Day after day

WIP about a battle with migraine and social anxiety at school

The first image that pops into my head is that of a shattered world. The countless pieces cutting straight into my brain like broken glass, as I lay down on my stomach. I feel an uncomfortable sensation of the warm saliva, slowly dripping on the already wet pillow beneath. Propped on my elbow I reach for the crumpled handkerchief lying on the small coffee table. After I wipe my mouth and fold it back down, the hand with the handkerchief keeps hanging loosely over the edge of the high bed, swaying back and forth.

Tick, tack, tick, tack

A firework of colors is continuously exploding under my eyelids, mixing all of them into one swirling and shifting kaleidoscope. The blood in my temples keeps pulsing like a blacksmith hammering an anvil. The room is a large square painted with a darker shade of gray, high ceiling and a single window with beige blinds that let in barely any light from outside, creating clear boundaries, an illusion of a world on its own. Stretched out hand, though reluctantly and shaking, unmistakably finds exactly what I need. Small, almost empty package of not-so-ordinary nor legally obtained painkillers. How many did I take yesterday? Four? Five? Does it matter? I place yet another pill on my tongue, rolling it for a while from side to side before swallowing it with my own saliva. It leaves a strangely sweet and comforting taste in my mouth that makes me cough.

Tick tack tick tack

Shut up.

I turn my head to the other side, back again after a few seconds, then back again and so on a few more times. As soon as I settle into a new position for a moment, all the colors start swirling again and I feel sick. My whole neck grows more and more tense, each of the muscles intertwining like snakes. Tightening around each other, creating one, rock solid concrete mass until I can think about nothing else but pain, in the endless spiral. Every little movement of my eyes under the lids is sending forth an excruciating torrent of pain. My swaying hand reaches for the conveniently placed bucket and stream of tears and other bodily fluids fall onto all sorts of different garbage. I wiped my mouth again and the dirty handkerchief landed straight into the contents of the bin. The sound it made with the involuntary closer look at my eating habits sent my stomach afloat again.

At some point during the night I must have opened the window, because I can feel the morning chill creeping under my wet shirt, climbing up my spine all the way up to the neck. My migraine, as always, turns up all my senses to the point of unbearable and the smell of the used bucket cuts me inside of my nose like a knife.

Come on, put yourself together! This ain't our first rodeo! I have had migraines since when? Since forever. This ain't nothing new, come on. Breathe. Rolling onto my back, one knee bent for balance, I focus on my breathing. Each inhale and exhale. Breathe. Inhale, exhale. One-af-ter-a-no-ther. Breathe! I am drifting away, on the edge of consciousness, but the same song keeps going round and round in my head on a loop. Some random stupid song I heard yesterday from the radio, the kind that emerges before every summer and dies off with the first fallen leaves. The same part of the song, over and over again. The whole world merges into one big, undefined blur. I see sounds and hear colors, tastes flicker. And that damned song.

Tick tack tick tack

Fear of inevitable dawn keeps my eyes tightly shut. I'm afraid that the alarm clock on the phone, left on the table in the other corner of the room might go ringing any moment now. Any moment now. Just let me... .

The phone keeps rinnnnnging. I flinch, surprised by the sudden window shattering noise and it takes me a while to process that I am lying on the ground. I lean on the wobbly coffee table and catch it just so as I manage to pull it down on me while propelling myself up, adding yet more trash to the mess all over the floor. Rushing to the table, I quickly grab the phone, dropping it in the process with an almost deafening bang as I step on something resembling a used fork and admission letter from the university.

Utterly exhausted, I stumble back to the bed trying to avoid all the clutter and trash scattered everywhere, throwing the phone somewhere next to me on the sweaty bed sheets. All around me are books, mating with chocolate wrappers, a few days old plates and coffee mugs creating the most bizarre of unstable structures with signs of living organisms all over them. Half eaten bag of chips with the other half of them all over the table announcing the absolute win of the chaos that has taken over my mind. Is there no way out?

