She hated him. He hated her. And that was alright in their world until one night. Everything changed then, conversations exchanged between drags of a shared cigarette having developed a mutual respect between enemies.
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Slowburn enemies to frie...
I'm quite confident in the inevitability that I'm going to throw up. A solid eight out of ten odds that I chuck up my breakfast in front of my new peers is enough to send me into a silent panic. I cling to my locker like a barnacle on a ship, immovable by the waves of bodies bumping into me.
Robin leans against the locker next to mine. It isn't hers, but that doesn't stop her from planting her roots there.
"You look a little pale Y/N," she teases.
"I think I'm gonna throw up," I mumble, choking down a gag. I didn't expect public school to be as nerve-wracking as this. After all, it's still school. Just school. Right?
Wrong.
It's nothing like school at Miss Pearls. Instead of snuggling up with Ivy under hand-woven chunky blankets on worn down feather stuffed pillows, the chairs are stiff metal and plastic. The lights are blindingly fluorescent, reminding me of a hospital. Miss Pearl loathed white light and opted for candles or thrifted table lamps. Grueling classes are taught by a handful of middle-aged adults who pray they get into an accident on the way home so they don't have to subject themselves to this torture the next day. It's like a record spinning on repeat: monotone voices, migraine-inducing lights, and stacks of worksheets.
I used to think I was great at school. Hell, I'd dare to call myself intelligent. But high school has made me challenge my self-appointed label.
The bell rings for the fifth class of the day to start. Robin takes note of my distress and smooths the shoulder of my orange sweater. "You'll be alright, it's just Spanish. You already speak Spanish,"
"Only what I've caught from the Home," I retaliate.
"Some of it's got to be useful," she argues.
I shove my locker closed. The loud clanking of metal on metal makes me flinch a bit. "Right. I'll make sure to tell the teacher she's a bitch in Spanish, I'm sure she'll love it."
There were a few Spanish speakers in the Home. Twin sisters and their little brother, plus the counselor Mrs. Andres. The sisters had sneakily taught the girls in the orphanage how to insult the boys in Spanish as a way to confuse them. It was hilarious at the time, but now it just seems cruel.
Spanish 201 is taught by an older woman with shoulder-length, bone-straight white hair. She wears a pair of dress pants and a black blouse that buttons all the way up to her neck. Her name is Senora Montoya, as indicated by the nametag on her oak desk in the corner of the room.
