Remember This✔

Chapter Three

"Have you ever done this before?"

Molly looks up from the frog that she's attempting to dissect and becomes startled by her partner's question. The girl didn't want to be put with Molly, she had no choice as her usual partner is sick.

"You're doing it wrong," the girl says, not bothering to wait for a reply. She snatches the forceps from Molly's fingers aggressively. "You have to remove the skin here to make the incision."

"Oh," Molly whispers.

"Seriously, just leave it to me. Just sit and paint your nails or something."

"Paint my nails?" Molly repeats. "Why would I do that?"

The girl snaps her crystal, blue eyes up and narrows them. "Are you retarded or something?"

"No."

"I was being sarcastic. Damn, Raya really picked a day to be sick." The girl rolls her eyes and makes the incision with the scalpel. Molly just observes, unsure of what else to do. "Are you just going to stare at me?" the girl demands. "It's creeping me out."

At her remark a few classmates from the tables around them laugh out. The blonde, tanned popular girl then looks at them and laughs along. Molly did hear the teacher call her name but she forgets what it was. She is bad with names.

"What do you want me to do?" Molly asks her.

"Not be in this class."

"Well, I am."

"I see that," the girl says, widening her eyes at Molly. "I'm not blind. I'd rather be blind than as stupid as you though."

More laughter. Molly holds her breath to keep the tears from falling. She turns her head away from the smirk of her partner and closes her eyes for a moment against her palm.

"Are you taking a nap now?" the girl says. "I'm not surprised. I heard you sleep in the gutter at night. It must keep you awake."

Molly keeps her head turned away, her eyes pinched closed to block it out. All she wants is for someone to talk to her in a different way than what her partner is. All she wants is to just have a moment of clarity and peace.

"You're not crying are you?" the girl laughs. "Oh, you are! Poor little cry baby."

Molly quickly wipes her cheeks and removes her hand from her face. She leans back in her seat at the table and stares towards the front desk to where the teacher is writing on his laptop, oblivious to what is going on around him.

Her eyes drift to a boy on a table across the classroom that is staring at her. Unlike everyone else he doesn't find the girl's taunts funny and he quickly looks away. Molly recognizes him from some of her other classes but she can't remember his name. She knows he is handsome, insanely so; with light hair, muscled arms and features of a perfectly crafted face. She knows just by looking at him, even though she doesn't know who he is, that he is socially above her and most others.

"Seriously, do you want me to do all the work?" her partner suddenly demands. She throws the scalpel across the table angrily, and it lands in front of Molly's hand. "Pick it up and do your bit."

Molly's hand shakes as she picks up the scalpel and turns her chair towards the frog and the grinning blonde girl's stare sends Molly's anxiety levels soaring.

"Do I make you nervous?"

"No," Molly says.

"So you aren't going to go and cry in the toilets after this class?"

"No."

"Bet you will."

Molly looks up to the clock on the wall. She hoped it would inform her that she had only seconds left until the bell rang, but she was mistaken. She has thirty minutes left. Thirty whole minutes of holding in her tears. Thirty whole minutes of her hand shaking and her head pounding.

Thirty whole minutes of pain.