“Hey.” A voice says from behind me.

“Oh, hey.” I say, awkwardly brushing my hair behind my ear, it’s August.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

“Yeah, why do you ask?” I ask.

“I don’t know, you just have a look.” He says, slowly.

“A look?” I ask, smiling.

“Yeah, you look sad.” He says.

“Well I don’t know why I would look sad.” I say, because I have absolutely no reason to be sad.

“Oh, sorry, you just... It’s in your eyes.” He says.

“My eyes?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

“Your eyes look sad, I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, I’m probably wrong.” He says, quickly.

“Uh, yeah...” I say, blushing. I’m not sad, I’m anything but, what is August talking about?

“So are you going to Grace Lynch’s party?” He asks.

“Uh, yeah. Leo and I are going.” I say, having absolutely no idea about any party but I’ll drag Leo out to it, he wont care, he loves parties.

“Cool, maybe I’ll see you them.” August says, smiling and nodding awkwardly.

The bell rings. Thank god.

“Hey, lover girl.” Ruby says.

“Shut up.” I laugh.

“Make me.” Ruby shrugs, grinning.

“Okay class,” Mrs. Locke says, stepping into the class room. “So today we’ll be covering The Cold War, I assume you’re all smart enough to know what that is.”

I don’t like Mrs. Locke. It’s a harsh thing to say, but nobody likes her. I think Mrs. Locke actually enjoys being disliked, maybe it’s empowering. Either way shes mean. She always calls on the people who don’t know the answer, someone called her out on it once and she claimed it was for teaching purposes. The person who called her out was Ruby, and from that day on Mrs. Locke has had a thing against Ruby.

Obviously if someone called her out on that she would deny it to the ends of the earth, but a blind person could clearly see the way Mrs. Locke looks at Ruby. I don’t want to call it loathing but I’m pretty sure there’s no other word for it.

“Alright Ruby, lets see if you can provide me with the year that the cold war started?” Mrs. Locke says.

Ruby, who had been doodling on a page of her notebook, looks up. Mrs. Locke crosses her arms and shoots Ruby a challenging look.

“Well historians argue about it but the length of The Cold War is commonly considered to be 1947 to 1991.” Ruby says, coolly.

“Acceptable.” Mrs. Locke comments.

Ruby smiles smugly and goes back to doodling, a few minutes later several notes land on her desk, all from admiring Mrs. Locke targets.

I grin and Ruby and she makes a face back.

The bell rings again and everybody stands up in a rush. Mrs. Locke starts shouting something about homework but I doubt anybody hears. I don’t, but I’ll just ask Ruby, Ruby always makes sure she knows so Mrs. Locke can’t say anything to her about it.

“Homework?” I ask, as we fall into step in the hall.

“Essay.” She replies.

“Hey, tell Leo about Grace Lynch’s party.” I half ask half say, she and Leo have their next class together and she doesn’t normally mind being messenger.

“Yeah, okay, anything for lover girl and lover boy.” She says, grinning.