Groundhog Day

4.

If something could go wrong, for Newt, it did.

            He put his jeans on backwards. His backpack spilled out all of its contents when he went to grab it. He tripped on the stairs. When he went to grab himself cereal, he knocked over the box and sent it all skittering across the kitchen floor. The broom broke when he was trying to clean it up, meaning he had to pick the tiny pieces up by hand. When he went to make Sonya's braid, her hair tie snapped. He slipped on the ice on their front porch. His car stalled, leaving them in icy silence for a minute or two before he finally got the engine to rev to life.

            Today was just not his day. He hated this run-through the most of all eight: well, nine, now. And it wasn't even 7:30 in the morning yet.

            Newt dropped Sonya off at the door, wanting to eradicate her from his bad karma as soon as possible for her own sake. And it was a good thing that he did- the chap didn't find parking anywhere. What was it, everybody-and-their-mother-park-in-the-student-lot-day? Letting out a frustrated huff, Newt drove across the street, having to park in front of a coffee/donut chain location and walk back over to WCKD, already 6 minutes late to English and counting.

            The blonde walked to the attendance office and got a whole lotta lip from the woman working there, but eventually managed to scrounge up a late pass so he wouldn't get the same lecture from Mrs. Lana. When he did make it to English, he dropped down in his seat only for it to break a little, making an ungodly irritating squeak anytime he so much as twitched a muscle. And this class was a double, so 140 minutes of squeaky hell for him.

            An annoyed groan left his lips, the boy letting his forehead smack the palm of his hand as he contemplated how today could've already gone so wrong.

            In Chemistry, Newt accidentally spilled corrosive fluids on himself during their lab, and had to stand under the chemical shower, utterly soaking himself. The boy's clothes grew three shades darker and clung to his form, dripping from supersaturation. His long gold hair looked more of a sandy brown now, plastered to his cheeks in little unattractive tendrils. Shaking his head like a dog, Newt pushed the mop of a mess back out of his face, groaning as he gripped the shirt pressed to his abdomen and wrung it out. "Great," he murmured, dark eyelashes dotted with droplets of residual water that threatened to splash down onto his cheeks. Deep down he knew it wouldn't matter, because everyone would forget it come tomorrow anyways, but Newt was still pissed on principle.

            He was tossed a towel, which he wrapped around himself, praying that he'd dry off before he had to go out into the sub-freezing weather when he left later.

            At lunch, Minho couldn't help but snicker once Newt was in view. "... The hell happened to you? Go for a swim?"

            "Slim it," Newt muttered, shaking the towel on his hair once more, making it look even more of a mess than it already had. Some already-dry pieces stuck straight up, while the larger still-wet pieces stuck to his head firmly. "Give me your track clothes."

            Minho crossed his arms at Newt's demand, more amused than anything else. "Pardon?"

            "Your track clothes," the blonde stated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Give me them."

            Minutes later, Minho and Newt had both left the cafeteria, made a pit stop at Minho's locker to grab his bag for track, and were in the mens' room. The dark-haired boy leaned against the sink, his arms over his chest as Newt's soaked clothes were flung over the stall he was in as he changed.