Chasing Cars

Good God, no.

I stared blankly at the algebra test in front of me, the clean white paper seeming to mock me with its lack of pencil marks. The equations I had done so well on yesterday now seemed entirely new to me in my brain. All I could see now was a random mixture of letters and numbers. I had absolutely no idea what the page was telling me when I read “find the slope of the line using the Y=MX+B equation.”

If only I had studied… I kicked myself, this could have been easily prevented. But I’d been lazy and stayed up late watching Grey’s Anatomy reruns when I should have been giving myself practice equations to solve. I wish I was born a nerdy girl, maybe then I’d be like Nancy Clarke, who’d finished her test twenty minutes ago and was now reading a book at her desk with a smug look on her rat-like face.

I stole a quick glance around the room. It annoyed me to see my peers scribbling answers into their own tests, confident, satisfied looks gracing their faces. They obviously knew exactly what they were doing. Doing my best to look like I was flying through the test with the same confidence as everyone else, I brushed my dark hair out of my eyes and used a hair tie to hold the thick mop back while I worked. Distractions like hair could be dealt with later. I looked up at the clock that hung above the bookshelf. Only five minutes until the bell was due to ring. Five minutes left and all I had done for the entire hour was stare, dumbfounded, at my paper. The crisp, white paper looked no different now than it had when it was handed to me. I am so going to fail this class, I said to myself, silently of course. Three minutes left.

Rereading the paper for the hundredth time, I searched for a question that I could at least try to answer. Question number thirty six seemed simple enough. “Find the slope using the points

(9,3) and (5,0.) Good enough for me, I was already going to get a horrible score. I scribbled my answer into the blank space just as my teacher, Mr. Torres, looked up from his desk. “Pencil’s down, everyone!” he called cheerfully. I set my pencil down with a defeated sigh, like this test was a battle I hoped I’d win, but ended up losing. Many of my classmates looked pleased, while a few of them tried to sneak one more answer in. They were successful, as Mr. Torres never minded if we listened to him or not.

“Oh my gosh. I am like, totally gonna pass, like, this whole test,” Lexi, the airhead barbie doll next to me, gushed to her friend Tasha in the other row. I rolled my eyes at her squeaky chipmunk voice and indecipherable vocabulary. Who could possibly use the word “like” as often as she did? I could barely understand her! Tasha, on the other hand, nodding back at Lexi in response and gave her a thumbs-up. “So, Kari, how do you think YOU did?” Lexi asked, leaning so far over that she was almost on top of me and my nose was attacked with her overdose of tangerine-lime scented perfume. Gagging, I leaned away and made eye contact with my friend, John, who gave me a sympathetic smile. Lexi glanced at my blank test and grinned, batting her eyelashes innocently, like she thought I’d lie to her and say I did just fine. Now, I wasn’t that low.

Lightly nudging her away, I sighed at the test. If I didn’t answer Lexi’s question, I’d seem soft and ashamed of my failure to complete the test, but I really didn’t want her and the whole popular nation hating me if I fired back with an extreme insult, so I settled for a light insult with a casual I-really-hate-you smirk. “Even with my test completely blank, I probably did much

better than you,” I shrugged, giving her that winning smirk and standing up to turn my paper in. It was a thoughtless comeback, really, but with an airhead like Lexi receiving it, I knew she

would shut her mouth because she was too dumb to think of a better response and knew it. I shook my head as I placed the paper in the basket, pursing my lips at the other tests below it, each one filled in completely with no hesitation. Then there was my test, which stuck out like a snowball in the dead of July. Good thing it was January. Snowballs were expected here in Minnesota. Blank tests, however, weren’t.

I turned back to my desk, laughing out loud when I saw the expression on Lexi’s face. She was still trying to figure out what I’d said to her. Her cronies began sporting their own lost looks, and I closed my eyes. What is wrong with this school? “She insulted you, Lexi.” came the voice of a dark-haired boy, who’s face was hidden behind a book. He didn’t bother to look up, and yet he knew exactly what was going on. He was leaning back in his chair, his legs propped up on his desk. I’d never seen him before, or at least I don’t think I have, but not being able to see his face made it hard to be sure.

