Limonene |H. S.|

2. life is short

"I hate her." Lennon mutters under her breath, blue eyes wide and trained as she bares her heavy glare onto an oblivious Shannon Moore.

"Same." I sigh, glancing at a giggling Shannon who's reminded Mr. Bickham that we didn't quite finish yesterday's lesson, now we have to stay the entire class instead of leaving twenty minutes early like he'd said so.

"What does she gain from this?" Lennon continues, stabbing her pen into the journal she'd been writing on. "It's integrals. I can't believe I'm wasting twenty minutes of my life on someone who can't understand integrals."

"You didn't understand them until Emily took four whole hours explaining it to you." Justin, a close friend of ours, whispers from behind.

"Shut up, Justin."

"Is everything alright, miss Scott?" Mr. Bickham asks loudly, pausing his explanation.

"I didn't do anything." Lennon shrugs, scowling when Shannon says something about how disrespectful she was.

"I think I heard you talking." The teacher continues, beady eyes making the whole room uncomfortable as they glance over every one of us.

"I was just telling Justin how weird it is that we're seeing integrals, since we've already had that class months ago." My friend quips, not bothered by the annoying attention everyone's giving this.

"Your classmates had doubts." Mr. Bickham says quietly, probably realizing that the subject was in deed skomething we'd already gone over. "Just pay attention." He inevitably sighs.

Twenty minutes drag on painfully slow and uninteresting, with most of the class jolting their heads from sleep whenever a question was asked. Luckily, calculus was the last class on our Tuesday schedule, and I became aware of how every student seemed to have their soul sucked out of their bodies by the time we could finally go home.

"Any plans for today?" Justin groans, dragging himself against the wall in a declustering hallway, the auburn curls on his head becoming hyperactive, sticking every which way and clawing at the tiled walls. He suddenly ducks, barely missing the library sign that was about to decapitate him.

"Sleep." I answer, an involuntary yawn making my point obvious.

Beside the terrible exhaustion I'd felt all day, a pulsating headache that had begun this morning was still present, slamming around in the inside of my head, every noise and unnecessary lighting intensifying it's power. The pain and tiredness were a gift my dad delivered me around four in the morning, when he stumbled into the house and began causing a tantrum, yelling out our chihuahuas name because he hadn't seen him all day, knocking over picture frames and plants, stomping around the house as if the sound wasn't ridiculously infuriating.

"You wish, Chen's paper on the Great Gatsby is due tomorrow." Lennon scoffs, pushing a pair of white-rimmed sunglasses onto her face as soon as we step outside. I look at her weirdly, because the sky is about to implode and the wind suggests a heavy rain is coming.

"He left that assignment weeks ago, I've had it ready for a while."

"Bitch." Lennon frowns, causing me to laugh while Justin just agrees. "It's fine, not like I had anything else to do." She shrugs, letting her blonde hair free of the tie that had been holding it in place. The strands fall just below her shoulders, in a wavy and tangled mess, as her fingers rub against the darker coloured roots, relieving the stress built up there. "Sarcasm, by the way. I can think of a hundred other things to do."

"You girls go do that, I'm having a burger before my hypoglycemia kills me." Justin rushes down the stairs of the main door, jacket blowing all around him. "Wanna join?"