I sit back on the bed, all I can do is to hold my head in hands, lumped down shoulders spasmodically shaking as the tears start falling. Fuck this. Cold air in the room makes me shudder and tremble, and the room fills with echoes of my desperate sobs. I keep staring at the palms of my hands, as they are right there in front of my eyes. Several fingers have bite marks on them, as if I tried to eat away the pain. I can feel it clearly, so clearly. Not only in my head, but in the chest too. My lungs can't take a single deep breath, it's like someone is sitting behind me and pushing on my back, making me lean forward and forcing all the air out against the wall. No matter how much I try, it feels like I will never draw a deep breath again.

Tick tack tick tack.

Alright, time to focus.

Keep it together. exam, remember?

Today is an important day that will determine if I get to graduate or not. That thought alone makes breathing so much harder. The air in the room is no longer just chilling, but filled with something entirely else. Something that doesn't have any concrete shape or smell, yet I can feel how it's sliding its cold hands with pointy nails under my sweaty t-shirt and breathing onto my neck, moving up and whispering disturbing things into my ear.

No point whining.

I grab a pair of jeans that I wore yesterday, fresh underwear, a clean white shirt and make my way through all the rubble on the ground into a hallway. It is long, narrow and dark, without a single window or any decoration, the only thing that hangs on the wall opposite of me is a small thermostat set to automatic heating. Leaning against the cold wall makes walking easier, but I still have to focus on each single step to a bathroom door at the other end. The bright impersonal light of the white LED bulb cuts deep into my eyes and burns black spots into my pupils. The bathroom is as simple as the hallway, with a square shower with attached towel hanger, simple porcelain sink and prefabricated wooden cabinet underneath it. On the slim shelf of the mirror above it are a couple of toothbrushes sitting in plastic cups.

I throw my clothes on the washing machine next to the shower and step in, carefully sliding the clumsy plastic door shut. The hot water, albeit flowing really slowly, brings much desired comfort to my stiffened neck, muffling the sound as it falls directly behind the ears and pools in the yellowed tub. Hot steam clouds my vision and my mind drifts to the distant past, another time, another world... No, bad idea. Focus. Big day.

The moment I turn off the water and reach over for the towel the reality hits me again. For a brief moment my head goes blank and I fall forward, leaning against the sliding door. The sheet of old plastic responds with a nasty creaky sound as it almost gives up under me. The rest of the water spins for a little while in the shallow tub before it vanishes in the drain and my feet immediately feel cold again. After a few minutes I open the shower and reach for a towel to dry myself. It is still a little bit wet from yesterday and the cold air once again engulfs my entire body. Scrubbing myself, pushing down with extra pressure to keep warm is so exhausting that I end up with wet hair that keeps dripping down my back and arms. Water stains the white shirt as I button it from top to bottom, tucking it into a pair of navy blue chinos.

***

First one at the bus stop, and most likely the only one too. The unusually cold air of late spring continues to cut deep into my nose, so I focus on breathing through my mouth. I fish for a pack of cigarettes in my pocket and light one with the cheap plastic lighter. The cigarette between my dry lips has a familiar and comforting feeling, but soon comes sudden lightheadedness so I slump down on a nearby bench. Wooden planks with faded and peeled off paint are quite wet, making for an uncomfortable sitting as it seeps straight through my pants. The clouds, still heavy with remaining rain, keep crashing against the darkened horizon that has yet to wake up. White puffs of smoke mixed with my cold breath fly up to the remnants of the stars, but as I try to follow them and look up my stiffened neck gives up. Wet asphalt glistens and holes overflowing with puddles reflect faint light of street lamps.

I put out the cigarette right as the bus comes out from around the corner of a long closed convenience store. A heavy old door opens with the sigh of worn out air pistons. The usual driver, a man somewhere in his fifties with an old-fashioned cardigan over his uniform, doesn't even glance my way when asked for a ticket. Instead, he silently stretches out a wrinkled palm into which I carefully drop a neatly folded bank-note, groaning quietly as he leans toward the small money box under the steering wheel. Instead he silently stretches his arm and groans as I carefully drop a neatly folded bank-note into his wrinkled palm, before leaning into a small money box he keeps under the steering wheel. The faint overhead lamp glares on his bald head and my eyes water as the vents on his dashboard pick up his extra strong cologne . Still not looking at me, as if to avoid contact as much as possible he drops my change on the small counter that separates us and quickly shuts the door, full gas before I even get the chance to scramble the money. With a few coins in one hand and the other on the railing I stumble to the middle of the empty morning bus, as we roar through the first tight corner.

