good morning, sunshine

P R E S E N T ➢ ii

she stood in front of the desk, in the main office of the school. it smelled strongly of hand disinfectant and pencil shavings.

"um," the girl sitting at the desk said, confused, "hi, genevieve."

genevieve didn't know her name, though she assumed that she was a freshman trying to earn the required number of service hours that were needed for the year. she vaguely remembered working in the office herself during her first year of high school, feeling utterly bored, filing papers and sometimes answering phone calls.

she nodded, "could i take a look at the student records?"

"i need to find a student, for the winter formal event, he's supposed to," pause, "volunteer, so i needed to take a look at his," pause, "his schedule so i can find him, for next period, you know?"

lying was not her forte.

she girl behind the desk looked confused, "can't you-" she shut her mouth, then opened it again, taking a strand of her red hair, playing with it, "i don't know if i'm allowed to let you look at those, genevieve."

genevieve pouted, "c'mon," she said, giving her a small smile, "it would be a huge help -amber."

she said, quickly, glancing down at the binder in front of her, that had a name, neatly printed on the front.

"you know my name?" amber asked.

"i know everyone's name, amber," gennie smiled, the prized smile she offered everyone.

a l m o s t everyone.

amber gave her a small shrug, "i mean, i guess you could take a quick look. i just don't want to get into trouble-"

"neither do i," gennie muttered.

the naive freshman's attention turned towards the phone, that began to ring.

"aspen heights high," the redhead said, monotonously, as she put the phone to her ear.

"i hope you attend the winter formal! the student council's been working hard," genevieve said quickly. it was true. genevieve had been engrossing herself in the preparation of the event, in hopes that it would distract her from thinking about everything else. which had only partially worked.

with that, genevieve shot her another smile, hoping that the other secretaries, who were answering phone calls in the back would pay her no attention. she walked into the room, and pulled out her keychain, which held six keys to the school. as school president, she held rights to the keys to the different filing cabinets, doors and such, that regular students did not have. she felt a wave of guilt, thinking of how much trust she was breaking.

it was for him.

she 'tsked,' as the key smoothly went into the lock, and opened the cabinet. having one generic key for every filing cabinet was a security issue. which was at her advantage, in the moment.

she pulled out her phone, looking for specific names, in relevance to the beatles.

and then she saw the file designated to absences.

she felt another wave of guilt. she was intruding school property. and then she remembered how xavier would tease her for being a 'teachers pet' and how she was too afraid of 'breaking rules'. which she was. she drew a breath and pulled out the folder.

"meredith," she muttered, tossing that file to the ground, "no."

"leave of absence, male, seventeen, oh," her lips formed an 'o', "oh."

she pulled out the papers and read them over, reading it softly aloud to herself, in nothing but mere whispers.

"medical notes, grief, depression, antidepressants," genevieve read, "teachers notes, lack of concentration, lack of communication, late assignments."

she flipped through the pages, "enrolled from september. orientation with genevieve mathers on first day."

she furrowed her eyebrows.

"marshall john grant," the name was unfamiliar.

she pulled out her phone, took a few pictures of the papers before her, neatly put everything back the way she had found it.

"marshall," she said to herself, sighing.

he was anon, lennon, though all along he was just marshall. a simple boy, with a simple heart. which was broken from self-guilt.

a u t h o r ' s n o t e :

marshall.

((his middle name is john, which correlates to the beatles))

thank you for one k followers! and to all those who've checked out my new story 'lighthouse' ♡

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updating very soon, because i'm as excited to post it as you are to read it!

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