The next day, I woke up an hour before Kris to avoid running into him and to be able to eat breakfast with Eli before school.

“I’ll see you after school,” Eli said as I turned to leave his car.

“You don’t have to drop me off and pick me up everyday, you know. Go have a life.”

“I know, but I want to do this.”

“Idiot,” I muttered and rolled my eyes. “Bye!” I waved as he drove away.

Another day at this school. Would I have been happier if I never came here in the first place? Probably.

It was my turn to do the weekly chore of cleaning the chalkboards today, so instead of staying after school to clean them, I decided to skip lunch to clean it. After quickly eating my sandwich at my desk, I obtained the cleaning supplies from the custodians who were nice enough to fetch me a pail of water.

It was all going well, until I began to clean the chalkboard erasers.

To be frank, I had asthma. It wasn’t severe, but the simplest things - dust, pollen, dry air, the cold, intense exercise - triggered it.

I slapped the two erasers against each other in a fu