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It takes me all of thirty minutes to finish my pizza, soda, and get bored of studying. Actually I was bored with the studying after five minutes but to demonstrate how dedicated of a student I am, I pushed myself to go longer. My body is telling me it's time for bed after I am startled awake three or four times at my desk.

I discard my food waste in the kitchen, tell my mom goodnight (my stepdad works the night shift) and then head to bed. I usually sleep with nothing but a cami and some panties, but thanks to Horace and his double play, I feel like I need to wear a little more, so I put on my sweats and turn the ceiling fan up to high.

~ ~ ~

I don't remember falling asleep, but it must have been soon after I laid down. I wake up to the alarm on my phone going off. I groggily turn over and examine it, only to see it is alarm number six. I should explain, I have six alarms set for every weekday. The first is an hour ahead of when I need to leave for school, and then each succeeding alarm is ten minutes closer to when I have to leave. This being the last alarm it means I have ten minutes to dress and get out the door.

I text Eric to make sure he plans on coming by on time to pick me up, and once he confirms, I scramble. I strip down to nothing and find my lucky underwear. It’s a matched bran and thong set, a brilliant fire engine red, and I always wear it on test days.

During finals weeks every quarter I do laundry every day that week, which surprises the hell out of my mother, but my lucky undergarments haven’t failed me yet. I’ve never failed a test while wearing them.

I grab a pair of blue jeans and yank them on, secure with a white double grommet belt, my favorite. I love belts and I feel naked if I don’t have one on. Weird, I know, but I have nightmares that my pants are going to slide down my legs while I’m walking, or worse, someone is going to pants me in the hallway at school. I tend to be paranoid about stupid stuff, so don’t mind me.

I dig through a dresser drawer and find a plain hot pink tee that I technically outgrew three years ago after my boobs finally came in, so not only does it accentuate my breasts a little more, it leaves an inch or two of my midriff exposed. I figure it might distract Perkins a little when he is grading my test tonight and he might accidentally forget to mark a few questions wrong.

No time for makeup, and I pull my blonde hair up in a messy bun. It's a science test, not a formal dance.

There is a soft knock on the front door. That would be Lewis. Eric used to honk, but my stepdad is asleep after work, and it woke him up. He followed me out to the car that day and told Eric if he ever “fucking honked again at seven in the morning on a weekday” he would “beat the hell out of Eric’s car with a sledgehammer” so as a result, Eric picks up Lewis, then sends Lewis to the front door to knock and then we leave.

I slip into a pair of sandals, and open the door.