It all started with a dick pic.
(And, actually, a few other things, but I thought that would be the best attention-grabber to start off the story of my chain of terribly timed, often of those times life-threatening, misfortunes of which I really had no control over whatsoever in this seriously not serious series.)
"Okay..."
Mr. Mortinez's deep voice was barely even audible underneath the roar of chatter that currently filled the room around me.
"Em," I could hear one of the numerous voices seem to direct itself toward me. I looked up from the backpack that I had previously thrown onto the desk in front of myself as it spoke out once again. "Emma!"
I sluggishly turned my head to the left, where the owner of this particular voice sat.
"Hey, Emma," Grayson half-yelled out, his eyes locked directly on mine. "Check it; I get to leave early today."
He then pulled out a bright blue piece of paper, which happened to be folded a few too many times, and waved it by the side of his face.
And, if you aren't from my school, which I assume everybody who isn't a fourteen to eighteen year old in Talket County, Wisconsin isn't, then to inform you: a blue slip of paper is your only ticket out during the seven hour period of in-service time we spend here every week from Monday to Friday. Unless, of course, there's an unintentional fire, or an active serial killer roaming the hallways, or something of that kind of sort. I say unintentional fires only, though, because all eight hundred teenaged students that go here can recall the 'Great Blaze of Valentine's Day', which occurred a little over a year ago when some nerdy kid in chemistry class set sparks to Kelsey Gordon's ponytail with a flaming flask of acetone.
Well, I guess the freshmen of this year wouldn't remember it... but, of course, they all say they do.
Anyway, it was no accident, and I would know, because I just so happened to be delivering a stack of biology books to Mr. Brown in that specific science lab at that specific time that it happened.
So, yeah, I saw him dump the burning acid onto Kelsey's head after she told him she 'wasn't interested in parking with him in his mom's caravan after school'. Long story sort of short, the fire ended up in a lot more spots than just Kelsey's hair and, concerningly, the fire alarms never went off.
However, a few months later, an actual accident with an open burner and a few number-two pencils in the exact same room caused a full school evacuation, so a lot of people around here obviously have their speculations.
"Nice," I commented to Grayson, raising my eyebrows along with my tone of voice to seem a bit more amused than I actually was.
"Okay, guys, the bell already rang!" Mr. Mortinez yelled out.
Immediately after his words left his tongue, the remaining conversations in the room fell to whispers.
I gazed toward where he stood, in the front of the room, and then slid my backpack to the floor under my desk as I studied his posture... captivated.
He stood in his usual one-hand-on-the-hip, one-hand-resting-on-top-of-something (which today happened to be one of the shelves of the bookstand by the chalkboard), lean-to-one-side pose. His outfit today was also his norm: dark, tight skinny-leg dress pants, black dress shoes, and a purple, button-down long sleeve shirt (though, I suppose, it's not always purple).
His dark eyes scanned the room from left to right from behind his slightly messy, short dark brown hairstyle and, after a few moments, he flashed a wide smile and entirely changed his attitude of voice.
"Ciao!" he greeted.
Instantly after, Kyle Ermings, who sat two rows to the right of me, yelled back to him.
"Aloha!"
A few others in the classroom giggled at his response, but I didn't find it particularly funny, at least, not as much as some of the other things Kyle says, so I didn't join in.
Or, actually, maybe I was staring too much at Mr. Mortinez's smile to be fazed.
To tell you something, though, Mr. Mortinez is only twenty-five years old and not a bad looking kind of guy... Okay, actually, he's really kind of hot. And being twenty-five makes him only eight years ahead of me in the game of life and my aunt and uncle are eleven years apart in age and my family's always been cool with that, at least, as far as I know, and he's originally from Costa Rica and, although I'm not, I'm currently enrolled in my second semester of Spanish and I'm determined to finish the class with my C-plus average. So, I believe I will make a fine suitor in about one and a half years from now.
And don't act like you haven't ever had a teacher crush before, either.