Beside me there are only three other people, barely visible sitting in the back of the dimly lit cabin. The whole bus has a damp stench, probably because it wasn't properly aired since last fall and that only adds to my not improving dizziness. With legs still shaky and weak I slump down on a greasy seat, shaking off my backpack, slowly and carefully pulling out my headphones as the bus rapidly begins to pick up speed.

I keep thinking back to this Monday. As I sit in the same place on the same bus, I already knew then, at this exact point of the road, that I wouldn't make it to school. As soon as I got off at the station I immediately crossed over and got on the train to the next city an hour away, and then drove an hour back again. This time though, with not much money left, having convinced myself that I would be so late that it doesn't make sense to go to school, I went straight into the city center and ended up at the small public library, where I spent the rest of the day. Next morning I knew I had done something bad, something I never did before. I have never been the best student, not even a good one - half the time I spend reading under the table and the other dozing off. But the sense of guilt was so strong that I began to fear coming back to school, to face teachers or my classmates and so the library in the center of the city became my safe haven for the rest of the week. The stress must've been the trigger for this killing migraine.

At the next stop it starts to fill with more passengers, some that I recognize and travel with daily. Small kids with huge bags on their backs, teenagers and young adults with barely anything on them - usual suspects. All of them in pairs or small groups sitting down together, the rest of them filing the tight aisle banging into each other as they lean on the cold metal railing. As per usual, the seat next to me remains empty and silent. Their loud laughs and chatter makes me want to vomit again, the head in one monstrous vice pinching down my temples. I press my forehead to the cold glass as I gaze out of the window trying to drown out the noises.

I keep imagining how a big, fully loaded truck crashes full speed into the side of our bus. Newspaper headlines report a tragic accident taking one life. According to the bus driver they were always his favorite passenger, one of the witnesses states that the victim was always quiet and well mannered and that - yeah you would like that you self-pitying bastard. Instead of indulging into more of my morbid fantasies I let Curtis Fuller lullaby me into a peaceful unconscious, place between here and nowhere.

The bus driver stomps on the brakes for the final time and the bus comes to a sudden halt. Bus station is already filled with all kinds of people, sometimes narrowly missing each other, sometimes bumping into others. Angry moms are dragging little teared up kids behind them, office workers already busy on their phones, elderly people heading to the shopping malls.

I get out of the bus as the last one, headphones hanging loosely around my neck and slowly let myself drift with the crowd for a while, before I take a sharp turn and cut through. Right in front of me is the station building, which is incidentally also the tallest building in this part of the town. Every floor above the first is to my knowledge either cheap, old apartments or empty offices, but the building itself is on the outside glance fairly cared for and partly renovated with one side still covered under the scaffolding.

Right as I come through the sliding door that completely seals any sounds of the world outside into a large, warmed up lobby my glasses start fogging. I push them up my forehead and notice that the room itself is empty, aside from two homeless people quietly laying down on the only two benches that are inside and still usable. Right across the door is a small infocenter booth with elderly lady inside, scrunching up her small nose and shooting disgusted looks at the two unwelcome guests. She must be a new employee because I don't recognize her, and it throws me out of my routine a little bit.

As I walk up to the vending machine with cigarettes, she shoots a few beams my way. On the front panel is taped a scrap of paper with shabby handwriting disguising itself as an information notice that The card reader is out of service. Just great. I take out my wallet and sort through a quickly thinning stack of crumpled bank-notes. My allowance seems to be getting a big hit this month. Maybe I should consider signing up to a public library instead of making shopping sprees across bookstores. I pick out the smallest one and try to smooth it out before sticking it inside the vending machine together with all the spare change I got at the bus. The machine sounds like it is about to compute the most complex problem anyone had ever laid before it.

"Aren't we a bit young for that, young man?" Says a high pitched woman's voice and I instinctively look around me, before I notice the woman behind the counter is actually talking at me.

"Um, excuse me?

"We are at legal age, right?" She sounds so pissed, perhaps that I dared to interrupt her otherwise quiet shift.

Actually, yes we are you hag. What is it to you anyway?

"Yeah, I have my legitimation on me, eh, just a moment." I quickly blurt out as I frantically reach into my back pocket again.

