In it for the Long Haul

I don’t like drawing unnecessary attention to myself. I already have a giant red target on my back because of my so-called mother, I didn’t need any more. Especially not this kind.

But fate has a way of playing funny tricks on people. It’s not one to listen to the pleas of those it makes suffer.

The three of them have no choice but to make their way over to the three unclaimed, empty desks. I can hear the muttering and the pity that they are getting because they have to sit near me. Oh, the horror.

One of the identical boys, the one with the scar on his left eye, sits in the seat directly to my right. He glances over at me and smiles.

“Good morning,” He greets me casually and I almost choke. But I manage to force out my own pleasant greeting, somehow.

They had heard the whispers, yes? The idea of talking to me on their first day was surprising enough, but I was more surprised that they were still willing to. Has no one said anything, really?

“It’s nice to see you again, you were Elle, right?” I’m startled out of my thoughts when the girl, Rowan from what I remember of their introduction in the last class, asks me. Her tone is kind and warm and I wonder for a moment if Megan and Tristan had really not filled them in on all the gossip about me yet. Had Tristan’s mother really downplayed the rumors about me last night? They’re just lucky they are new, beautiful, and foreign. Social suicide wasn’t really something people liked to try on their first day, especially when not fully aware they were doing it.

“My name's Eleanora, but most people just call me Elle, or Ellie.” I muster out. Not that I had to tell them that most people were my coworkers, my father, and my one and only friend who was currently vacationing with her family. Today is a weird day. I don’t usually talk a whole lot while I’m at school. Every once in a while, when Megan comes by for some no-good fun, but other than that I usually only exchange pleasantries with those unfortunate enough to be seated next to me.

Dana and I haven’t had any classes together in about a year and a half either and we don’t usually even share a lunch period, so we only really see each other and talk after school on occasion, or when I go to her house to avoid my own.

“Nice to meet you, Elle! I’m Rowan, that’s Xander,” She points to her brother with the scar, the one seated directly to my right, “And that’s Caleb,” she then points to her other brother who is currently seated at the table directly behind me.

“You know, we can usually do our own introductions and greetings,” I hear from behind me. Caleb’s voice seems to be just as deep as his brothers, and I wonder what kind of bribe their parents had to make to the genetics gods to have birthed these shiny specimens. Or maybe it really was that pretty people would birth other pretty people. I couldn’t deny that their parents were good looking and had pleasant voices when I spoke with them at the restaurant last night.

Everyone else in the class seems to be too hesitant to approach and speak to them since I’m the one that the new kids are talking to currently.

“Yeah, but you’re too lazy,” Rowan pokes fun at her brother, Caleb, as she sits directly behind Xander.

I’m thankful when the teacher comes into class and settles everyone down. It means that I don’t have to talk with the shiny new kids for much longer. I don’t have to incur the wrath of the other students for monopolising the new kids that are.

Once class is over, I’m up and out the door faster than anyone else. I know that the new kids will probably think ill of me, it was extremely rude of me to do so but as much as I’d like to maybe have another friend or two, I also don’t know what to do when people try to befriend me. Being alone for too long tends to do that to a person.

Besides, the solitude itself was comforting.

The only reason Dana was still someone I would consider as a friend was because she didn’t let me push her away. Somehow, she stubbornly decided that she would befriend me, and she had enough social status and clout that nobody could say anything to her. And we usually wouldn’t interact much at school anyways. She hangs out with her aunt and uncle at Barney’s or I go to her house. She and her family give me a small haven away from my own house, outside of work, and I’ll forever be grateful for that.

I sigh in relief when Chemistry starts, and I don’t see the new kids. I know that it has just been several consecutive coincidences that keeps me running into them, but I don’t want to get attached only to be disappointed in the future. Besides, soon enough they would join the masses and avoid me too. They were cousins of the Bentley’s. If they were anything like the Bentley’s then pitying at a distance was more their thing.

Lunch was a fairly calm affair for me, though the long table in the middle of the room, where the Meier triplets, Tristan Bentley, and his friends were, was excessively busy. Of course, my little corner was far enough away that I wasn’t a part of any of it. Even the run off.

Social Sciences was another calm hour, we had a test and then we could read once we were done. Since we weren’t allowed to wander the halls during class time without permission.

After all of that it is the final class of the day, finally. I walk my way into the English room and stop dead in my tracks. This is the only class I share with Megan and Tristan together, but it appears that the newly minted cousins would also be joining our class now as well. Just another reason for Megan to unnecessarily hate me more than she already does.