"Aloha, ah, yes..." Mr. Mortinez continued. "So, today I'm thinking that we could—"
"Another writing prompt?" Stella, a girl who I've found myself not to be very fond of in recent years, inquired enthusiastically from where she pristinely sat, at the very front desk of the row I, myself, sat in.
"Ah, Stella, yes," Mr. Mortinez replied, stepping forward and tapping cheerfully on her desktop.
Ugh.
I could then see Stella lean forward a little, straighten her back some (although I honestly didn't know how it could possibly become any straighter than it already was, but I suppose she's full of surprises), and stack her forearms on top of each other on her desk.
Really, though, I don't just have a dislike for Stella only because of her preppy nature. Trust me, I don't even think Kyle, the class clown who a number of fellow classmates frown upon, is annoying, so, really, I generally like most normal people.
Stella, however, I would not particularly consider so much a normal person.
Here's why.
The first time I had ever met Stella Anderson, in Mrs. Whistle's fourth grade class, I smiled at her before class had begun for the first morning and said a simple 'Hi, I'm Emma!' As a response, Stella looked me over in my denim overalls, didn't speak a word, and then walked away.
I know that story isn't exactly cinema material or anything, but I assume I remember it for a reason and, anyway, that's just the beginning.
Another time during that same school year, Stella and I had the luck to be assigned as partners for a moderately important school project. The basis for this project was the simple concept of American history. More specifically, we had to research (AKA copy down the first paragraph of relevance from an old dusty textbook) what it was like for American pioneers to travel via covered wagons in the 1800s. If you don't grasp what I'm talking about so far, Google the Oregon Trail. Or just go back to fourth grade.
Anyway, I was fortunate enough to be paired with Stella and, being the kind and friendly soul that I am, I greeted her after the teacher had placed us together and allowed us to roam into the empty hallway alone with our books. I must have said something like 'hey, Stella,' or 'ready to do this project?' or... well, I'm not really sure, but that would have made sense. Anyway, Stella took one glance at my smiling, cheerful expression, and then burst out in tears. She also screamed out 'you're not Abby!' and actually threw her two-hundred-page textbook at my face. And it was a pretty big book for a ten-year-old to take to the face, so I started crying, too. After that, she only halfway stopped her tears, looked at me, said 'I don't wanna ever be like you,' and ran back inside the classroom. Whatever that was actually supposed to mean, I still don't really know.
Fast forward a few years because I, miraculously, didn't end up in another class with her until seventh grade, which, yeah, is right in the center of the wonderful years that most people like to call middle school.
And, like many other twelve-year-old children, I went through a little... um, 'phase'. You know, the result of the pre-pubescent jitters, like hoarding up on multicolored synthetic hair extensions, or isolating yourself for fourteen hours straight every Saturday to play The Sims, or… just whatever you can do to make yourself feel better about the impending pubic hair. And, for me, that phase was... well, trying to appear, to put it lightly and elegantly, as skanky and slutty to the rest of the world as I possibly could.
I watched a lot of MTV back then.
But, since I was so young and didn't even fully comprehend what words like 'harlot' or 'courtesan' really meant, dressing the part was all I cared about and, to me, dressing inappropriately, at the time, meant wearing a shirt with a shape cut out in the back along with a pair of colorful short-shorts that actually went just about one inch above my fingertips. Which, honestly, doesn't seem even close to a big deal nowadays but, back in seventh grade in the small, conservative town I still reside in today, that outfit was actually scandalous.
So, one day, I wore this particular getup during a school day in the springtime and, when I got to general mathematics class, Stella Anderson took notice of it.
'Oh, look!' she had commented to the friends she had in her 'preppy clique', a label and a phase that she obviously still holds onto today.
Anyway, I had walked up to my desk a few feet away from where she was sitting and prepared to set down my stuff when she went on to comment with 'are you going to go have a puff with your pimp daddy after school today?'
Yeah, she said that. Don't worry, though, I kept my cool.
Kind of.
