Free Bloodlines: Everything That Glitters by Myunique C. Green Page B

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    “Isn’t Tetra the name of a fish?” Someone joked from the back of the classroom.
    “It is, but my name isn’t Tetra, its Alizarin. Isn’t your name one letter short of spelling Herpes?” I replied, turning around in my seat to look at the stranger. As if Tetra is the name of an ugly fish , I thought.
    “Watch yourself new girl.” She fumed as both embarrassment and anger consumed her.
    “No I think it is you who should watch yourself,” I smiled, then turned around and faced the teacher, who’d conveniently stepped outside to take a call when she’d decided to make her comment.
    I stared again at the class clock; the last few minutes of class had flown by. I threw the papers into my purple folder and tossed it into my backpack. As I walked out into the hallway I was temporarily disoriented by the commotion and bumped into a girl standing on the side of her locker.
    “Watch where you’re going!” The girl yelled.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, picking up the books that had fell to the floor.
    “You should be sorry.”
    I slowly rose with the fallen books in my hands and looked up to see the person I had bumped into. The massive girl towered over me; her pale blonde hair was tied into a bun revealing her protruding forehead. We wore the same small tank shirt; only she had gotten hers in dark blue. I reached out to hand her the books I was still clutching onto and she snatched them away.
    “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there.” I extended the apology again hoping she would hear the sincerity in my voice. The crowd around us had slowly begun to stop and stare at the two of us.
    “I don’t need your apologies, new girl.” Her thoughts were furious, but not at me.
    Among the other thoughts I’d been entertaining; I also had to watch as images flashed inside of my head of something that I couldn’t make out. Something had happened to her within the last couple of days and she had been waiting for someone to cross her the wrong way. I inched backward, lightly bumping into an instigator then gently tried to pry my way through the few people that stood between the open hallway and me. Everyone in the by-standing group were wondering if she was going to just let me get away, they wanted to see a girl fight, it’d be the fourth one this week supposedly.
    “Yeah that’s right, you run. I’ll let it slide this time but you make sure it doesn’t happen again,” she barked after me.
    I wandered aimlessly through the halls before finding the classroom. A few minutes later the bell that signified that you were late rung; I hated having to walk into class late, everyone always seemed to stare and not-so-silently judge. I peeked in through the small glass window in the middle of the door and examined the classroom; there weren’t that many people in this class, so that calmed my nerves slightly. Behind me people were still sauntering around in the hallways, going into the classrooms nearby.
    “Here we go,” I mumbled to myself as I turned the handle to the door and stepped in.
    ***
    The insanity within me carried on throughout the rest of the day, I had found out more things in one sitting that normally takes people a lifetime. For example: Mr. Walsh was having an affair with the Spanish teacher down the hall, Mrs. Leone has a weird complex with horses and the guy that sits next to me in Art History secretly dresses as a woman.
    My head hurt intensely from all of the things that I had been hearing all day. The things that people do in the privacy of their own mind is unbelievably haunting, I couldn’t even begin to imagine being cursed like this for the rest of my life. This must be the malediction . I thought out.
    I crept slowly out of my fourth class and down the hallway; I have to learn how to control this! I can hardly concentrate. I thought, more to myself than to Ash, although I knew he could hear me.
    We will figure something out . Ash replied calmly. I headed for the doors to the walkway