To his displeasure, Evan could not leave to go home early. Both of his parents were still at work, so there was nobody to pick him up. He sighed.

The lady in the office offered to have him stay in the nurse’s clinic. He refused. Evan silently feared encountering the girl in blue again, but alone, and he didn’t want to cause any more trouble than he already did.

“Okay, you can go to sixth. But ask the teacher to go the nurse’s office if you feel ill again, okay?”

Evan nodded, giving a less-than-reassuring fake smile.

----

The last class of the day was English Literature. Lucky for him, literature was his forte, so it wouldn’t feel as much of a torture as the previous classes.

Room 900. His favorite teacher. Mrs. Morrison always used to trade books with him in lunch last year to keep him preoccupied, and they always exchanged their favorite quotes in the silence of her empty classroom.

But, to his dismay, a substitute was there on the first day. His heart sunk. Morrison lived in infamy for missing school often, as she was a sickly person. Just his luck that she would be absent the one day he needed her.

He sat in the front row, once inside. Morrison’s bookshelf was uncharacteristically empty, since she has not been to the school to unpack her books. The substitute looked bored, as expected, and waited for class to start.

However, when the bell did ring and most of the students filed into their seats, the substitute left to the bathroom. Of course. Waste as much time as possible, I guess.  Evan sighed.

A few more students came in singles. Might as well organize, again, for the last class of the day. He took his pencil pouch out and started to place each pen in order when he nearly jumped out of his seat. The girl in blue.

She walked right through the door and passed him without a second glance.

The girl in blue, the girl in blue –He kept staring at her as she walked, so much that he had to snap himself out of it before she noticed. Sadly, some people had noticed, and laughed at him. He turned away quickly.

A giant brunette boy, who was tall enough to hit the door frame with his head, came to fill the last empty desk. Evan hid his face from everyone, his cheeks burning. From behind him, two rows back, danger reared its ugly head.

“He was checking her out.” One boy was talking.

“You mean, my girlfriend?” A louder one boomed.

Oh no. He tried to lower himself further, his insides ready to explode. Please don’t cause trouble.

But no, at 1:27 P.M. on the first day of school, a student was going to cause trouble. The towering brunette appeared before him. People really do have bad tempers.

Around this point in his story, Evan figured he needed to either get the shit beat out of him or stand up to the bully. Or, he could do the reasonable thing and tell the kid to calm down and, no, he didn’t mean to stare at his girlfriend that long and no, he wasn’t checking her out.

But neither of those options came to him. Instead, he gulped as he stared down the freakishly tall student. Silence might win him some sympathy –

The kid knocked all his pens off the table, causing students to flinch around him. Or not.

It was then that the fire-alarm rang. It was a test alarm, obviously, but everyone still rose to go outside.

“I’m not done with you, freak.” And he walked away.

To his relief, he managed to avoid most of the crowd by walking very slowly to the exit. To his disbelief, he didn’t see the girl in blue walk out with the crowd. His stomach flopped. There was never a girl in blue at all. He exited the class with mild disappointment lingering.

Evan made it outside, to the P.E. field. It was much hotter than before, and he quickly thanked whatever person worked in the office for giving him a morning P.E. class. Not many kids were lined up here surprisingly. Even better, he knew none of their faces. They blurred into one mass of gray, and he squished among them to join in their anonymous ranks.

Of course, he expected to have relief. He’d already dealt with enough today. But, knowing God is cruel and unforgiving, he saw a flash of blue appear in the corner of his eye.

“Oh come on.”

The girl in blue appeared beside him. Evan stood perfectly still, trying to look ahead.

A white hand waved in front of his face.

“No.” He demanded.

He could feel her finger tapping his shoulder. What?! Now she’s allowed to touch me?

“What?!” He screamed into her face.

She was still crying.

“No! I've had enough! Do you want to know what I think? I think I don’t love you! If I loved you I would have stayed and I wouldn’t have hurt myself! I would have told you but I didn’t, and you can’t ever understand me anyway!”

She was shocked, but not surprised, by his words. She nodded, turning away from him finally.

Evan realized he had no clue what words just came out of his mouth. He didn't even know the girl in blue. He had no clue who she was. Yet, he just shouted a string of sentences from deep inside his subconscious and caused her to disappear, as if she never existed.

But her presence lingered, even though she was not there. He felt her in his hands, in his mind, in his body, picking at his scabs slowly. He could feel her digging, as if digging for the treasure he’d hidden inside his mind. But there was no treasure, and there was nothing good about him. Just pain.

The final bell rang.