After she had spoke, I whipped my head around and made sure that my shoulder-length hair was pulled smoothly forward. Then, I responded with a 'I don't even know what that means,' while keeping a hint of annoyance tinted in my voice. Of course, though, her and her two dumb, snobby friends giggled at me and she continued with 'yeah, I figured, wannabe.' I didn't really know what to do next, other than lunge at her and strangle her, which I didn't really want on my clean grade school record, so I just rolled my eyes, turned around, and sat down.
But it doesn't end there.
About a week after that particular incident, one of my... acquaintances, I guess you could say, approached me before third period social studies and informed me that Stella had mentioned to a few fellow classmates that I, Emma Lenford, had been seen 'smoking a joint behind the gym last Wednesday night with a twenty-three-year-old man.' Which didn't make sense as the kind of rumor that Stella would make up about me, seeing how she actually knew I didn't understand what having a puff meant the previous week, but whatever.
I think she really had a thing with drug related gossip, though, because earlier that year she started a similar rumor about a guy in our class that was held back, saying that she somehow knew that him and his older brothers kept bags of cocaine in hidden compartments of each of their lockers. That accusation might not have been entirely false, though, because he ended up being kicked out of school a little after she mentioned it. I do know that at least part of the rumor wasn't true, however, because he never had any siblings.
To get back on track, though, Stella's speculations never traveled far, probably because no one ever actually cared, so my rumor fell to the curb pretty quickly. After that, she also didn't bug me again until... actually, she never did again. But she also never did apologize, either, and her outward impressions in today's days still don't settle very nicely with me.
And that's why I'm not a huge fan of Stella Anderson.
"So, today, we're going to do another short essay over the book we just finished," Mr. Mortinez continued, subtle hints of his sweet, Hispanic accent leaving his vocal cords. "Which is..."
He then stopped, stepped back, and pointed to the boy that sat next to Stella, Calvin Gregory.
"The Icelandic Boy Who Pulled the Shark from the Pacific?" Calvin hesitantly spoke.
Mr. Mortinez smiled and nodded, then turned around to pace over to his desk and retrieve his copy of the book that I never actually had any intention of reading.
"Yes," he began, holding the book up to showcase. "The story about... an Icelandic boy who pulls a live hammerhead shark from the Pacific Ocean on a fine Thursday morning."
Yeah, I'm glad I never read that book.
"Oh!" Stella laughed out and, even though numerous others giggled alongside her, her particular tone of chuckle was much too audible for my ears.
"So," Mr. Mortinez flashed another smile once everyone's laughter had subsided. "Today's writing prompt is going to deal with..."
He paused for a moment to turn around, grab a piece of chalk from the underneath the black, clean chalkboard, and inscribe the word 'irony' onto the area of the board behind his desk. He then set the chalk back down, twisted back to face the class, and threw the book he still held onto his desktop.
"That," he finished his statement. "So, can anyone give me some examples of irony in some other pieces of literature?"
A quick silence fell over the classroom.
"Well," one masculine voice started. All eyes turned toward it not after long, myself included, and I soon realized that it was Kyle volunteering a response. "I think it's kind of ironic that you're Hispanic and teach an eleventh grade English class."
A good portion of the class let out a laugh at his comment.
I have to admit, though, I did, too.
"Yeah," Mr. Mortinez chuckled out.
He took a deep breath, along with everyone else, and then continued to speak.
"However, Kyle, I don't believe there is a book written about me out there right now."
"I mean," Kyle began to respond. "I can write one for you, if you want me to."
A smaller amount of people laughed at him once more, but I restrained myself from doing so this time.
I mean, if anyone is ever going to write a book about Mr. Mortinez, it would obviously be me.
Wait...
"Okay, Kyle," Mr. Mortinez went on. "Based on your recent essay grades, I'm not sure you're really ready to write my biography any time soon."
A few more fits of laughter began to ring out, but he cut them short before any one of them could fully finish.
"Now, does anyone have a real irony from a work of literature that they'd like to share?"
