Giving What We Both Needed

School Days in a Daze

My first fic online!! please be kind about this 👉👈
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Nobody, sadly, knew the truth about Suitcase's home life.

She wasn't abused by her parents. In fact, her parents weren't there at all anymore. They hadn't been at home since she was twelve, where they collectively decided that she was old enough to fend for herself and left to another city for some position at their job, sending in money every week so she could get groceries and hopefully not tell Protective Services.

Suitcase was used to it by now, and hence was surprisingly independent for someone her age, but she never told anyone where her parents really were; partially because she had no idea herself, and because she didn't want to cause a huge ruckus.

So it was all a secret to the young girl.

Mom and Dad are working late again, but they're on their way home, she told Baseball and Nickel, her childhood friends.

My parents are running errands, so they can't come to the teacher meeting, she told Mr. MePhone, her teacher.

Can I stay with you for a few days? Mom and Dad have to go out of town for a business trip and nobody in my family can come to stay with me while they're gone. That one was a lie she told to several people, when her parents "forgot" to pay the utility bills.

And she did a good job of keeping her secrets, she thought.

That is, until now.

It was another morning in homeroom, not long before the morning bell was about to ring. All the kids in the class were talking among each other. Taco was ranting about something to Pickle and Microphone, Knife and Trophy were arguing again (to nobody's surprise, they were always at each other's throats), and Fan was showing something to Test Tube on his phone, the former rambling excitedly while flapping his free hand wildly.

As for Suitcase, she was trying her best to quickly wrap up the homework she had forgotten to do last night, while at the same time trying to listen to Nickel and Baseball's conversation. Her attention kept shifting from the paper in front of her to Nickel's sarcastic comments about...what was it he was talking about again? She didn't remember if she heard it or not.

She wished she hadn't had those awful nightmares again. She could never think straight the morning after.

"Suitcase agrees with me! Right?"

Nickel's voice snapped her back to reality, looking up from her homework. "Huh?"

The silver-haired boy scoffed, smiling softly. "Lemme guess, spaced out again?"

"Hey, I didn't mean to this time! I just didn't sleep well, and it's kinda hard to focus."

"Yeah yeah...'this time'." Nickel snickered as Baseball smacked him, but Suitcase knew Nickel never meant to be rude or mean. She'd known Nickel and Baseball since third grade, and they were sophomores in high school now. Nickel's sarcasm and cynical personality was something she had gotten used to over the years. And even under the layers of cynicism, she knew Nickel cared about her in the end, even if he teased her like the younger sister that he had never had.

"Anyway, now that Suitcase has returned to Earth, whaddya think the new assistant teachers are gonna be like?"

Oh yeah. The new assistant teachers are coming in today, I forgot.

"I dunno." Suitcase doodles absentmindedly on her homework. "I mean, I don't have certain expectations for them, I just hope they're nice."

"I heard that the two of them just graduated from college not too long ago," Baseball chimed in. "I think this is their first full-time teaching gig."