I spend the rest of summer with Armin until summer is a distant memory, and I’m clambering into the car Dad got me for my birthday with a ten-pound heavy backpack and—I’m gagging—loafers squeezing my feet. My uniform blazer makes my neck itch, and I have to undo at least the top two buttons of my shirt to make it wearable. School sucks and so do uniforms and the forced socialization teachers swear we need to be successful in the “real world.” If that ends up being true, I’m doomed. 

The corridors are already starting to go quiet when I walk in and pout at the big “Welcome Back!” banner hanging from the ceiling. It’s not there. It’s a figment of my imagination. A simulation like everything else in this dull, grey world. I’ll just close my eyes and pray I wake up in my bed again. 

“Miller, you’re late,” Mr. Regis yells when he sees me from down the hall, proving that, oh yes, this is very real. “We’re starting this already?” 

“What’s up, Regis?” I paste on a smile as he gets closer. “Good to see you at the start of another wonderful year. Nice summer? How’s the wife? Oh, gee, look at that.” I say at my phone in my hand. “The bell’s going to ring any second.” 

“Don’t make it a habit.” Mr. Regis drops his hand on my shoulder, and it’s so heavy there’s no denying it’s connected to a six-foot-four, 250-pound man. 

I’m tempted to say something about the grey hair sprinkled throughout the red around his head and thick beard. It looks nice for him, but I’ll keep it to myself. I don’t need him accusing me of being snarky and giving me detention on the first day. 

Mr. Regis lets me go with a push toward the main office, and I walk past it quickly. I’m not late until the bell says so, and Mr. Regis must agree by the way he doesn’t call after me. I tap around on my phone for my schedule and skim it while I walk to homeroom. The bell rings over my head, stragglers rushing around me to get to their classrooms. My eyes drift around the screen until I find “Study Hall” in its own yellow box on my schedule. 

*

Study Hall rolls around and instead of going where I should, I go where I absolutely should not: room 104. 

I trek down to the first floor and skip past the wall of windows that see into the library. People are filtering through the halls like ants in a maze, and I squeeze through the crowd with my books stacked in a pile in my arms, my camera balanced on top. I clutch them against my chest and my walk slows into an I’m-not-doing-anything-weird-I-promise lurk until I get next door to room 104.  

“What the heck?”

I stop short at the sight of the notice on the door. It’s no bigger than a standard A4 sheet of paper, and it looks like it hasn’t been here too long, white masking tape sticking it haphazardly to the door. I glare at it and read the words under my breath. 

NOTICE

Thanks to our student council, room 104 on the first floor will be transformed into a new study space for our recently renovated library. 

Please excuse our dust, and we apologize for the inconvenience. 

Thank you!

There’s a little blueprint on the bottom of the page. The layout of the library is drawn out and then the new built-in study cubes and table sections where 104 would be. Where it should be. This is messed up.