gone ✧*｡ luke a.u.

39: october 2 2011

ELLIE

THURSDAY, 2ND OCTOBER, 2011

"Exams are less than four weeks away, and I expect you're all studying," said Ms Ashford, sitting on the edge of her desk at the front of the classroom. "You're going to need to know everything we've learnt this year. That is, all four book studies, the film study, the poetry unit . . . everything."

Someone in the classroom groaned. "I hated the poetry unit."

"Well, you're going to have to learn it anyway," Ms Ashford said grimly. "Bad luck. Oh! Sorry, guys, I totally forgot. New assignment."

Now the entire class groaned collectively. "You just said we had to be studying for exams," Maxie pointed out, from the seat beside Ellie. "We can't study if we're writing another essay."

"To be fair, it's not an essay, per se." Ms Ashford got up and started looking through her folders to find the paperwork, her blonde hair falling over her shoulders and over her face. She was young, about twenty-five, and firm but light-hearted in her nature; Maxie's criticism didn't even come close to penetrating her thick skin. "It's a commentary. On one of Wilfred Owen's war poems that we looked at earlier this year." Everyone groaned again, and she rolled her eyes. "C'mon, guys, it's not that bad! You get to choose out of a list, and we've annotated them all already . . ."

Ellie sighed, resting her head on her hand. She would prefer not to have to do work at all, and still hadn't even finished the last essay that they had been assigned with. It had been two weeks since the due date, which Ellie had been absent for, and without a word from Ms Ashford she was hoping that it had slid through, no questions asked.

Ms Ashford came around to hand out the sheet for the commentary to everyone; Ellie's table, which she shared with Maxie and Hadley, as well as two other girls who mostly just talked between each other, was one of the last to be reached. Ellie mumbled a small thanks to Ms Ashford upon receiving her sheet, then placed it on her desk and closed her eyes. She was exhausted, but at this rate, that didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. It was beginning to feel like she had been tired her entire life. She couldn't remember what it was like to possess the will to be awake. She couldn't remember a life without heavy eyes and a slow, weighted mind.

When Ms Ashford reached Ellie's desk, though, she paused, rather than continuing onto the other students. She pursed her lips. Hesitated. "Ellie," she said quietly, "can I talk to you outside in a minute?"

"Uh . . . " Ellie sat up straighter in her chair, sharing a quick confused glance with Maxie. "Sure." After a long moment Ms Ashford nodded, then turned her back and continued to the next table.

Maxie leaned towards Ellie once she was certain Ms Ashford had gone. "What was that about?" she asked quietly.

"No clue." Ellie bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep her face impassive. She didn't want to show the other girls that she was nervous. There was something about Ms Ashford -- the respect she had for all of her students, perhaps, in place of the relentless condescension that most teachers preferred to express -- that made Ellie reluctant to disappoint her.

Once every single student had a sheet, Ms Ashford turned around and beckoned to Ellie, who followed her out of the classroom into the hallway. Ms Ashford leant against one of the lockers outside as Ellie came out, watching mildly, saying nothing.

The silence stretched out for over a minute. It had Ellie so nervous that she almost completely gnawed through a spot on her bottom lip, and had to bite onto her tongue to prevent herself from making it bleed.

Finally, Ms Ashford sighed. "Oh, Ellie. Do you have any idea what this is about?"

Ellie shook her head mutely.