kind of cool.

Who’s that? I ask, nodding in his direction.

I think his name is Mariusz, Violet says.

It’s what?

Mar-ee-us, she sounds out. He was in my last class.

Where’s he from? I ask.

I think he’s an exchange student from Poland.

Seriously?

Yeah, she says. He’s kind of hard to understand.

What? Like an accent?

Yeah, it’s real thick.

Cool. This is the first interesting thing that’s happened all day. A good looking exchange student from a foreign country. It can’t get better than that.

Our friend Beth seems to appear from out of nowhere. Or maybe I was just so distracted by Mariusz that I didn’t notice her until she was right in my face.

So, how are your classes so far? Beth asks.

Stacey already has detention, Violet announces.

I glare at her.

Seriously? Beth looks at me. What happened?

Mr. Reynolds kicked me out of first period for talking, I say, looking at Mariusz over her shoulder.

Oh, man! Beth exclaims. That has got to be some kind of record!

That’s what I’ve been hearing, I say.

Mariusz wanders over to lean on the building behind our lawn. He stands there looking a little bit overwhelmed, staring out at all of the first day chaos around him. We must look like a bunch of crazy people to an exchange student.

The bell rings, signaling that it’s time to go to third period. Violet grabs me and drags me toward our government class. At least she’s going to be in there with me. It makes a boring subject seem more tolerable.

We walk into the classroom. It’s already half full, so we’re going to have to take seats in the front row. The class is arranged in two sets of seats that are facing each other towards the middle of the room. Each side has three rows of six desks, and all the back seats are taken. Violet and I each take a seat on the side facing the door.

We look around to see who else is in the class with us. Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of cheerleaders and football players. Not the best group to be in a class with, especially in the front row facing half of them.

The class fills up quickly and all we can hear is the high-pitched banter of annoying cheerleaders. Violet rolls her eyes at me.

The door opens just as the bell rings and Mariusz walks in. The only seat available is directly in front of me. He slides into the seat just as the teacher comes into the room from the back. I’ve never understood why the teachers in our school hide in the back rooms and make entrances like that, but I’m too busy staring at Mariusz to think much about it at the moment.

The teacher starts in on what we’re going to cover this semester and passes out books.

Violet kicks me.

I look over at her.

Stop staring, she mouths.

I’m not, I mouth back.

You are!

I roll my eyes at her and go back to staring at Mariusz. He looks across at me and I look away quickly. I should’ve nodded or something. At least acknowledged his presence. Not just look away. I want to kick myself, but Violet does it for me.

I look over at her again and she gestures with her eyes at Mariusz. I look over at him and this time he’s staring at me.

I smile slightly. He smiles back with his straight white teeth. He has a nice smile. I can’t take it anymore and I look away. I hear him chuckle slightly. I look back and he’s shaking his head as he takes a book from the pile and passes the stack on.

Great. Good move, now he’s laughing at me.

I want to crawl out of the room and go hide under a rock.

Fortunately, the teacher has us passing out syllabi, rule sheets, and papers outlining the first segment of the class and our assignments, so everyone is busy passing on things and perusing papers for the rest of the class. The teacher says something about us being able to work ahead if we want to and also hands out a sheet of paper listing what we can do for extra credit. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to do extra credit unless they were failing. But with half the football team and a third of the cheerleading squad in here, I bet there’ll be a lot of it done in here.

When the bell finally rings, Violet and I practically bolt out the door. I turn to see where Mariusz went, but I don’t see him in the crowd.

Violet says goodbye and heads off to her next class and I head to advanced photography. Finally, some solace.

I walk into the classroom and it’s empty of other students. Mr. Arden only allows ten students a year to be in his advanced class. I’m amazed they let him do this, considering how big the school is, but they do. I choose a seat in the back and sit down. Skip comes in shortly after and takes a seat beside me.