I wanted to say something, but the bell rang and he seemed to disappear before my eyes. I blinked and he was gone. Shrugging, I swung my bag onto my shoulder and turned away. Before I left, I turned back to Lexi. “And by the way, my name isn’t Kari.” I snapped. I was satisfied to see that even as the class was clearing out, I’d caused Lexi to remain seated, the same ugly look plastered on her face.

The hallways were crowded with people, unfortunately the majority of them being the school’s football team. They looked no different than the rest of us, but they had fragile egos that

had to be tenderly cared for by every girl in school, or trouble would arise. I hated being caught in passing time traffic with any of them, but today I felt a little more powerful than usual. Taking my hair out of its tie, I brushed past the boys easily, not stopping to let any of them bother me

for a single second. On a normal day, I’d slink around them silently, trying to make myself as small as possible so I could just get past them and to my locker. But today I managed to push past them all, and when Trevor, the leader of their little “squad,” tried to stop me like he usually did, I glared at him and told him to move before I gave him a reason to. Thankfully he wasn’t too focused on me today, and moved over.

Unfortunately, my moment of power was suddenly washed away as soon as I got to my locker. A new challenge had risen. The Gang. They had no special name, they simply called themselves “The Gang.” Their ranks consisted of seven greasy boys and two girls who all had a desperate need of a serious shower and a change of clothes. They all wore the same makeup as they had the previous week, and they all reeked of fish and motor oil. Usually I steered clear of them, as did everyone else with a brain, but it was getting harder, as they had found out about my parents and their secret hoard of drugs. “Where do ya think you’re going, Evie?” Chuck, the Gang leader called, sauntering up to me and blocking my way of passage. Wonderful. “Science,” I muttered, not looking at the boy’s wretched face. Instead I focused on the hallway buzz, knowing that soon, I could join in. Chuck breathed heavily into my face, triggering my gag reflex. “Could you brush your teeth, please? If you’re going to make this little ‘encounter’ a habit, I’d prefer it if I could stand you, your breath is lethal.” I remarked, coughing.

“I’ll take it into consideration.” Chuck’s amused voice responded, clearly he was enjoying my discomfort. “I have to go,” I made a move to leave, but his tattooed arm blocked me. “But Evie! There’s still three minutes left of passing time, plenty of time to-” Chuck’s sentence was cut off as the principal, Dr. Charleston, walked briskly over to us and began quietly reprimanding Chuck for something I couldn’t hear. I took this as an opportunity to escape, and I

darted off to my science room across the hall. Before I entered the room, I smoothed my sweater and brushed my hair back. I could only hope Chuck’s stench didn’t transfer over to me. The last thing I needed was a rumor that he and I were together or something equally horrific. I walked into science, and immediately saw Krystine, my one and only best friend.

She was shifting her weight impatiently at my desk, talking animatedly to Evan, the boy who sat next to me. She glanced up at the door, saw me, and paused mid-sentence. “Karev!” she called, waving me over impatiently. She looked exasperated, as if she’d been waiting for me forever, even though it couldn’t have been longer than three minutes at the most. I laughed and walked over to her, setting my things down on the wooden desk. “She’s been standing here forever,” Evan pointed out, rolling his eyes jokingly. I looked sideways at Krystine and grinned. The two of us had made a game of annoying Evan, It was an activity we loved, and didn’t know why. He didn’t even mind our teasing either, in fact, he’d told us on multiple occasions that he actually enjoyed it.

The three of us talked for about two minutes before the bell screeched and Krystine ran to her desk across the room. The room continued to buzz with chatter. The teacher still hadn’t entered the room and everyone wanted to finish their conversations. Evan was staring at me intensely, as if he wanted to say something.

I pretended not to notice. Instead, I turned to face Krystine, squinting my eyes as I attempted to decipher the words she was mouthing to me. “What?” I mouthed back. She made a pointing motion to Evan and gave me a questioning glance. I simply shrugged and turned back around to face the front. Next to me, Evan still looked in my direction. I turned to ask him what he needed, but before I could ask, the teacher strode into the room.

Our class quieted down and took their seats as the teacher shushed them and announcements began to crackle through the old speaker. I sat quietly in my desk, playing with a pencil and doodling boredly on one of Evan’s notebook papers. The announcements were unimportant, as usual, so I paid no attention to them. It wasn’t until Dr. Charleston took the microphone that I looked up. The words she spoke made my blood turn cold and the whole class turn to stare at me in surprise.

“Karev Grey, to the principal’s office. Now.”