“You know I don’t want to get your parents involved-”

“Parent.”

“Excuse me?” Ms. Jones is usually polite. She’s not a bad teacher actually, it’s just the circumstance of my relationship with school that puts us on other sides. I like her, for the most part. I hate school. This combination creates a tension. And she looks briefly irritated.

“I don’t have parents. I have a parent,” I explain flatly, picking the hem of my denim jacket and shifting further down in the brown pleather chair with wooden legs. A crossed leg shaking roughed up converse.

She opens up , closes it, and opens it again, choosing to say something else.

“I know you're brilliant, Winona.”

My eyes move so fast to her face, there should be a sound for it. LIke an eyelid slam. I still without knowing I have.

“I just wish… you would do something with it. This is the fourth quiz you’ve failed this month. Your grades are barely staying up enough to pass this term. Are there problems at home?”

I look away as the conversation turns more expected. A lecture portion I don’t know what to do with. This is the part where I let myself get heavy with guilt and shame and a bunch of other crap I have no room for. Besides, I have too many of those feelings for other subjects. I can’t afford to be eaten alive completely. I can’t care about this in the way everyone wants me to. Just like no one cares about me in the way I want them to. It’s an even deal.

“Like?”

“Well, your “parent”, for starters? Why singular?”

“Am I legally obliged to answer that question?”

“No, but I think answering it would help the both of us figure out your future.”

“Like the statistics of what happens to people from broken homes, right?”

“Do you consider your home broken?”

“No, but I consider this conversation broken.” I say, uncrossing my legs and standing up. I’m polite enough to ask “can I leave?”

“Yes, Ms. Hamilton. I can’t forcefully keep you in this room but just by leaving it, doesn’t mean your grades have changed. I expect a better attitude in class. Otherwise, suspension will be required. Don’t forget to get that paper signed.”

I nod, grabbing it from the edge of her desk and walking out the office before pushing it down my ped backpack, already planning to forge the signature. Mom doesn’t need to know about this. She doesn’t have a right.

I see Jae when I turn the corner.

Talking to Madison. She has the longest hair in the school and it’s red. I wonder if she built her personality off of being seen so obviously. She’s pretty much every teacher’s pet. There’s no way to miss the stop sign that is her head.

Jae takes his glasses off and cleans them with an edge of his shirt and I stop in my tracks.

It’d be nice if people didn’t control my stillness today, but the reaction was beyond me. Something buried in my DNA. He looks over, not knowing I’m here or maybe he does know but doesn’t know he knows.

I can’t remember the last time we truly talked. Like we used to. Like when we were friends. Now we’re just… classmates, I guess. I don’t really recognize the person I used to be and don’t like when people try to pull her out. I’m learning life comes in waves and the waves take you over. I’ve probably been a half dozen other people with this body since the time I saw him at his mom’s funeral.

That was just before he got glasses. I guess that means he turned into at least one other person too. A person that wears glasses. That makes our ration seven people to two.

Madison turns her to see what he’s looking at.

It’s been long enough that I should probably move or do something to show I’m not, like, medically paralyzed. I hope my blinking is enough evidence that this isn’t an emergency. If they can see my blinking anyway.

I think back to last week, when he asked about the test and I said I’d failed and then Minki brought it up. And that annoyance shocks me into movement. I turn to my right, walking the opposite way of him and her and the concerned expressions.

I’m a completely normal person.

I wish I hadn’t quit smoking.