else and took a seat in one of the front desks. I had forgotten how uncomfortable school desks were.
A girl I had often talked to before sat next to me, her hair in a high ponytail. She was wearing a t-shirt with our school logo on it. I remembered her name was Amy. Or Ashley.
"Hi!" I said, trying to attempt a smile. It felt like a grimace. My voice sounded like I had been sucking on a helium balloon, far too enthusiastic this early in the morning. I caught the barely perceptible widening of her eyes.
"Hi," she muttered, looking at me like I was going to explode in front of her. She waited for me to say something else, so of course my mind went blank. Without another word, she turned in her seat to talk with the girl to her left.
I had been dreading this kind of reaction, but it still stung. I hadn't been in contact with anyone since July. I turned my phone off, deleted my email without reading it. It wasn't like I blamed them for their feelings; they were probably hurt by my bold insensitivity. But for a long time, I couldn't stand talking to anyone. The words felt wrong. But now I was lonely, even if it was by my own making.
Our principal, Mr. McPherson, came over the intercom and greeted us.
"Good morning, students," his voice boomed over the loudspeaker. "Welcome to a brand new school year. I hope you're all ready to begin. All it takes is a positive attitude and you can persevere."
I try to have respect for authority figures. But McPherson was an exception. He always favored the rich and athletic kids over the rest of us, to the point of absurdity. And he exuded insincerity. He wore ugly suits straight out of the 1970s, with leather elbow patches. I wondered if he still had the large moustache he had grown to distract from the comb-over on his balding head.
"I also wanted to extend thanks to the Thornhill Society for the new additions to the gym," he said. "As well as the beautiful stone fountain out front."
I hadn't even noticed the fountain. Typical of the kind of things their money went to, sports-related trappings and aesthetics. I tuned out the rest of his ramblings.
I went to Geometry first period, the class I was least looking forward to. My math teacher, Mr. Vanderlip, was a twitchy little man with a paisley tie. He quickly revealed that he favored those good at the subject. On his classroom billboard, photos of his calculus classes and math competition teams over the years were perfectly aligned in straight rows, complete with labelmaker tags.
Math was number one on my list of things I dreaded. Probably because I am not the most logical person. I barely squeaked through Algebra last year, so the step up in difficulty worried me. My mother was a math genius, but she never had the time to teach me anymore. When I was younger, we used to sit at the dining room table after elementary school, carefully filling in worksheets. Rumor had it that Mr. Vanderlip could be really hard, and he didn't like to offer extra help. I assumed I would be royally screwed if I didn't pay the utmost attention.
He jumped right into the textbook with no introduction, covering the board with chalk. Then he berated the first student who raised his hand and had the answer slightly wrong.
"This is remedial stuff! I can't believe that you don't know the difference between a supplementary angle and a complementary one," he squawked, then visibly clucking his tongue.
As he turned his back, his striped shirt wrinkling, I watched everyone else debating whether they should ever raise their hands again. It could be a very quiet class if this kept up.
I could follow the basics, mostly lines and angles. Relief was slowly spreading through me; maybe it wouldn't be such a nightmare. That feeling only lasted until he assigned three lessons for the night's homework, when any hope I had deflated like a broken balloon.
"We need to blow through the easy stuff," he responded to our collective groan.
At Hawthorne, physical education was a required subject for two years. Not surprising for a school so concerned with athletics. I wasn't bad at sports, I just wasn't interested. I could generally hold my own when forced to engage in them, but I would much rather have been reading. Claire had tried enrolling me in volleyball and