BACK SECTION SITUATION
1478 Words
The morning at Riverside Heights went the way it always did.
Head down, books clutched tight. Move between classes like I’d learned to take up as little space as possible...and after three years, I was damn good at it. Don’t make eye contact in the halls. Don’t sit with your back to the room, know which bathrooms Brynn and her crew used and stick to the others.
I made it through first, second, and third period without any drama. That was basically winning on a normal day.
Fourth period was free, so I headed to the actual library... the one with decent lights and a real librarian, and hid in the back corner. I pulled out my spare notebook and tried to rewrite the notes Brynn had ripped up from memory. I got most of them, but not all. The little tree sketch I couldn’t redo, which was whatever. I hadn’t even meant to draw it in the first place. It was just something my hand did when my brain checked out.
I sat there rewriting my own destroyed notes and thought, This is normal. This is just what my life looks like now.
The bell rang.
Fifth period, english.
Mr. Falade was already scribbling on the board when I slipped in. I went straight to my usual seat... back row, second from the window. Same spot since September, I dropped my bag, pulled out the spare notebook with the old coffee stain on the cover.
Kids filed in around me. The back row stayed mostly empty, which was exactly why I liked it. People fought for front seats to be seen but I stayed back here to disappear.
Then, Dax walked in with Tyler.
I didn’t look up, I didn’t need to. The whole room shifted the second he entered, that quiet buzz of energy like everyone adjusted without thinking. I kept my eyes glued to my notebook.
“Alright, everybody,” Mr. Falade said, turning around. He was one of those younger teachers who tried too hard to be cool. “Partner work today on contemporary essay analysis, packets coming your way. Find someone and get to it.”
Chairs scraped. The room reshuffled fast, everyone pairing up with their usual people.
I turned to my left and Priya Anand sat two seats over. She was quiet, smart, and didn’t make things weird. We’d partnered before, she was already looking at me.
“Partners?” I asked.
She opened her mouth.
“Yo.” Dax’s voice cut across the room, relaxed and loud. “Anybody need a partner? I’ll take literally anyone.”
A few laughs. Tyler said something I couldn’t hear.
Someone offered and Dax turned them down.
“Well… almost anyone.”
The laugh that followed hit different. Sharper and meaner. Like everyone knew exactly where this was going.
“Not trying to partner with the whole back section situation.”
I froze, fingers still on the edge of my notebook.
The back section situation.
There were twenty-three kids in this class. A few of us sat in the back. But I knew ... the way you always know when it’s aimed at you ... exactly who he meant. And so did everyone else. Three heads turned toward me before quickly looking away.
Tyler laughed out loud.
Mr. Falade kept handing out packets like nothing was happening.
I stared at my desk. There was this old c***k in the wood running diagonally from the top left corner down toward the middle. Someone had traced over it with pen years ago, giving it a faint blue tint. A couple smaller ones branched off it. I counted them. Two big ones, three smaller. Four if you included the tiny hairline one on the right edge.
I’m fine.
Priya slid into the seat next to me without a word and put the packet between us. I was so grateful I could’ve hugged her.
I’m fine.
More laughter from the front. Tyler and Dax going back and forth, easy and loud, the kind of banter that came so natural to them.
I’m absolutely fine.
I picked up my pen and pressed the date at the top of the page harder than I needed to.
“Question one?” Priya asked softly.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Question one.”
We worked, I read the paragraphs, spotted the rhetorical devices, filled in every box like my life depended on it. Because right then, that was the only control I had ...
to be completely, boringly competent so no one could call me out on anything else.
Up front, Dax ended up with Tyler anyway. I caught the low rumble of his voice every now and then, that specific tone I had no business recognizing so fast. I kept my head down, the back section situation.
It wasn’t even the worst thing he’d ever said, not close. Just a throwaway line for a cheap laugh. It cost him nothing. I was supposed to swallow it and keep moving.
And I would. I’d add it to the pile with everything else from the last three years and it wouldn’t matter tomorrow.
That’s what I told myself.
The bell rang and I was the first one out of my seat.
The rest of the afternoon was just a grey blur. Sixth and seventh period. I kept my head down, ate a stale granola bar I found at the bottom of my bag, and took the long way around past the gym to dodge the main hallway.
I waited the usual five minutes after school let out before heading to the parking lot area, then walked to the side street where I was supposed to meet him. It was cold, I stood there with my bag and my messed-up notebook and all the crap I’d absorbed that day.
He didn’t show right away. Today was a practice day, so he’d be done around seven. I started walking.
Forty minutes in thin sneakers. The first twenty I thought about absolutely nothing... I’d gotten really good at that. The last twenty, though, my brain kept circling back to Willa.
It was kinda embarrassing. I’d only known her for two days, but I kept remembering how she looked at me over her bottle that morning, both hands gripping it tight, totally trusting. The way she knocked over the ring tower and laughed like it was the greatest thing ever. How she grabbed my nose like it belonged to her.
I walked faster.
When I finally got to the house, Rosa was in the kitchen, just up from her nap, still in rumpled clothes with her hair fixed. She said hi, asked how school was. I told her it was fine. She handed me a glass of water without me even asking ... such a Rosa thing to do.
I heard Willa before I saw her.
Not crying, just that serious little babbling she did when she was playing by herself, like she was giving herself a full rundown of whatever her hands were up to.
I stopped in the living room doorway.
She was on the play mat with her shape sorter, trying to force a triangle into the square hole with total determination, she looked up when she heard me.
Her whole face changed in a second... this bright, happy recognition. She dropped the toy, started crawling toward me fast, that funny rocking crawl where her whole body got into it.
She reached me, grabbed onto my leg, and pulled herself up, she looked up at me.
And grinned. Not some small polite smile ... a full-on, eyes-squeezed-shut, whole-body grin. Like seeing me walk through the door was the best part of her day. Like I mattered.
I sat down right there on the floor in the doorway. I didn’t even think about it. She climbed straight into my lap like she’d done it a hundred times, grabbed a fistful of my hoodie, and I wrapped my arms around her. She smelled like baby powder and that sweet Willa scent.
I breathed.
For the first time since the notebook, the cracked desk, and the “back section situation,” I actually breathed, like my chest had been waiting all day for permission.
Rosa peeked in, saw us on the floor, and just smiled quietly before heading back to the kitchen.
I sat there with this baby I’d only known for two days.
Forty-eight hours ago she didn’t exist to me. Now she was in my lap like I was her favorite spot, chewing on my sleeve, completely unbothered by any of the crap from school. She didn’t know about any of it, and even if she did, she wouldn’t care.
The back section situation.
I held her a little tighter.
She patted my arm softly.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I know.”
- Writer