Another tense silence fell upon the room, and then a hand from the desk on my right-hand side flew up and into the air.
I turned to look over at Victoria Williams as she softly answered Mr. Mortinez.
"At the end of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo thinks Juliet is dead when she really isn't, so he kills himself, and then, when Juliet wakes up, she decides to kill herself, too. That's ironic, isn't it?"
"Yes, actually, it is..." I could hear Mr. Mortinez declare as I looked Victoria over for a moment or two.
Unsurprisingly, I have a story to tell about her, too.
Miss Vicki and I have been in a, putting it simply enough, half-assed friendship for the past three-ish years. And, if you can't do the math, that means our whole relationship started back in the middle of eighth grade, the very last year of that very unsettling time in limbo (middle school). And, as you have already been informed, it was a pretty rough period. I encountered my phase, had a shady feud with Stella, and... well, that was pretty much it, but when you're a hormonally imbalanced thirteen-year-old, just spilling five drops of water onto the collar of your white, crocheted-backed tee shirt can really ruin the rest of your four-class day.
That being said, just know that when I was the young whippersnapper I once was, I was always looking to gain acquaintances that I knew could easily flourish into supporting friendships, just in case those five drips ever miraculously turned into grape Kool-Aid.
And, obviously, Vicki became one of those acquaintances. And, for the record, no, we did not grow a bond over spilled milk, Kool-Aid, or any kind of beverages, but, instead... over a boy.
Yeah, I know, it sounds a bit cliché, but that was actually how we became friends. We already had conversed with each other during classes on a few sporadic occasions as well as been assigned to at least two large-scale group projects in the past so, when Vicki asked me if I knew anything... anything about Drew Brown, I told her I did. Oh, and to come to the small gathering of friends I had set up at my house that Friday night if she wanted to know.
Needless to say, she showed up, and my friends and I all explained to her everything we knew about Drew Brown's lifestyle, which wasn't much, really; the only things I can remember us knowing was his sister's name and age (Pricilla, six), his mother's occupation (registered nurse), his favorite food (enchiladas—Kate, my friend that was with us at the time, told us she heard him declare it during an 'about me' presentation at the beginning of their seventh grade history class), and his career goal (professional baseball pitcher—not sure why, though, since, as far as we knew, he had only ever touched a baseball bat in P.E. class; I guess it's touching the balls that counts for that job, though, right?) Apparently, Vicki was extremely intrigued with this information, so she began to talk to me more during school hours and actually kept a notebook of all the tidbits I managed to give her over the next few following months. I don't even know where I got the information, though, honestly, so I'm going to assume that I just made the stuff up half of the time. He probably really did like playing Kung Fu Panda Two on his possibly existing Xbox every Saturday night with no one around but his dad and his dad's ex-girlfriend/mistress, anyway.
However, Vicki had only come over to my house another night or two after the first, and then... well, it turned into summer, and then high school started, and then she found a different clique to hang around with.
I should also mention that she began to date Billy Johnston, so she didn't really have much of a need for my updates anymore, anyway.
However, during the last half of Freshman year, Vicki and I were placed into the same Math class, and she started to acknowledge my existence once again. But, ever since then, I've only gotten a quick conversation out of her every other week or so, if both of our schedules permitted alignment.
So, yeah, our relationship has always had the potential to become great. But, like I said, we stopped putting effort into it long ago.
And, presently, Vicki was turning her head toward me as I was slowly becoming aware that I had been staring at her for a good minute or so already.
Hurriedly, I averted my eyes to the leg of a desk that sat behind her head.
"And so, when that happens, it is considered situational irony..." Mr. Mortinez's sweet voice echoed through the room, over my obviously distracted attention.
"Emma, you okay?" I could hear Vicki's voice whisper immediately after.
I blinked a few hard times and carefully turned my gaze back toward her.
"Oh, yeah," I mumbled back. "Sorry, just... staring off into space, I guess."
