Chương 9: Class is in Session

Under Lexi's guidance, Olivia managed to find all of her classes with little issue. The experience also managed to awaken some of her memories, allowing Olivia to fix the path in her mind with a bit more confidence. Apparently, following the same paths day after day for years had burned them into her very soul. It just took a bit of unearthing to find them again. That wasn't to say that things were completely familiar.

She'd honestly forgotten how much construction the campus has gone through over the four years she'd been a student, and a couple of the teachers weren't in the same classrooms they'd occupy by senior year. Combined with Lexi's freely offered evaluations of each of Olivia's teachers—"McCullough's a scrooge, he'll write you up if he even smells gum"— the company was more than welcome. It was a nice trip down memory lane. Unfortunately, the good times came to a screeching halt for first period.

Olivia sat at one of the room's small desks, resisting the urge to drum her fingers against its surface as she stared at Ms. Roche. Despite the woman's name and the insect it brought to mind, she far more closely resembled a melting toad—a miserable one, at that. Neither the impression nor her appearance were helped much by the mascara that she had been carefully applying for the past five minutes or so, barely looking up from the mirror before her to notice the room full of students. Olivia remembered this class.

How could she not? Of all the ones she'd ever had, Ms. Roche's freshman English class stood out in her memory as a particularly acute waste of time. Yet she'd hoped that she'd been wrong. Maybe the decades had stripped away many of the everyday events—the lessons, the papers, the homework—to leave behind only an exaggerated caricature of the experience. But if first impressions were anything to go by… Ms. Roche blinked a few times, inspecting her newly lengthened eyelashes.

Seemingly satisfied, she capped the thin black wand and stuffed it back in her purse as Olivia perked up. Finally.. It was already ten minutes into class, but maybe now— The woman pulled out a tube of lipstick and uncapped it. Olivia wanted to scream. Stifling a groan, she let her forehead thud onto the table. Please, please, please tell me it doesn't stay like this. There's no way. It's just a bad first impression, then she'll actually start doing her job.

It wasn't like she was particularly looking forward to school work and sitting through classes again. Far from it. But even another lecture on the proper use of a comma would be preferable to this. Disgust roiled inside her. She's an absolute disgrace. I can't believe my tax dollars are going towards this. Well, I guess it's more my parents' tax dollars right now. But still. This is just unbelievable. Even back then, she recalled wondering on more than one occasion how in the world the woman hadn't been fired.

She had to be throwing around some serious weight in the union to get away with something this blatant. That, or no one believed the sheer audacity of the woman's inaction. Who would? Heck, Olivia found it inconceivable, and she was right here. Whatever the case, as far as she remembered, Ms. Roche managed to remain a fixture of the place as much as the buildings around them. At least, she'd never heard about her getting kicked out.

With a final disapproving look toward the woman's desk, Olivia lifted her head to look around the room. It quickly became clear that her own disappointment was by no means the prevailing attitude. In fact, plenty of her fellow freshmen seemed perfectly happy at the current state of things. The usual orderly arrangement of kids sitting in rows had been quickly abandoned. Now they wandered the room freely, talking in clumps and sitting upon the desks themselves.

A few read or stared at the wall in boredom like her, and she even caught a few taking Lexi's advice as they snored in the corner. Ms. Roche either didn't notice or didn't care about any of it, of course. If this were the future, they'd all be on their phones right now, and I wouldn't blame them one bit, she thought. There were a few individuals who looked to be texting, but not nearly as many as one would expect. Heck, I could be using this time to refresh my memory on current events more.

She listened in to a nearby conversation out of sheer curiosity.

"... I can't believe summer's over already."

"Right? I haven't woken up before noon in months."

"Noon? Lucky. My sister wakes up and blasts her music in the shower every morning at 8 AM sharp. It's hell." A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"You go anywhere cool?"

"Oh, dude. My uncle's got this cabin up in the mountains…" It was nothing entirely unexpected. Kids chatting about summer, catching up with friends they hadn't seen in a while and commiserating about the loss of their freedom. There were even a few rumors already flying about who had started dating who, though Olivia paid them little mind. That kind of drama had never been her thing. Still, it shocked her just how many faces she recognized.

For over half the class, she was able to dredge up some kind of detail related to them—a name, a sport they were involved in, even some sentiments about their personality. It was like unearthing a dusty old box of keepsakes from the attic. Joining the groups of socializing students was out of the question, of course. That was definitely not something she would've done before. Though that did mean Olivia was a bit at a loss for what to do instead.

