There were buses lined up by the front entrance. 

The people who were driving were part of a program that partnered with the school to drop kids off at their own buildings, while also letting kids stay inside until their parents picked them up. 

“This is my bus,” Lawrence said, standing in front of one of the black buses. 

He lived in a farther zip code, so Lawrence had to take a different bus. 

“Aw man,” I said, slightly bummed. “Alright man.” 

We bumped fists as the bus driver helped different kids put up their luggage. 

“We got to hang out, though,” I told Lawrence. 

“Definitely,” he said without missing a beat. “I’ll make us a group chat with you, me, Jenny, and Maggie.”

“Sounds like a plan.” 

I said my goodbyes and headed toward the bus I was supposed to go on. 

When I got inside the bus, I realized just how few of us were on here. 

I guess some parents were here to actually pick up their kids from school. The thought made me shudder. 

There were actual parents who sent their kids away to Henry Hugo’s Academy for Misfits and still cared enough for them to drive to the school and pick them up…. 

I thought this kind of loving parents were only in fiction. But I’m glad to be wrong. 

I was eyeing the bus and saw how spread apart kids were on here. 

No one sat at the front, and I didn’t plan on sitting there either. 

So I walked past as if those front seats didn’t exist. 

Some kids had eye masks and neck pillows while other kids looked out of the window with earbuds connected. 

I walked toward the middle of the bus and stopped when I spotted Jenny waving at me. 

“Dean—over here,” she said. 

She was wearing an oversized yellow tee and brown jeans. If I’m being honest, she looked nice in it. It’s been a while since I saw her, or anyone wearing anything that wasn’t our school or pajama uniform. 

That’s right—Hugo’s Academy had mandatory pajamas that all of us had to wear. It sounds crazy, and I knew Lawrence hated that rule, but I thought it was really convenient since I didn’t have to think about what to wear to bed. 

Though, that’s besides the point. 

I placed my suitcase and bag in the overhead bin and sat next to Jenny. 

“Are you huffing?” Jenny asked with a slight smirk, as if she was getting ready to laugh at me. 

I turned my head and avoided her eyes. 

“Just a bit,” I admitted, my face feeling red. 

Jenny scoffed. 

“Wait a minute,” I asked, looking around. “Is Maggie on a different bus?” 

“No. She‘s on a flight,” Jenny said, locking eyes with me. I noticed her lashes and couldn’t help but stare at that and not her actual eyes. 

I also couldn’t help but notice what she had just said. 

“A flight?” I asked her. 

“Yeah. She lives somewhere in Washington.” 

“D.C.?!” I asked, amazed. 

“No, the state.”

I made an unflattering face when I realized how wrong I was. 

“…Ohhh,” I said at last. 

I guess I was gonna have to tell Lawrence that Maggie wasn’t able to hang out with us anytime soon. 

Jenny leaned forward and chuckled. 

We chatted a bit more after that. 

A bit of small talk here and there, but mostly about Maggie. 

“So Maggie’s parents are divorced,” Jenny told me. 

“Mm, I figured,” I said with a nod, since most students at Henry Hugo’s Academy were children of divorce, including me. 

“But the thing is that neither her mom nor dad wanted to take custody of her,” Jenny continued. 

“So the two of them sent her off to Hugo’s Academy?” I asked, finishing her sentence. 

“Not really,” Jenny corrected me. “Just her dad.” 

“Wow…” I said.

He had to pay that twenty grand himself. 

“I know…” Jenny said, seeing how shocked I was. “And I thought your mom and my dad were the worst parents ever. Sending us off to some boarding school so that they could have fun hooking up with guys and gals.”

I chuckled. 

“Yeah…” 

For a bit of context, everything Jenny said was true. 

My mom sent me off to Henry Hugo’s Academy so she could hook up with some guy. 

She had a deep resentment for my dad, who left us before I was even born. From time to time, I could hear my mom rant about how he ruined her chances of ever having a “normal life.”

It was tough. 

With me getting older and older—it was hard for her to find any man her age who was willing to date her when she had a son that was about to go to highschool. 

So I had to be out of the equation.  

When my mom sent me off for my first year at the academy, it was to please her now ex-boyfriend, Jun Hie—a Chinese tough guy I hated with all my guts, since he would constantly talk down to my mom and I. 

So I was all smiles when my mom told me over text that she broke up with him. 

Now for Jenny’s story…I don’t know too much. 

Her parents had a messy divorce when she was twelve that led to her dad holding custody of her, but at the time he was twenty-eight years old. 

From what I heard from Jenny, when she vented to me and Lawrence one day, was that her dad didn’t want her to hold him back from living his best life. 

So he sent her to the academy…

Some things may have been exaggerated. I'm sure her dad may have looked at it in a different way, just like how my mom may have thought that sending me off to Hugo’s Academy was the best for us both. 

Though it may also be me seeing the best in the worst people…

But screw them either way! 

That’s what I think!