The Blackest Eyes

Part 3

What she didn't like about breakfast in her morning routine was the aftermath. Because then it was time to head to school, where she'd be given assignments that she felt like she had to try significantly harder to understand than most of her peers and where she'd periodically have her auditory senses assaulted by an obnoxious principal that was far too overzealous with the damn microphone during announcements.

The noise made it harder for her to focus and, quite often, even became physically painful to listen to and the principal, for whatever reason, had an awful habit of repeating the announcements more than he needed to. Laurie wasn't the only one who thought that, but she was the only one who felt the need to cover her ears when the announcements came on. She dreaded the thought as she walked towards the high school.

It rarely took more than a few minutes to get there because she lived so close to it, but it took long enough for her to find a way to distract herself from the thought. Said distraction would be taking in the beautiful scenery that made itself known around October. The sky was a dull mixture of grey and blue and the leaves falling every-which-way were taking on interesting shades of red, orange and yellow.

Similar statements could be made for the birds seemingly leap-frogging from tree to tree, a couple of which had nests with young soon to hatch from their eggs. It almost felt like a natural art studio. And it felt somehow peaceful to her. She wasn't sure why, but it did. She didn't question it much either as she didn't think it made too much sense to. What did make sense to her though was enjoying it, which she made sure to right up until she reached the front entrance of the school.

Hours passed and she went about the day, focusing on little other than getting her work finished and being done with it. Despite the extra effort she had to put into understanding or keeping track of all the steps to her work, mostly in mathematics, she wasn't a bad student as far as her grades went. All As and Bs. Her 4th period science class was taking a different approach to the usual routine that day which involved working in the school library.

She didn't mind that, the library did happen to have quite a bit of literature that peaked her interest and, with the added peace quiet, she often got her work done quicker in there. Such was the case today. After slipping what little paperwork she'd been given that day into her backpack, she began to emerse herself in a newly acquired book she'd been wanting to read for a while, The Call Of Cthulhu, until she heard a familiar voice whisper, not so quietly, to her from across the table where she was sitting.

"Still into that freaky Lovecraft tentacle-face shit, huh?"

She looked up from the book to see her friends, Annie and Linda. The "tentacle-face" comment had come from Linda, the dirty blonde, cheerleader who sat across from Laurie with a smile. She always poked fun at the books Laurie enjoyed, although never in a mean-spirited way. Annie sat beside Linda with a friendly smile, but still gave off a vibe that she wanted to keep her distance from her. Not surprising, Laurie thought. There'd always been a certain type of tension between Linda and Annie.

They'd never seemed too close, even now when they cheered with the same squad. They didn't have much in common and tended to take shots at each other that sounded like a bit more than just playful banter. However, they were willing to act as "mutual friends" through Laurie.
Annie spoke up next, brushing strands of dark brown hair from her face.

"Beats the hell out of the R.L. Stein books she was obsessed with before."