Chapter Text
Throughout high school, Lucy had grown into a very active young woman. She loved to see her hard work- especially in school- pay off. All of her teachers admired her (and the ones who didn't had their classes debased in front of the school board courtesy of the girl.)
Lucy was very much an advocate in every sense of the word- In only her first three years of high school, she had become captain of the debate team, joined a creative writing club, founded a book club, and had managed to form a girl’s softball team to compete in the spring season. She began to stand up for the younger girls, and encourage (or frighten) them into joining extracurriculars.
Independence might as well have been her middle name. Her grades soared above all else, which was even more impressive when you got a look at all the extracurriculars she took part in: Student council, choir, National Honor Society, debate, football cheer, and all of her clubs. And all of it with no outside help.
On top of it all, she still loved to argue and loved to protest. Maybe not in a city for a cause that thousands knew about, but protest nonetheless; It was that skill that had allowed her to form the girls softball team, and it was that skill that gave her the ability to petition school rules on behalf of student council.
While Lucy may not have been unanimously loved by all of her peers, it was agreed upon by all that the girl had talent. Her friends poked fun at her for being so involved in absolutely everything, but they knew it was what she liked best. Her parents couldn't be more proud (though they could have been a little less anxious) about their intelligent and outspoken daughter.
Yes, she had seemed to have it all figured out. The picture perfect life she had dreamed of. She was as busy as could be, she was smart, and she was confident.
Lucy sat in the second row for her mathematics period, next to Violet. It was the third or fourth week of school now, and her schedule was just beginning to settle in. The two girls were swapping notes throughout the class to pass the time. As class started up, Lucy organized her worksheets.
Their teacher, Mrs. Carlton, was an older woman of about sixty or so. She had thick wire glasses and short brown hair, and her face seemed to be fixed into a permanent grimace. Lucy, of course, was one of Mrs. Carlton’s favorites. Nearly everyone else despised the teacher and no one ever participated in her class. Lucy felt some sort of responsibility to defend her and make her job worthwhile. Perhaps that’s why she felt so betrayed when Mrs. Carlton went the entire period without calling on Lucy for an answer.
“Does anyone remember what we went over yesterday?” Mrs. Carlton prompted the class. Lucy’s hand shot up immediately, and she masked a smug grin. That same grin faltered as Mrs. Carlton said, “Yes, Mr. Felton?”
It had to have been a one off. No one else ever raised their hand.
”The quadratic formula,” answered Schroeder flatly.
“Correct. Who would like to recite the formula for the class?” Mrs. Carlton picked up a piece of chalk. Lucy put her hand up a little higher this time.
“Yes, Mr. Felton?”
Lucy bristled. What was happening? No one except her ever answered questions for Carlton! This was ridiculous. She tucked her hair behind her ears. Maybe her teacher just couldn’t see her. Lucy flipped through her notes as Schroeder began to say,
“X equals negative B plus or minus the square root of B squared minus four multiplied by A, multiplied by C, all over two A.”
Mrs. Carlton was copying down his words on the chalkboard as he spoke. “Perfect,” she said. “And who would like to share their example equation? You should all have completed this in the homework from yesterday,” This time, no one answered. Lucy put her hand up, knowing she had a good example. She had gone over multiple equations the night before so she could choose an equation that she knew would impress Mrs. Carlton. She wiggled her fingers in the air.
“Yes, Mr. Felton?”
This time, Lucy turned around to look at Schroeder. He was sitting in the far back corner with Charlie Brown, and he didn’t have a single paper in front of him. What was this idiot doing? Who did he think he was? She accidentally made eye contact with Schroeder, and quickly turned back around. She crossed her arms and huffed, frustrated.
And damn it, Schroeder’s example was good, too!
By the end of class, Lucy had successfully raised her hand for every question and had only been called on twice. Twice! Absolutely ridiculous, as Violet had assured her after class.
“I'm going to go save our lunch table,” Violet told her as the bell finished ringing.
Lucy nodded, “Okay, I'll be right there,”
She shuffled all of her papers into a neat pile and set her book on top just before her pencil rolled off her desk away from her. She turned to grab it when she heard the rustle of papers and a thud as her book hit the ground. Lucy turned around, annoyed.
“Good grief,” She hissed under her breath, kneeling down to grab all of the sheets of paper scattered about. She was reaching for another page when a dull, brown-leather Oxford appeared in front of her. She peered up, seeing it was Schroeder.
“Do you need help?” He asked, already kneeling down to pick up her book.
She cleared her throat, sweeping up her papers as quickly as possible. “No, thank you.” She said shortly. They both stood up and he handed her the book, and she took it and stepped around him. She heard him start to say something, but she was out of the classroom before he could get a word out.
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. He tries to replace me in math- Steals all of my questions- and then thinks he can swoop in and help me? Lucy huffed grumpily and squeezed the book in her arms. Her face was hot with annoyance and she couldn’t wait to finally complain to her friends at lunch.
Except that didn’t seem to work out for her either. Violet was found sitting at the table they had discussed, but with more company than Lucy expected. Franklin was just sitting down, and Charlie Brown was standing nearby. Lucy furrowed her brow. When there’s Charlie Brown, there’s almost always…
Schroeder. He passed her from behind, heading to her table. She glared at the back of his head and dug her nails into the hardcover of her book. She paced over to Violet, turning her head to the side as she began to speak so no one could see.