My desk grouping was surrounded by people, all trying to talk to the new kids. The teacher didn’t even bother to look up at all the noise. He was just sitting at his own desk at the front of the room, shuffling through papers and stopping to read some of them every once in a while.

I immediately missed my previously empty desk group. It’s wonderful not having to deal with other people in class and we always had to work with our desk groups, so I regularly got to opt to work alone or join another group.

I obviously chose to work alone more often than not.

Now four of the six desks in the rectangle would be filled, and it would be a very busy place for a while due to the shiny new toys everyone was so excited about.

My only saving grace was that there were still two empty seats, and I could sit in the opposite corner from the three of them. Not that it would make much of a difference with needing to work with them from now on in class, or with this crowd around the desks.

I shuffle my way toward the crowd, and a hush falls over the entire group of my peers standing around by my desk. Their eyes, their glances, feel almost palpable as I try and skirt my way around them to get to the other end of the desk group. People move out of my way readily when I get near them. Then the whispers start.

The poor new students were stuck in the desk group with me, the unfortunate pariah.

It’s not like anyone would switch desk groups with them and subject themselves to my presence, and there wasn’t enough room elsewhere for the three of them to sit. It also seems to me that the three of them didn’t wish to be separated. So, the only option left to them was to sit with me.

To work with me.

I try my best to ignore the people, pulling out what I’d need for the class that was about to start, and then I leaned back in my chair and scrolled through my phone again. Maybe I should start bringing a book like William had from this morning.

Finally, the teacher stops what he’s doing and clears his throat while neatly stacking the papers in the middle of his desk. He looks toward the excessively large group of kids hanging out on this side of the room, and then he raises an eyebrow as if to question.

The crowd begins to disperse, and he nods in satisfaction, not even sparing a glance at the Meier triplets. They had probably come early, which is why they had known to sit over here, with me.

“We’ll be starting Socratic circles today, in your table groups.” He grinned and looked over at me. I sighed, attempting to make it inaudible. He seemed to have had this up his sleeve since the beginning of the semester and now that there wasn’t a lone person, he could make us do more of the group things he had planned.

“Next week we will also be starting on your end of the semester group projects, so be prepared for that.” He looks around the class and then lets a few students ask questions about the Socratic circles and the group project. A documentary project is what I gather that it will be from what he told us in answering the questions.

“You have until the end of the period to decide on the books you want to do and tell them to me. No two groups can do the same book, and it has to be a book from this list.” He says as he moves through the room, placing a piece of paper onto each of the desk groups.

Ours flutters in between me and the three of them, and lands there. I take a quick glance and see a list of classics. I smile slightly, glad that my father had most of these at home and I used to read them while hiding away from my parents and brother in his study.

Now the study was dusty and neglected. Unused because my father very rarely stepped foot into the house let alone the study in the past couple of years. But the books still remained, so I wouldn’t have to either buy a new copy or borrow one from the library.

“Is it okay?” Xander asks, looking at me as he reaches for the paper. I lean away from them again, relaxing my posture, and nod my head. He pulls it closer to his face and stares down at it, taking a few minutes more than myself and looking over it carefully.

“Alright, you can start now. No intergroup chatting.” He claps his hands and then moves back to his desk, picking up the papers from earlier again and continuing to do whatever it was that he was doing before.

“So…” Rowan looks at her brothers and then glances over at me. I see her look at the space that I have put between me and them and I know that she is more than a little confused. But I’m not going to explain it to her, she doesn’t need me to.

“We should pick one of the books quickly so that we can plan out the rest of it too,” Caleb says while nodding his head, and Xander just shrugs as he puts the paper back on the desk. He leans back and crosses his arms as if he doesn’t care at all which one is chosen, and he won't put the effort in to help decide.

I also keep my mouth shut. I don’t really have one that I prefer from the book titles that I briefly read from the list earlier. But I can see Rowan and Caleb’s expectant gazes shifting to me every few seconds.

“We should narrow it down first, maybe we each pick two from the list that we like, and from those eight we can pick one.”

“I second that option.”

Xander just looks back and forth between his two siblings before he opens his mouth. “I’m not picking two, too much hassle. You guys can choose from the six options the three of you choose.”

Rowan rolls her eyes and Caleb squeezes the bridge of his nose, as if he is starting to get a headache because of his brother. I hold back a laugh and sneak the list out from under them while they argue that Xander should at least try and participate for once.

