Valen sat in the front of the class. It wasn't her choice to sit up front; of course she wouldn't. Why would anybody want to sit in front of the teacher during an hour-long class period? Certainly not Valen Morgan. However, as a result of the prank she pulled last month on their field trip to Calabasas, she had earned quite the reputation at school. Valen didn't care about getting in trouble or breaking the rules; she just wanted to have fun.
Fun was very important to Valen. In fact, she greatly prioritized the existence of pleasure over anything else. Fruitless matters such as education, friendships, and ambition were foreign concepts to her. And right now, all she wanted was for class to end so she could sit on the rooftop and eat her spam and cheese sandwich. Stacks and stacks of that juicy spam, spilling out the sides of the crumbly sourdough with a big slab of american cheese on top, topped with a thick layer of mayonnaise smeared on top of the latter, oozing out of the bread….
That sounded heavenly to Valen Morgan during the most boring class of her life.
Unfortunately, Math had just started sixteen minutes ago, so lunch was out of the question. She still had a half hour before the bell even rang. That glorious stack of meats and cheeses would have to wait. 30 more minutes of Mr. Cooke prattling on and on about trigonometry.
"And to find the cosine, you have to divide the adjacent by the hypotenuse. How do you find the tangent… Valen?" Mr. Cooke finally went quiet.
The silence in the room was uncanny. All of the mindless chatter and endless gossip that was once prevalent was now nonexistent. All the attention was now on Valen, she was in the spotlight. The worst part was, she didn't realize at first that the teacher even called out her name.
"Miss Morgan, the answer?" he repeated, gently tapping his foot against the hard linoleum.
Laughter echoed throughout the narrow classroom. Girls were leaning into each other's ears, conversing nasty remarks. The boys were laughing like dogs. Mr. Cooke was staring straight through Valen's head, his soulless umber eyes burning a hole into her skin. It was at this moment that Valen realized that he was waiting for an answer to his question, and she was his target. Slowly, she opened her mouth to speak.
"I dunno," was all she could reply with.
The class erupted into giggles and whispers.
Mr. Cooke raised a bushy eyebrow. His expression turned mocking, and his rapid foot-tapping on the floor abruptly came to a halt. He raised his hand as a signal to stop the chatter, and Valen's peers went tranquil once again.
"You don't know, Miss Morgan?" he questioned once more, his tone playing on gentle.
Valen nodded hesitantly. She wasn't afraid, however, she wasn't afraid of anyone. Especially not frail old Mr. Cooke. She highly doubted he could harm a fly. With his knobbly legs and lanky arms, Mr. Cooke was nowhere close to being as threatening as he was trying to be. It was almost laughable at how hard he was trying to be intimidating, to be a threat of some sorts. Valen knew it would never, ever happen. No chance. That effect that he so strived for was just washed over by how crooked his eyebrows were tilted.
It wasn't that he was ugly, either. In fact, Mr. Cooke was actually pretty decent-looking for being a high school teacher in his mid-sixties. The thing was, he wasn't scary. True horrid teachers would force words right out a kid's throat if they didn't deliver them a measly little response within their first time asking. Horrid teachers would wrap a wrinkly hand around a student's neck and choke the thoughts straight out of them. Valen knew that from experience. In her book, if a person treated another with basic human dignity and respect, they weren't the least bit terrifying.
Mr. Cooke would have to try way harder than that to get a response out of her.
A loud creak interrupted the deafening silence that spread throughout the room. Footsteps followed immediately after. They were light and almost absent, like a human had been replaced with a small bird. Like nothing happened at all, the class erupted into whispers and curious glances.
The footsteps stopped in front of the classroom, and Valen finally looked up from her desk to observe what was going on. However, the moment she had looked up to scan her surroundings, she deeply wished that she could undo her actions.
"Class, meet Roxanne," Mr. Cooke declared loudly, his once miffed tone was now unrecognisable.
The girl smiled gently, gracefully clutching a small piece of chalk in her long, bony fingers. She started to write something on the large chalkboard in the middle of the classroom. Once she was done, she turned back to the now chatty class in front of her and stepped away to her left, allowing for everyone to read what she had written;
Roxanne
I am fifteen years old.
My pronouns are she/they.
I like fashion, music, and Jesus Christ. †
Everyone in the room momentarily paused their chatter and leaned their heads forward to read the short but rather vague paragraph on the board. Valen's eyes were still wide from surprise and bewilderment that she was now in front of her; not thinking that she'd ever see them again.
"It's nice to meet you all," Roxanne smiled once more, bending over slightly to form a curtsy.
She turned their head to their right, where Mr. Cooke was standing by his desk, debuting his best fake grin to date.
She tilted her head downwards, her height significantly greater than his, and asked politely, "Where do I sit, sir?"
Mr. Cooke hummed an unrecognisable tune for a quick moment, his eyes scanning over the classroom. The options were limited, and typically students in her grade would purposefully occupy extra seats so the new kid wouldn't have to sit next to them. However, strangely enough, nobody was spreading themselves out to hog the empty chairs. In fact, a lot of people were actually giving Mr. Cooke pleading glances, almost as if they wanted her to sit next to them. It was like they thought she was… cool?
As hard as that was to believe, Valen understood why her peers wanted Roxanne as their desk buddy. She was hot; a six foot tall bombshell with pale olive skin and deep set eyes. She also worshipped god, a concept that almost everyone at Valen's school could relate to. At least that was what Valen assumed. In actuality, she had no fucking clue why people were so intrigued by Roxanne Scarlet. She was a part of her life that she never wanted to touch on ever again.
"How about you sit next to Valen? She's a nice girl," Mr. Cooke told Roxanne.
Holy fucking airball, Valen thought to herself, scoffing. That's the worst lie I've ever heard. You've got to try harder than that to fool the crowd, teach.
Roxanne scanned her eyes across the rows of desks, most filled, some empty. Her eyes landed on Valen, sitting right in front of the teacher's desk. Like a switch had turned on inside of her, their eyes lit up almost immediately laying eyes on her. Valen Morgan. She nodded in gratitude to the teacher and walked towards Valen, her heels clicking against the linoleum floor. She placed their baby pink handbag on the shaky desk the school custodian had forgotten to fix; plopping down on the chair behind it. Several groans could be heard from the back rows, everyone disappointed with the seating selection.
Valen herself was actively picturing throwing daggers at Mr. Cooke in her mind. Why on earth did he have to pair up her with her ex best-friend? Of course, he had no clue, but it still damaged Valen to the core that Roxanne had the gall to still visit her after all these years.
Why did the universe have to keep messing with her like this?