She didn't even have homework to work on from another class yet, since this was the first one of the day. With few other options to turn to, Olivia decided to pull out a notebook. Clicking her mechanical pencil a few times, she idly began sketching it across the page in graceful swoops and loops, doodling little patterns along its margins. Drawing was one of those hobbies that had more or less fallen by the wayside over the years.

It had seen a recent resurgence, as cartoonish pictures of animals or depictions of George's favorite video game characters were always in high demand as coloring sheets for the boys. Yet there had been a time when she'd actually put in time and effort to improving at the craft. Heck, she might've even said she was halfway decent at it. Her pencil was partway through shading a pretty detailed eye when an idea struck. Her eyebrows rose. Immediately, she abandoned her current task and turned to a fresh page.

Dimpled cheeks and a bright, toothy smile manifested beneath crinkled eyes and a mop of curly hair. More features followed as the face of a young boy began to take shape. Olivia eyed her work critically. It was… ok. The noise wasn't quite right, and the eyes could definitely use some work as well. Small discrepancies with her eldest son's proportions added up to make George look like a plastic version of himself. While the sketch was a quick one, it certainly left a lot of room for improvement.

Still, it was a start. She smiled fondly at the picture. Even if it wasn't close to perfect, it was something more tangible than memory alone. Hers was pretty good, but who was to say that it would last? Twenty years was a long time, after all, and the idea of forgetting her children's faces… well, that was almost as terrifying as her current predicament. She glanced up at Ms. Roche. Well, at least I'll have plenty of time to practice and get them right.

Turning the page, she started again, focusing on the areas she'd been dissatisfied with last time.

The rest of first period passed far more quickly once Olivia had something to do. Luckily, her other classes had actual teachers running them. Geography, Biology, and Advanced Algebra flew by without particular note. All of them merely covered the first day introductory and administrative matters, leaving little time to actually cover the class material. But even that was enough to make it abundantly clear just how much of a breeze these classes would be.

This has to be review, Olivia assured herself as the potbellied Advanced Algebra teacher began to explain linear equations. Right? I mean, there's no way I made it to high school before being taught this. It was a genuine shock how low the bar was set. She was used to college classes—which, considering the caliber of university she'd attended, was hardly a fair comparison. But perhaps she was still being too harsh.

It was only the first day, after all, and most of these were freshman classes, designed to be the most introductory level possible. … Though I'm pretty sure there are some seniors in this one, she admitted, glancing around Mr. McCullough's math class. Math had always been far less stratified by grade than the other classes, considering how many kids pushed ahead with advanced classes or lagged behind due to difficulties in the subject. It was the only subject that proved so loose with its guidelines.

Thankfully, Olivia had always been a star student. That meant she didn't have to worry about intentionally sandbagging on exams or carefully manipulating her GPA. She could breeze through without issue. Well, hopefully. I don't remember the exact percentages I got down to the decimal, but I can't imagine that a few percentage points of difference in my final grade will really matter… right? Colleges definitely won't care.

And as long as I take the same advanced classes as last time, it shouldn't change my final standing in the class rankings. She got in a bit more drawing practice throughout the day, but tried to keep it a bit more discreet. Especially once her Geography teacher also proved to be stickler about that kind of thing. But she managed to avoid any issues.

PE proved particularly uneventful, as she was informed that the entire first week would be spent getting lockers assigned, setting everyone up with appropriate gym clothes, and other general administrative tasks. Throughout it all, Olivia stuck to her tried and true method of staying quiet and out of the way. It was both the easiest and most reliable method she had of approximating her former self's actions. Most of the friends she remembered came from the band anyway, so it wasn't particularly a loss.

Even if the isolation did feel a bit unnatural now. Stuffing herself back into the shell she'd taken so long to outgrow was far from a comfortable experience. It's fine. It's for a good cause. Besides… I'll be able to come back out eventually. It'll just take a few years. Or, well, a decade. She winced internally. The thought of keeping this up for so long was… not exactly pleasant. But she had to do it. There was no other choice. Eventually, the bell rang again.

Olivia escaped from the red raccoon themed gym and headed for her sixth and final class of the day. Band. Hopefully this one wouldn't prove too much more exciting than the others.