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━ DECEMBER, 2019 ━
ISABELLE
✧
FIDGETINGWITH THE empty blue refill between my fingers, I frequently steal glances at the digital wall clock blinking monotonously above the half ajar windows. The equations on the white board was beginning to turn into a haze before my eyes and I was close to realizing that high school, in no possible way, would be a pleasant memory I'd reminisce in the future.
The bell sounded approximately ten minutes later, sending the entire hall of forty five students into a state of utmost frenzy.
Partly the Christmas spirit and mostly, the joy of getting over with school.
"So what are you doing for your birthday? Its in like, four months?" Zoey asks me in the girls locker room, grinning ear to ear.
"You know what happened last time right?" I pull a straight face, in an attempt to rain on her enthusiasm.
"Isabelle, you're turning eighteen! You can't just hold grudges forever!" She argues, leaning against the wall.
Almost everyone had vacated the locker room by now so I figured it would be okay to talk out loud.
"No one's holding grudges. I just don't want to, Zo. Birthdays aren't my thing."
Zoey Lin opens her mouth to say something but closes it back again. The grin now replaced by a deep frown.
She really couldn't fight me on this.
You see, I have a bad history with birthdays. On my ninth, my grandmother stopped talking to my dad on account of a family feud that I yet do not know of. On my fifteenth, I fell sick with diarrhea. And on my seventeenth, I got stood up.
It was maybe the first time i was actually celebrating, and out of the nine friends I had invited, just two of them had turned up. Whatever personal reason must it be that prevented them from showing the tiniest bit of cheer, was unknown to me and I was, obviously, upset. It felt like, I was somehow, out of place and not someone who would be on people's priority lists. I would not like to remember anymore because the day ended with me making a fool of myself and crying to bed at night.
"Hello?" Zoey waves her hand before my eyes, jet black eyes trying to figure my thoughts.
"Yeah, uh, I kinda zoned out"
"That I can see" She rolls her eyes, slamming the faulty locker door shut.
"Still didn't fix it?" I ask, popping a mint into my mouth.