"And what am I supposed to do with it?" She tries to make me feel this small and succeeds easily.

Then why did you ask in the first place you....

"Um, sorry."

I quickly pick up a new pack that just fell down and scram through the backdoor that is next to her booth trying not to look anywhere in her direction.

The heavy fire safety door leads to a small hallway with an evacuation staircase with another door leading outside. Behind the station, right where it meets the train tracks is a dirt path that people living in nearby residential areas use to shorten their walks. The bushes that in some places overgrow directly into it are littered mostly with plastic beer bottles and empty cigarette packs. The migraine has unusually died down, maybe from me beating my pain receptors into a mash with drugs, or maybe just pushed into the back seat by the growing anxiety. It's still there, but at least I don't have a constant urge to vomit with any sudden move.

I take out the last cigarette from my old pack and light it as I put my headphones back on and walk on the uneven dirt. Sometimes I get the glimpse of the sidewalk between the old buildings, winding in parallel and away from the city center, but the headphones don't let any sound of the commotion on the main road come through. Still, I will later have to look for another place to get my cigarettes, somewhere along the way from the school.

Though my pace is even more leisurely than usual, it doesn't take me long to reach a nearby train crossing at a place where the path connects back to the main sidewalk. It is the remnant of the old road that connected this residential area with the rest of the city and all that was left behind is the unusually wide railroad barriers dividing both places as a rift.

The crossing is full of people as usual. Some going out for their morning shifts, still rubbing their sleepy eyes, some coming from night shifts trying to suppress the constant urge to yawn.

I start to cross to the other side behind a small group of guys, students that I recognize from my school. They are in a lively spirit, their backs shaking with laughter. Clearly they are enjoying this Friday morning, with the prospect of all the classes being cut short.

With my last step the warning system on one of the poles goes off and the barriers start to slowly fall down, leaving me no way back.

***

Duke Ellington keeps playing Sophisticated lady while I roll the pill on my tongue. The sky has already cleared up as I play with a painkiller in one hand and a plastic cup with coffee in the other, staring down the monster that is the school complex. Six ribs of three-story buildings with marble white facade, conjoined by a long, spine-like hallway remind me of an ancient leviathan washed up by the primordial sea.

It is by far the biggest trade school around, offering all kinds of certificates ranging from car mechanics and plumbers to cooks and waiters. One would think I would get used to it by my fifth year attending, but the sheer amount of students attending is still staggering.

While I stand there building up my courage, the exam becomes less and less a thing of a possible distant future and more of an acute certainty.

I really should get inside and sit down before this kicks in. All my senses are working way beyond the legal speed limit.

The glass jaws of the whale keep sliding from side to side as more and more people stream in. The long wide hallway is already filled with grouped up students leaning against large windows. I keep thinking about the way I walk, until I inevitably fumble against my own feet. Everyone is surely closely watching my every move, examining me with occasional bursts of laughter that I hear coming through my headphones. The corner is close, so close.

The inner hallways are filled with narrow, tall lockers on one side and simple paper thin doors of classrooms on the other. Right next to them are small windows, often tinted or covered with different information regarding class schedules or extracurricular activities that take place there after school. At the end of each of those hallways are another door leading into teachers' cabinets, which they share together in groups of two or three others with the same general area of expertise. The one on this floor is the department of economic management, which includes our homeroom teacher.

I take out my shoes and lean against the locker as I put them on. Taking that last painkiller was a real mistake.

"Hello, Francis." The head of a woman in her fifties peaks out of the room at the end. Our homeroom teacher is smiling at me with her trademark soothing look in her eyes, leaning into the hallway.

"Oh, hello Mrs Magpie." I quickly take off my headphones.

"Can we talk?" So she's been waiting in ambush, I completely forgot this was coming.

"Of course." I scramble a few textbooks into my backpack and close the locker.

The door behind me closes as I step into a small noodle of a room that is her office, with three desks screwed together in line under the high windows on one side and filled bookshelves on the opposite. Other teachers are not here yet and I sigh with relief.

"Would you like a coffee or tea?" she asks, carefully rolling down the sleeve on her white blouse.

"Umm, no, thank you Mrs Magpie."

"So." She sits down at the other table next to me while fixing her beige skirt. "You know we need to talk about your absence."