Vicki pushed the corners of her red-tinted lips into a smile, and then returned her dark brown eyes back to the front of the room. I followed her gaze and soon returned my attention to Mr. Mortinez.
"So, since you guys should get the gist," he said as he, apparently, finished writing his last bullet point, dramatic irony, on the black board. "I'll go on ahead and hand out your first paper for today."
He then put his white chalk down, turned to his desk, and reached down to sort through a stack of papers atop it. As he did so, a number of quiet conversations broke out across the classroom.
"Em," a familiarly deep voice muttered beside me.
I craned my neck to see Grayson speaking to me once again.
"We're still on for Friday after school, right?" he asked. "You, me, and Ashlee?"
I had to squint at him momentarily before I could respond; it took me a while to remember that we were supposed to be meeting at my house this Friday night to binge-watch every episode of the second season of Jersey Shore and force Gray to take a shot of chocolate milk every time Snooki said the word 'bitch'.
To make things more understandable, we three got into Jersey Shore on accident last time there was a get together at my house (Ashlee dared me to watch the entire first episode without laughing at anything... I lost that bet as soon as I heard J-Wow’s introduction), and Grayson is lactose intolerant.
"Oh, yeah," I, eventually, managed out. "Yeah, I forgot, but I... then I remembered, yeah."
I nodded my head and forced out some sort of a smile.
Gray then looked me over, didn't say another word, and turned back to face the front of the room.
Usually, he ends up chatting my ear off about some new video game he rented the day before or how annoyed he got by Mrs. Handler's hundredth, twenty minute abstinence speech in Health class every chance he gets, but, for whatever reason, he wasn't in the mood to do that today.
I glanced forward once again and caught a glimpse of Mr. Mortinez beginning to hand out papers to the front of the row of desks on the far left. I watched him contently as he repeated his motions with the next few lines, and then jumped a little under my skin when he got to the front of the row directly to my left and Grayson yelled out beside me.
"Mortinez!" he shouted, holding up his magical blue slip of paper.
"Go ahead," our teacher responded to him while he started to pass out a thin pile of papers to the front of my row.
I heard Grayson rummage through his backpack for a second, and then speak toward me.
"See you later, Em."
I looked over at him as I took two papers from the boy sitting in front of me, Cory Truman.
"Bye, Gray," I said.
I twisted my upper body to hand one of the papers to the girl that was falling asleep behind me, Lily Fischer. I smiled as I gave it to her; she grinned back a bit. She seemed to be a really nice person, but her eyes were always half-closed every time I saw her, so I never really tried to force any kind of chat with her, ever.
I turned back in my seat and flickered my eyes down to the remaining paper in my hands. The top line of it held the printed words 'DETERMINING LITERARY DEVICES' and the paragraph that followed it was far too lengthy for me to focus on in that moment, so I proceeded to look back upward as Mr. Mortinez continued to speak.
"Now, my intelligent little children," he began as he walked back to the side of his desk. "I'd like you to read through this paper for a few minutes and try to write some examples of the literary devices on the back, and then I'll pass out the guides for today's writing prompt. Sound good?"
A few groans erupted out, and then a few 'okays', and then a long moment of silence.
I looked around at the number of fellow students around me, noticed that every single one of them were currently focusing at the task set before them, and then decided to follow suit and glanced back at the paper in front of me.
I tried to focus on the first word of the paragraph I needed to read, but... I just couldn't.
I glanced back up, saw Mr. Mortinez take a seat behind his desk, and then quietly stood. I swiftly made my way over to him, through the thin pathway between the desks ahead, which felt more like a minefield of textbooks and bags, and, after that, walked up to the frontside of the teacher's desk.
He glanced up at me and gave that sweet smile.
"Yes, Miss Lenford?" he questioned of me.
"May I," I began. "Please go to the restroom?"
I forced an exaggerated smile back at him, and then went on, after a quick second without an answer.
"I said may, not can, you know."
Mr. Mortinez gave me the slightest little laugh.