I didn’t need to get in between a sibling quarrel, so I just took out my yellow highlighter and quickly highlighted The Handmaid's Tale and Anne of Green Gables. Both are on the shorter side of the list unlike Les Misérables, and they were both books that I had already read a few times before.

I silently slide the list back toward them and suddenly the three of them stop arguing and glance at me. Then they simultaneously look at the list, well Caleb and Rowan do, before looking back at me.

“I chose my books,” I nod down at the list. Then I slide my highlighter toward them since I notice that they don’t have their pencil cases open.

“Thanks,” Rowan smiles at me and takes the highlighter, looking at the list then passing it to her willing brother. Once the three of us have chosen, they slide the list in the middle between us and I glance at what they’ve highlighted.

“So, we have: The Handmaid's Tale; Anil’s Ghost; Life of Pi; Anne of Green Gables; Alias Grace; and A Fine Balance.”

I nod along with her words, seeing the highlighted names as she says each one.

“Most of these are popular, we should probably pick a second and third option too if other people claim them first.”

“That’s fair, so we narrow it down from six to three?” Caleb nods along and I just keep silent as the two of them start to discuss. After a good fifteen minutes of bickering between them, while Xander and I stay silent, they decide that The Handmaid's Tale is our first choice, Life of Pi second, and Alias Grace is third.

Rowan doesn’t even ask if the rest of us want to go tell the teacher as she hops to her feet and scurries off to his desk. There is only one other person at the desk right now, but there have been a few groups that already chose their novels.

“So… what’s your schedule like?” Caleb looks at me, though I can see that his eyes are a bit guarded. I don’t know if that’s because of my prickly attitude or because of the gossip surrounding me as a person. But I can probably assume it’s my cactus like attitude since the triplets didn’t seem particularly worried when they greeted me in calculus. “We’ll probably get some class time for this too, but it might be good to work on it outside of class too.”

“I work three to five nights a week. Always work Saturdays all day.”

“Alright, and Sundays?”

“I usually have them off actually,” I ponder it for a moment. “The public library isn’t too far from here. They also loan out study rooms for students after school.”

“That’s always a good idea,” Rowan smiles as she comes and sits back down. “We got The Handmaid’s Tale. What’d I miss?”

“We were just talking about meeting up after class. Though Elle works quite a bit, we can probably still work on it at least once a week or something.”

“We could also just do it at our houses, no need to get a study room then, and it’s more comfortable.” She smiles, but it looks almost sinister to me as the hair on the back of my neck stands on end and I immediately go cold.

“We can’t do it at my house,” I mutter.

“Pardon?” Rowan looks at me. I shake my head vigorously.

“We can’t do it at my house. We can just do it in the study rooms, it will be more comfortable for everyone.” I can see the shock in all three of their eyes as they are met with my icy tone.

I don’t understand their shock. There is no way that after yesterday at the restaurant, and today before and during school, that they don’t know anything. That they haven’t heard anything. Are they just trying to make a spectacle out of me?

I collect my things together quickly. Standing up even before the bell rings. I blink at the three of them a few times before I lower my eyes. I don’t need to see their expressions. And hopefully my attitude today will make them less likely to try and chat with me in the future outside of our group work.

Becoming desk mates and project partners, nothing more. Acquaintances, if even that.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I rush the words out before I leave the classroom. The bell rings just as I hit the hallway, signaling the end of the day.

I am one of the first kids out of the school grounds. I rushed to grab my bag and just stuffed my homework into it before leaving the school. I don’t need to run into anyone right now.

I breathe a heavy sigh of relief once I leave the gates and start walking back home. My relief is short lived though as I see the state that I left the house in this morning as I enter the door.

I almost forgot about yesterday and the party from the night before. I take my bag upstairs and get changed into shorts and a plain t-shirt. Hanging my uniform up after checking that there were no grass stains on the skirt from when I fell this morning.

Luckily, there are none, so I can use the skirt again before washing it this weekend. Then I start to dig through my bookshelf. I’m almost positive that I have a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale somewhere.

After only a few minutes of searching through my overpacked shelves, I manage to find the book in question, and I grin to myself in triumph. I managed to beat my own terrible organisation. After placing the book into my bag and making sure that there isn’t any urgent homework that I should complete tonight I then go back downstairs. I have a lot of cleaning to do.