What You're Not | ✔

06. Miss Attitude

My alarm started and I tapped the screen, ending it before it really began. I was wide awake and had been since 4:30. My little trip down memory lane resulted in a night of tossing and turning.

I had no desire to go to school or to even get out of the bed. My eyes closed as I listened to the music I couldn't sleep without. Fall Out Boy was my obsession of the month, but not even they could pull me out of this mood.

"Why aren't you up yet?"

Opening one eye, I saw mom standing in the doorway already dressed for the day. I wanted to tell her about what happened last night, but that would only make her worry and try to force me to attend the those meetings again. So instead I rose out of bed, feeling like a zombie, but hopefully looking like a normal person.

After sluggishly going through my morning routine, I grabbed a granola bar and left for the bus stop. Mom offered to drive me like she'd been doing all week, but I turned her down. She'd easily sense my bad mood if we spent too much time together and I didn't feel like having her question me in what I called "her support group leader voice". It was meant to sound calm and comforting. To me it just sounded sad.

That was my first time taking the school bus and I didn't see a single familiar face when I boarded. Not that I minded. I wasn't in the mood to talk, which is why I put my headphones in.

+ + +

"Good morning, Loren," The Twins greeted once I got off the bus. They were in their plain red cheer uniforms, "Go Spartans" written in red on their cheeks. The two of them looked stylish in anything, but even they couldn't make the uniforms pop.

There goes my plan of avoiding human contact.

"Morning," I said, turning my music off.

"Did you see Riley on there?" Kimber asked as the bus emptied.

"No," I said. Riley's fiery red hair wasn't something one would miss.

"I told you, she's sick," Jem said as the three of us walked to our lockers.

The two of them argued about whether Riley was actually out with a cold. Apparently, there was a football game tonight that she, being a cheerleader, would miss. Their voices soon faded as my mind went back to the article. Ty was meant to be some superstar athlete and was being pursued by college basketball scouts. He didn't get to wow those scouts with his skills. Yet I got to be there. Not doing anything great or extraordinary. That didn't seem fair.

"Loren!"

I was startled out of my head by The Twins. They had matching looks of confusion on their faces as the looked at me.

"Are you okay?" Kimber asked.

"You've been staring at your lock for, like, five minutes," Jem pointed out.

"Oh, yeah, no, I'm fine," I mumbled. "Just tired."

"Same," Kimber sighed.

"Wouldn't it be cool if this school served Starbucks?" Jem mused.

They went into a discussion about their favorite iced coffee drinks as I finally managed to get my locker opened.

"All this talk has made me hungry and I need food," Kimber announced.

"Me too," Jem agreed, looking over at me.

"I'll meet you in the cafeteria," I said.

When I said that I had every intention of following through with it. At least I thought I did. Instead, after closing my locker back up, I went in the opposite direction of the cafeteria.