"Take the pass," he said, pulling out a green lamented slip of paper that said, get this, 'Hall Pass' on its frontside from underneath a stack of books on the corner of his desk.
He held it out to me, and I took it gently.
"Thank you," I responded, smiling, again.
I paused for a moment to watch him glance back down at his papers, studied his delicate, long tan fingers... and then shook my head out its trance, turned to the right, and paced around the front of the classroom. After that, I walked up to the closed door at the back of the room, opened it quietly, and then stepped into the hallway on the other side before softly closing it behind myself.
I turned right, again, and stepped up to the corner ahead, passing by another closed classroom door in the process. After that, I strode my way down the next hallway, hearing nothing around but the sound of my sneakers squeaking against the tiled floor under me.
I walked swiftly until I reached the open entrance to the women's restroom at the very end of the corridor, and then paced into it, looked around, noticed that all five stalls placed in front of me were vacant, and chose to enter the one in the very middle.
I threw my hall pass onto the top of the tampon-filled trashcan that sat on the ground beside the toilet and turned around to pull down both my bootcut jeans and bright purple lace panties. Once I sat myself upon the toilet seat, then, I... well, I peed.
For a little while.
As soon as I was finished urinating, though, a loud, odd beep rang out throughout the area, one of which I had never even heard before. Following that, a deep, almost robotic male voice spoke out over what I assumed to be the school intercom.
"Attention, students, please initiate a code red lockdown; this is not a drill; I repeat, please initiate a code red—"
And then the voice just got cut off, without warning. Whoever was saying it also sounded pretty calm, given the statement that he was giving.
Then again, it probably could have just been a recording.
During the time that I heard that declaration of emergency, though, I didn't know exactly what to do or think, at least at first. I ended up staring at the stall door in front of me for a long moment, and then, once the silence that followed the alarm fell, it hit me.
"Oh, god," I spat out.
I immediately threw my hands up and twisted to the toilet paper dispenser on my right. I then flung my fingers toward it, hurriedly wrapped a bundle of the tissue around them, scooched myself onto the edge of the toilet seat, and proceeded to... okay, you know what.
After that, I jumped up to a stand and wiggled my pants back into place while the toilet automatically flushed itself behind me, a little too loudly. I turned toward the door, moved the lock to the side, and pushed it quickly out in front of myself. I then stumbled out into the open space of the bathroom and rushed into the direction of the door.
Before I got there, however, I stopped myself in my tracks and realized a number of things.
First, there was a high possibly that someone, such as that once aforementioned serial killer, with a gun or similar lethal kind of weapon was roaming the hallways of my school and, therefore, could very likely have been outside of the restroom I was currently residing in.
Second, even if I made it through the hall safely and quickly enough to get back to my class, the door to it would probably be closed and locked and no one would be allowed past it, including harmless little me.
Third... there was no possible way that I was either brave or fit enough to sprint from here to the closest point of exit in this school in order to get anywhere safer.
So, naturally, I spun right back around and ran to the most secure place I could currently get to, which was the stall farthest away from the bathroom's doorless entrance.
I threw myself into the tiny cubical of safety, and then turned to shut its blue, paint chipped door behind myself. I fiddled with its loose-fitted lock a moment and, after that, spun back around and looked the toilet in front of me over a brief second before raising one of my white Converse shoes up to its rim.
And, of course, the toilet rumbled and echoed the all too noisy sound of flushing throughout the small room as I did so.
"Sh," I mumbled out as I hoisted my second foot onto the edge of the seat as well.
I staggered around for a few moments into a position where I was crouching on top of the toilet while holding onto the empty paper holder as the toilet yelled out with another annoying flush.
"Shut up, shut up," I whispered.
Ignoring me, it did it again.
I tightly shut my eyes and froze my body.
I took a deep breath.
And then toilet finally fell to silence.
But then, after a few moments, I heard something else.
Noise. Shuffling. Footsteps.
I shot my eyes back open as the soft patter of steps drew nearer, sounding like they were echoing through the very bathroom I was in.
And then a deep voice whispered out.