Here it is.

"I am really sorry Mrs Magpie."

"Tell me, how have you been?" She asks still with her gentle smile, like she would ask an old friend that she met on the street after a vacation.

What can I do? There is no way I could bullshit her, so I get out with it.

"I won't lie to you Mrs Magpie, I've been skipping school." I confess while I look down and roll up my sleeves just so I have something to do with my hands.

"I see, is everything okay? Is something going on at school, or at home, or with your personal life?"

"Yeah yeah it's... don't worry, I've just...you know." I trip over my words, desperate to find my way out of this awkward conversation.

"Francis, you know all of you can always talk to me if you are going through stuff..." The phone on her desk starts ringing, but she just quickly gives it a single glance before she hangs the call and puts it back on the table "...but we haven't seen you the whole week without any notice. Other teachers have been asking about you. You've got us really worried." She keeps talking slowly, in a soft but deliberate tone, leaning back relaxed in her chair with the practice of a seasoned teacher.

"It's nothing disastrous like that, really, I've just been feeling down. I have spent the whole time at the library."

"Is it about the exam then?"

"Well, yes... and no. It's hard to put into words. I just felt down, must be the weather." The more I try to find the right words, the more the muscles on my neck.

"I understand Francis, but you know this program is completely voluntary and all of you here are adults. We still need to keep attendance, that's the way it is."

"I understand Mrs Magpie."

"You can always take the makeup exam in September if you don't pass today."

I blurt out "That's not an option. I mean, I can't move to the other side of the country and pray that I make it."

"So you were admitted to university?" She waits until I nod and lets out a long sigh "I have covered up for you this time, but I can't do it again, and I won't. Even though we don't have that much of a time left together."

"It won't happen again, I promise. Thank you very much." Now I feel really bad for making her worry and cover up for me like that.

"If anything like this would happen again, you need to let me know in advance and talk to me okay?" I might be off the hook a little bit too easy.

"Of course, thank you."

"You look pale Francis, are you sick?"

"Umm, it's just a migraine."

"Oh I am sorry to hear that, I would love to send you home, but you know I can't do that."

"That's alright, I will be fine."

With that the conversation comes to halt, as she has talked about what she needed and I have nothing I want to talk about.

She glances at the clock above the door and begins to organize multiple different folders on her desk. "You should go to the class, I'll be there in a minute." That's my cue to stand up and go. "Oh and Francis?"

I turn around at the door "Yeah?"

"Congratulations. You deserve it."

About two dozen pairs of eyes pierce me as I step into the classroom, with just a few empty seats remaining. Our class is evenly split between men and women, everyone around twenty years old.

The room itself is fairly large without many decorations with fifteen long desks in three rows all the way to the cabinets in the back. The only greenery is a simple vase with small artificial sunflowers on the teacher's desk that is on the other side opposite of the door. The only other offers a view to a small, well cared for garden behind the windows that stretch all the way up to the unnecessarily high ceiling.

My desk is right by the door in the front row, so I quickly greet everyone and sit down while hanging my bag on to the side without really looking around as the voices gather to reply. There is no fixed seating per se but everyone sits in pairs as they got used to for the past year and a half, thus forming little cliques throughout the room. Behind me is a small group of pastry chefs, somewhat rowdy girls from the other town. To the left are car mechanics with electricians, who used to go to this school and in the right row are hairdressers, again from the other town. Though it is a diverse group by occupation, the women hold the majority here by a small margin. Everyone here holds an advantage of coming in with their friends from previous studies, making an only carpenter like me an odd one. Not that I was ever bullied, but I am not a part of the class either.

Just as I lean down to pull out my textbooks there is a light tap on my shoulder and I turn around to face a very handsome, tall guy.

"Hey man."

"Hey?"

"You know, we're counting on you with that accounting exam yeah?" Straight to the point, as you would expect from the class president.

"Yeah, that depends."

"What do you mean it depends dude? We're screwed without you." He tries to bribe me with a puzzled smile.

"I mean, we'll see if we'll be able to pull it off."

"Relax man, it will be easy." Long, slender fingers lean against my table, determined to get what he came for. "You don't look too good man, everything ok?"

Do I look ok to you man?

