Maybe Before Today

Chapter 3

     On Monday, we had English first again, much to my delight and Ziggs's disgust. To be honest, part of the reason I was happy was because they clearly knew something was up with me. I caught them giving me looks any time they thought I couldn't see. They hardly stopped asking if I was okay. I loved them, but it was a bit draining. At least I would get a break from that during English.
     "What do we have first?" they asked me.
     "I've already told you twice."
     "Oh! Yeah. English. Fuck!"
     "It's not that bad."
     "Maybe for you, you enjoy it."
     "Now you know how I feel about maths."
     "Right, fair enough."
     We both walked into the classroom and took our seats, except the seat next to mine was empty. If I'm telling the truth, I was kind of relieved.
     For the first half of the period, the teacher started talking to us about our folio essays and got us to take some notes on how to plan for the creative essay. Then, about half way through, the door opened and guess who came waltzing in.
     "Alexandra, you're late," the teacher said.
     "Not late enough," she muttered.
     "Just sit down! Alice, would you let Lex copy your notes?"
     "Sure." I nodded, looking at Lex nervously then pulling my chair into the desk to give her space to walk past.
     "What are we doing?" Lex asked me as she got her jotters out, not sounding like she cared in the slightest.
     "Starting to plan for a creative essay," I said quietly, turning my jotter so she could see it.
     "How do you keep your stuff this neat?" she asked, still not sounding like she really cared much.
     I forced a laugh, "I just like things to be tidy, I guess."
     "You got any ideas yet?" she asked whilst copying from my notes.
     "What?"
     "For the essay."
     "Oh." I paused for a second to catch my breath, unsure of exactly when I lost it, "I'm really not sure yet."
     "I thought you were like... A total English nerd." She looked away for a second. "Sorry, I didn't mean that in a bad way."
     I laughed, "It's okay. You're not wrong."
     "So why no ideas yet?"
     "I don't really like writing stuff for school. Feels too restrictive."
     "Yeah, my mom once got a phone call to inform her of 'inappropriate language' I had used in an essay."
     "Really? What 'inappropriate language'?"
     "I said fuck in a short story."
     I laughed.
     "I think it fit with my character's personality. I don't get why it was such a big deal."
     "Yeah. My friend was once asked to rewrite an essay because they wrote about a gay couple."
     "Seriously? That's fucked up. What did they do?"
     "Refused and failed the assignment."
     "Damn. That's commitment."
     "Yeah. I guess it's just a good thing that wasn't determining any grades."
     "You think they'd have done that if it had?"
     "Oh, definitely. They'd care far more about 'taking a stand' than getting a good grade in English."
     "To think the biggest stand I ever took was saying fuck."
     I grinned, "Biggest stand I ever took was saying crap, so you're still doing better than me."
     "Well, you have a folio essay to write. Don't waste the opportunity."
     "Hm. We'll see."

     "Saw that you were talking to Lex during English," Ziggs said when we sat outside at break.
     "Yeah."
     "Didn't see that coming."
     "Neither did I."
     "So, what were you two taking about?"
     "Unfair restrictions on our creativity when writing essays for school."
     "The gay essay story came up, didn't it."
     I tried to conceal a smile, "Perhaps..."
     They laughed, "One more person knows of my bravery."
     I looked at them, smiling, "You deserve a medal."
     "You know, I really do. When is that coming?"
     "I'll get right on it."
     "You had better."
     "Oh, also, just out of curiosity, you wouldn't ever risk failing your exam because of something like that, would you?"
     "I won't have to."
     "What do you mean?"
     They looked at me incredulously, "Have you not seen the photos of Ms Marquez and her wife on her desk?"
     My eyes widened. "Her ... wife?"
     They nodded slowly. "Yeah."
     "How do you know? Couldn't it be her friend?"
     "She's showing off an engagement ring in one of the photos and now she wears a wedding ring. It's her wife."
     "Oh. Can't believe I never noticed that."
     "Yeah. So, do you have any ideas yet?"
     "Uh... No. Not yet."
     That was a lie.

     After the bell went, I went downstairs to my shop class. I had always been terrible at it, but it was better than all of the other options. And it could be fun at times. When I wasn't using scary machines. I was one of the first there so I grabbed a stool and sat beside the bench at the back in order to get noticed by Mr Houston as little as possible.
     "Mind if I sit?"
     My head whipped round and I saw Lex at the other side of the bench with a stool.
     "Um, yeah, sure."
     Seeing her there sitting next to me, I just felt inexplicably nervous. But not in an 'I feel like I'm being strangled and need to get out of here' sort of way. More like a 'this is unusual and that scares me but I want to see what happens next' sort of way. I think I wanted it to stop feeling unusual.
     "Didn't know you took shop," she said.
     "It was against my will."
     "This is, like, the only subject I took willingly. Well, apart from drama, I guess."
     "Really?"
     "Yeah. Don't get me wrong, school is terrible but this is one of the few subjects that's usually bearable."
     "Well, I agree with the first part. That's sort of how I feel about English. And I didn't know you took drama."
     "Yeah. I hate all the theory crap though."
     "There's such thing as drama theory?"
     "Oh, yeah. And it's not fun. And I'm terrible at it. So this is the only class keeping up my GPA."
     "This'll be one of the ones dragging mine down."
     She laughed, "As long as you don't chop off your finger I'm sure you'll be fine."
     I smiled a little hesitantly, "That's why I'm worried."
     "I'm s-"
     Before she could finish her sentence, Mr Houston was standing beside out bench.
     "Lex, can I have a word?"
     She looked up at him, "Sure."
     I just looked at my phone and tried to pretend I was interested in whatever I was looking at until she walked back over. I never really knew how to act in class when everyone else was off having conversations and I was sat alone; pretending to be interested in twitter was my go to.
     "What was that about?" I asked when she got back.
     She sighed, looking slightly nervous but as if she was trying to hide it, "It's nothing important."
     I felt inclined not to believe her, but I really didn't know her well enough to make that call.

~

(A/N: This story is going to emotionally destroy me. And I think I'm okay with that. Also I just tested positive for covid. fun.)