Lip Gloss And Leather Jackets || Completed

THREE || Screw Cloud Nine, I'm On Cloud One Hundred

THREE || Screw Cloud Nine, I'm On Cloud One Hundred

It's Monday, twenty-fourth of December, and Maxine Grifes is in my classes. All of them.

This is, of course, not a surprise. Every Stud gets moved into the classes their tutor is in for the rest of the year, if they aren't in the same classes already. And yet, when the bell rings and students are already settled into their seats, she's nowhere to be seen.

Ms. Acosta's eyes sweeps around the class. "Isn't Maxine Grifes supposed to be transferred here?" Met with a few murmurs and unintelligible words. She sighs in exasperation, rubbing her forehead. "Angel, you're her tutor, right? Can you go look for her? If you can't find her, just come back."

I scoot back and stand up, heading for the door as Ms. Acosta starts to explain ye old Germanic history. Once I'm out the door and in the hall, I shuffle around the school for a bit, yelling Maxine's name at random intervals. After a few minutes, there's no response, so I walk back to class, heart heavy.

I'm prepared to weep about the fact that she skipped, but she's there, just outside the classroom, taking books out of her locker and sweeping them into her arms. "Hey," she says, raising a hand in greeting. Her knuckles are split open and bruised. "I'm know I'm late, okay? I was doing something." She offers a shrug in apology, and my anger dissipates.

We enter the classroom together, and no one bats an eye. Ms. Acosta opens her mouth, but Maxine slams her books down onto the table before she can say anything. "Yeah, yeah, I'm late." It's not an apology, just an acknowledgement. Ms. Acosta sighs and continues with the lesson.

I slide my chair next to Maxine's and peer over her shoulder to see what she's written in her notebook. Her handwriting looks like a rooster tried to do the left-hand challenge, but it's pretty in a sort of messy way.

Germanic Wars - a sequence of wars between Rome and some Germanic tribes. 113 BC to 592 AD. Brought the downfall of the Byzantine Empire. The Cimbrian War marked the start of them?

"Not quite," I correct, pointing at the paper, "it was between 113 BC and 596 AD, not 592. It brought the downfall of the Western Rome Empire, not the Byzantine." She scratches it out and rewrites. "We need to get you a better note-taking system. Like mine." I open my notebook up and show it to her, and she recoils at the sight of my multi-coloured, excessively decorated notes.

"What?" I laugh, acting fake-offended. Maxine rolls her eyes.

"Nothing. It's just so... colourful." She blows a chunk of hair up from her face, but it settles between her eyes instead. Her hand goes up to brush it away, and again there's the sight of bruises, blossoming purple and blue patches, blood drying on the back of her hand. She scratches it away. "I've never cared about notes. The material's usually in the book."

She jolts back a bit when I wiggle my finger in her face, which I admit was probably a bit surprising. "That's where you're wrong, buddy," I say, struggling to keep my voice quiet, "The book covers some of the stuff, but there are some extra details and even topics that aren't summarised there."

Ms. Acosta hears me and glares. I grin sheepishly and continue explaining to Maxine about the wars and history and barbarian leaders.

Once class is over, the bell rings as usual, and a usual day of classes passes by. The only conscious change is Maxine, because, well, she's everywhere. In my classes, sitting next to me at lunch, and now, beside me in the library again, both of us poring over a history book.

I wanted to start on biology, but she insisted on studying history first, because she claims she's bad at it. She just mixes up dates, terms, and names a lot, but when we finally find a way to effectively link stuff together with her she's not too bad at it. She also bites down on her pencil a lot. I'm not exactly grossed out, but it's distracting, as is everything that has to do with her mouth.