Big Girl Boots

Twenty-Five

Okay, guys, I finished this up today! It's not perfectly edited or anything, but it's done and I'm happy. Let me know what you think!

***

Sitting in art class by myself, all I could do was wonder when Mama Callie would make Coda go back to school. This was the second day I'd had to endure the horde of annoying underclassmen in the cold art room without Coda to remind me that I couldn't afford to get suspended, and my patience was wearing thin.

Everything in the cavernous room was obnoxious; the cold, concrete walls and floors, the horrible acoustics that made the freshmen's screaming that much more irritating, and the fact that I had zero artistic ability with a negative desire to succeed in this class, or any other, for that matter.

"No, give it back!" A chunkier blonde freshman girl with an odd shaped nose who was the ringleader of their stupid little pack screeched, making all the others cackle. The tall, too-thin girl with unnaturally dark hair that was taunting her held a stolen paintbrush a little higher in the air, waving it maniacally. "Bet you can't reach it!"

I gritted my teeth and gripped the pencil in my hand a little tighter, staring distastefully down at the half-assed horse I'd started sketching weeks ago. All of my work was sub-par but I saw no reason in trying to improve. I'd decided long ago that I was far better in a wood shop than an art room, not that that was saying much. Sighing, I wondered for the millionth time why I couldn't just have two shop classes as electives instead of getting stuck with shitty classes that I hated.

I drew a line and proceeded to erase it, debating weather or not I wanted to put my earbuds in. My eyes didn't leave my paper but my ears did perk up when bits of conversation between a pair of sophomores a couple desks away drifted towards me. I was suddenly glad I hadn't gotten around to the headphones yet; the two girls were usually quiet but I often caught snippets of their conversations, which mostly consisted of the shorter one whining and the taller one jumping on the bandwagon in agreement. They were stupid, but I found them entertaining. I leaned forward a little further, trying to be conspicuous about the fact that I was definitely listening in.

"She's, like, a junior, right?" The taller of the two girls questioned, brushing some brown hair out of the way of her glasses. She'd started the year with a pixie cut but now it was at that horribly awkward length where pieces hung constantly in her face. I wasn't even the one dealing with the hair and it drove me crazy.

The other gal, a four-foot-something punk with cropped, curly hair that changed colors on the weekly, replied quickly. "Yeah, she's a junior. Torrin Paxton's her brother, remember?"

"Ohh," pixie cut nodded, her jaw hanging a little slack, as usual. It wasn't hard to tell that she had a tough time in school, not that I could talk. "Okay, so she's the super quiet awkward one that usually sits over there?"

"Yes." Exasperation laced the short girl's voice, whose hair was a bright pink this week. "She's the one that's really weird and flinchy. It's like she's a fucking mouse or something."

"I heard her dad, like, kicked her out."

Pink hair nodded in return, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, it must suck to be enough of a fuck-up that your parents don't even want you anymore."

Soberly, the slouching brunette nodded. "I wonder what she did?"

Again, the pink haired girl rolled her eyes. "I don't know, but even I'm not that dumb."

Her bad attitude was beginning to get on my nerves, but not nearly as much as the fact that they were talking about my best friend like she was completely worthless, especially when they had no idea what she'd gone through. Normally, I kind of got a kick out of their little bashing sessions, but not today. Instead their words made my blood boil and I was incredibly tempted to throw Coda's warning about suspension out the window to freeze to death in a snowbank and launch myself at the two of them. The only thing keeping me from completely losing it was that when the pink haired girl continued talking, I felt the need to listen.