A strange normal

Jerry found himself running down the halls; none noticed him or felt bothered enough to stop him. So he found himself all too soon at the door to his chemistry class. He reached for the door handle slowly, his nerves causing his hands to shake as he did so. He wasn't sure he could really process another Mrs. Coleman situation so soon; it had just happened.

Though as he opened the door to the immediate attention of the class, he remembered a very important fact. Which was that his chemistry teacher Mr. Lee was an Asian man, which was one of the races not affected by whatever was going on with him and the Blacks. At Mr. Lee's questing stare, he quickly brought over his note too. Him in full view of everyone else. He read it quickly and nodded to himself.

"Well, everything is in order. Go over there; she'll be your lab partner for this class." Mr. Lee said quickly to Jerry before turning back to the board to continue writing down more instructions for the class. Jerry turned around to see who his lab partner was and found himself clenching his fist tightly for a moment out of pure fear of his lab partner because, of course, it was Marguerita Perez.

Marguerita Perez was a nasty piece of work, a beautiful Brazilian woman who was more than capable of being a fashion runway model. The problem was she had the personality of an angry pit bull with rabies. One wrong move on his part and she wouldn't give him a beating; she'd break out a butterfly knife and go to town on him.

So, knowing the danger, he made his way over quickly but quietly. She was on her phone and only turned to notice him when he sat down, and that was to give him a quick angry glare before going back to what she was doing. Getting the hint, Jerry got to work. He knew the deal: said in that one glare he does her work and his; in return he doesn't get stabbed.

He got to quickly making sure her part was done first and done as best he could before moving on to his. Time in class passed like that, him doing all the work while Marguerita played or texted on her phone. He wasn't sure what she was doing on her phone honestly. Though he knew better than to ask, that was no doubt a shivable offense in her eyes.

He would eventually complete the task doing a good job on both parts of their work. The task this time around was monitoring some beakers and giving their conclusion on what was occurring inside said beakers. While also explaining why they had done that conclusion. He felt he had made a good effort on making his and Marguerita's answers as different as possible while both being good answers.

Which was a bit difficult as he was trying to make it not obvious that he was doing all the work on this group project. Though hopefully he wouldn't have to worry about it too much. Mr. Lee should know his lab partner's reputation to some degree, so hopefully what he did would be enough. As he knew that if this somehow negatively affected Marguerita's grades, he would be in for stabbing in the school's student parking lot.

Though the fact he didn't have a car in the student parking lot would doubtlessly not be asked. As no one would want to run afoul of Marguerita and her gang connections. So there he sat contemplating his possibly stabbed future when Marguerita looked up from her phone and glanced at his work. She gave a quick angry nod at his work and went back to her phone. He got to go unstabbed for now; at least that was what he gathered from the angry nod.

So he spent the last thirty seconds of class stress-free, relieved at his current safe future. He made a reminder to himself that if he did get caught up in sexual situations again, he would make sure that he would not land immediately in hot water afterward. This stress couldn't be good for his mental or physical health. The bell would ring, and he would file out of class like the others, trying to ignore the Black students that put their asses on display for him as he walked behind them.

Unnoticed by Jerry, there was one Black student that was behind him, a Black girl by the name of Isla Brown. She made no move to get closer or to get his attention by doing a lewd strut like the others were trying. No, she instead kept her eye on Marguerita Perez and followed after her as she made her way towards the ladies' room.