"Bad migraine"

"Oh yeah dude, I heard you have those."

We have been in the same class for almost two years, it would be weird if you didn't.

"Yeah."

"Dude, like, a bad headache?"

Dude, how about I hammer a nail into your temple and suplex you into a sink?

"Mmm, that's part of it."

"Oh I see. Later man." He says awkwardly while looking somewhere behind me, playing distracted.

I finish pulling my book and hide it under the table opened at the last bookmark. Because I am sitting alone, not disturbing the class and my grades are not bad either the teachers tolerate my reading habits during their classes. It is a voluntary program after all.

"Alright everyone, good morning." Mrs *** walks in exactly at the ring of the bell, just as I was about to attempt at least a bit of shallow reading. To my surprise though right behind her walks a girl I have never seen before. She's wearing a Lord of the Rings t-shirt under an olive green jacket and doesn't look nervous at all. I guess that she must have been coming in all week while I have been skipping.

"Okay, sit down please. It's nice to see we have full attendance again." The teacher shoots a subtle smile my way, waiting for everyone to get to their seats.

"I bet you are looking forward to the weekend, but first, it is my pleasure to introduce you Gabriella, who is an American attending the high school in our city. Gabriella will be attending this first class, as well as today's final round of your presentations."

Just my luck, two biggest of my fears, English and public humiliation, now combined in one. The teacher quietly talks to Gabriella and points at the empty seat next to me and to my absolute terror she starts walking up to me.

"Hello, nice to meet you." She stands up next to the table smiling at me.

Every English word that I taught myself on those sleepless nights of playing videogames is gone. "Umm, h-hello."

"May I?" She points at the empty seat and squeezes through behind me. Because the tables are pushed against the wall and there isn't much space between them she ends up brushing against my hair, which shoots a shiver down my spine. I am so damn hot I feel the sweat all over my body and then I get really conscious about it which makes me sweat even more.

My new anxiety trigger sits down and puts in her headphones, takes out her phone and sets it down on the table with an open live translation app. She boots up her laptop with a cute pixel cat sticker on the front. I can't help but keep glancing between my book and her slender fingers dancing on the keyboard, at this point absolutely oblivious to whatever else is happening in the class. The draft from the still open door carries a faint smell of what I can only assume is nettle shampoo from her short cut hair.

"Also..." The teacher continues looking into the papers in her hand "Today will be quite short for most of you, as the only thing after this class left is your accounting test. After that, those who are yet to have their final presentations will have three hours to go through the final details before delivery and those who already had theirs can go home. That is, if you don't want to attend and make your classmates nervous." She looks mischievously into the room.

I am sure they went through this already on monday, but she is repeating all this for my sake. Then she goes on about some details regarding the end of the school year, writing different dates on the chalkboard. The presence of this unexpected guest next to me pushes out any pain I was feeling just a minute ago, but also any focus on the book under the desk. I notice a subtle vibration of her phone and can't help but inconspicuously look over. Is that her parents? Her friends? Or her boyfriend? She picks up her phone, quickly types a few words that I can't make out and puts it back down. It shouldn't matter to me but I still feel a little sting of that thought. Now I am not only feeling hot but also bad for spying on her like that, so I shift my attention to the chalkboard instead. Nevertheless, the fairytale in my head keeps spinning, weaving all kinds of different stories with my other charming - and nonexistent - me.

I am suddenly pulled out of my fantasies as she bumps into my shoulder while taking off her jacket.

"I am really sorry." She whispers while looking at me and holding onto my forearm, but before I am able to squeeze a response she's already typing away on her laptop. All I can think about for the rest of the class is how warm and soft her hand is.

After the bell signals the end of the class, the teacher is having a discussion with a few of the students and Gabriella turns to me.

"What are you reading?"

"Number9Dream." The speed of the reply surprises even myself, thank god I know the song or I would totally butcher the translation.

"You like it?" She looks at me curiously as I try to figure out the most generic answer that would be easiest for me to translate.

"I love it."

"The cover is in rough shape." She laughs and closes the laptop.

"I umm...carry it with me every day."

"Then it must be really good." She stands up and this time I stand up too, to make room for her to pass me, as she joins the teacher at her desk. They quickly exchange a few words and walk out of the room. It leaves a strange feeling of emptiness and also...regret? Together with echoes of the pain that still linger, there are also suddenly hundreds of words I should have said and topics we could talk about. I am having multiple conversations with myself at once, thinking about what could have been and I feel sad and lonely.

The accounting test we have is taken on PCs, so I pick up my things and walk out the class closely behind others as we move to different classroom in the other building. The hallway is deafeningly loud and packed with people. I keep looking around me, expecting to catch a glimpse of Gabriella, until I almost bump into our literature teacher.

"I am sorry Mr Medek"

"Careful there." He quickly replies as he keeps walking past me.

"Yes, I am sorry."

"Did you like the book?" He turns around mid step, making his long loose cardigan fly all over in quite a dramatic gesture.

"Oh, yeah it is really good..." is all I manage to say as he completes his turn and rushes behind a corner. The book in question is the one that he lent me last week, and that I completely forgot to bring with me. Fortunately there is no literature class today and chances of our meeting today again are very slim, or I would keep whipping myself with guilt for the rest of the day.

The further I walk to the back of the complex the fewer people I meet, until I turn left into the empty hallway of the fifth building. This one has a small gym on the first floor, and classrooms with specialized equipment on the two others. I take the stairs to the computer classroom on the third, and once again join my classmates leaning against the tall french window. I stand by the stairs, leaning against the railing looking down, while everyone is chatting and nervously looking at their watches or phones, anticipating the upcoming test.

"Francis, you must help us!" One of the girls, a tall blonde, calls out to me.

"But won't we all be in two different groups?" I am sure that that's how it goes, two groups of As and Bs sitting in alternation as some sort of anticheat system.

"Don't worry, I already asked him." The class president joins in on the conversation while sitting on the tile floor.

"I doubt you even need my help." I smile at the blonde, because I know that if anyone here is a diligent student, it's her."

"As if." She smirks back at me. "I really hope to be in your group" she continues and others keep joining in.

"Where have you been anyway?" Joins in another girl, a much shorter brunette.

"Just sick."

"You still look pale."

"Migraine, but it is better." I tell her and as others open their notebooks the conversation naturally shifts to a different direction without me.

This whole panic that circles around the hallway goes way beyond me. I was never a good student, taking many notes or acing tests, but paying attention here and there in the classes was always just enough to take me through the theoretical stuff. The practical classes, like accounting, were never a problem. I caught the basics immediately, and as soon as I sat behind the computer and zone out, I was in my element, making me by far the fastest in the room.

The teacher, an old economist that should already be enjoying her retirement, comes even before the bell rings.

"Alright dear, good morning."

"Good morning miss ***." Everyone's reply joins a big chorus as we stream into a big room, with four rows of tables with computers.

"Everyone, fill up the spaces from the front." miss *** gives instruction seeing that everyone tries to catch the furthest tables in the back.

I grab the seat somewhere in the middle, right next to the class president that keeps nervously glancing my way as I boot up the computer.

"So, I hope everyone is ready. This is the last test before graduation, no big deal." The teacher tries to mix in a little bit of sarcasm as she walks through the rows handing out the test papers.

"You keep them face down until I tell you to flip them. You will be split into two groups."

Everyone loudly expresses their dissatisfaction.

"Shush. I don't want to hear a word. No talking, no opening your notebooks. It is an easy test, don't you worry. Fill in the sheets and upload them to the test folder. Flip the tests, you may start." She says already sitting down at the desk in the front.

I flip around the paper in front of me and quickly go through four short paragraphs of different accounting entries. The teacher wasn't lying, not only is this test easy, but we already solved these entries not that long ago in the class. I hear a subtle rustling of the paper as the class president shows me the paper of the other group, silently pleading for help. They are the same entries just with different numbers. I try opening the browser to see if we can use the usual group chat we use for notes sharing. Blocked. I could try to shift my screen his way so he can just copy my entries, but I fear that would be too obvious and chicken out. E-mail? I start the client and it lets me log in immediately. The class president looks at my screen and quickly catches on to my plan.

"Others?" He whispers and I nod as I slide him the test back.

The game of telephone goes through the whole class before I finish my test, partly by memory, and send it to all others through mail with instructions to swap the numbers for the other group and finish a small calculation on their own.

21