“Vi, what is this? What are they doing here?” She whispered, giving her friend a desperate look.
Violet smiled and tucked her dark hair behind her ears. “Why not? We should be social today. Patty will be here, too,”
Seeing that her friend genuinely meant no harm, Lucy closed her eyes and turned back to the table, taking a seat next to Violet. She tucked her book away into her bag and took out her lunch. Patty arrived and sat next to her.
Violet was laughing with Franklin as Schroeder took his seat across from Lucy. Franklin clapped him on the back and made some comment that made the other boy laugh. Lucy took out her sandwich.
“Schroeder, you were on a roll today in Carlton’s,” One of the other boys said. Lucy mocked him in her head. I could have been if someone hadn’t decided to be a teacher's pet.
Violet nudged Lucy and said, “You took someone’s spotlight,” Patty, Charlie Brown, and Franklin all laughed.
”Ha, ha,” Lucy said dryly, giving her a look. She couldn’t make it seem like that big of a deal. She peeled off a bit of her sandwich’s crust and brushed her bangs back with her other hand.
Charlie Brown was splitting a cookie into thirds. “Yeah, Schroeder, what was up with you today? You never answer in class,”
And Schroeder just shrugged. He just shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, “Felt motivated,”
Lucy internally rolled her eyes. It wasn’t fair. It totally wasn’t fair. Everyone knew that mathematics was her class, and that Carlton loved her, not Schroeder. She gave up on eating her sandwich and began to examine her apple.
“It wasn’t like Lucy was going to answer any of those questions,” He said sarcastically, smiling at her. She could hardly resist rolling her eyes.
”Oh, very funny.” She said, leaving her answer short and sweet. She watched the corner of his mouth fall and felt a bit of triumph. Serves you right.
She pushed her hair back again and looked at her food. She didn’t want to eat. She wanted to think. She exhaled softly and leaned on the table, looking past the boys on the opposite side of the table. She needed to go home.
Lucy hoisted her school bag over her shoulder and swung her locker shut, English homework in hand. It was around four thirty, and all of her friends had already gone home. She had stayed behind for one of her book club meetings, which had gone, in her eyes, tremendously.
They had twice the turnout as usual, and Lucy secretly suspected it had to do with the flyers she'd left on every bare bulletin board and door she could find. It was nice to see that they had worked, considering the two nights she'd spent relentlessly making the posters. Her mom wasn't very happy to see that all of her loose leaf had gone missing, but Lucy assured her it was for a good cause.
She pushed through the front doors and out onto the sunlit sidewalk feeling accomplished. Lucy scanned her English homework before pocketing it for later. She took out her apple from lunch.
She accidentally pulled out one of Violet's notes from math, which reminded her of her lunch that day. She grimaced to herself.
Admittedly, she did feel bad that she was rude at lunch. She was a little embarrassed, and she felt her heart begin to beat a little harder when she began to think of what the table thought about her. She probably made it awkward for everyone.
She exhaled through her nose and looked at her shoes. She really needed to figure something out. She was almost an adult, and she couldn’t be acting like this. She couldn’t be acting like the aggressive fussbudget she was as a child.
Lucy passed by the practice field and took a bite of her apple. She watched Franklin throw a football a few yards before it was caught by Five. The same sequence was copied by Charlie Brown and Schroeder.
Lucy turned and picked up her pace, looking up at the cloud-speckled sky. Schroeder. Surely she wasn't going insane, today was odd. She could hardly remember the last time she or Violet or Patty, for that matter, had even spoke with the boys in their grade. What on earth were they doing at their lunch table now?
The guilt from earlier crept back into her chest, and she looked down at her shoes. Lucy swallowed. It would be best to apologize sometime. This wasn't who she was anymore, this wasn't what she wanted to be known for.
When she got home, she went straight up to her room and unpacked her school bag. It was easier not to think about it if she drowned herself in homework.
The next morning, Lucy arrived at school half an hour early for her creative writing club meeting. This week, they were sharing stories that they'd created with three random prompts drawn from a hat. Lucy had started, of course, and set the bar high. It took a lot to encourage some of the freshmen to share, and she was always pleased when they did.
“Are you sure it wasn't too vague?” One of the younger girls asked her shyly, peering over a large notebook.
“Of course not, I thought it was great!” Lucy told her, giving her a smile. She packed her own notebook back into her satchel. “I liked it. It had a little bit of mystery, you know?”
By the time their meeting was over, Lucy still had ten or so minutes to do any extra work before school began. She claimed her seat in her first period classroom and took out her copy of Macbeth for English. She always liked to read a chapter ahead so she could answer questions in class.
She'd only finished a page before she heard someone else come into the classroom. She glanced out of the corner of her eye to see Violet.
Lucy turned to her, a little surprised. “Good morning,” She greeted, wondering what Violet was doing in her classroom.
Violet sat down across from her. “Morning, Luce. I have something to tell you,” her friend said, folding her hands.
“Of course,” Lucy waited nervously.
Violet sighed, tilting her head. She wouldn't meet Lucy's eyes. “Okay, not tell you, but ask you, I guess. It has to do with yesterday,”
Lucy nodded, eyes narrowing. “Yes,” She prompted.
“Franklin and I were talking,” Violet turned a little pink when Lucy gave her a look. “Not like that, not like that. We were talking about Schroeder, and I guess he's barely making it through Ms. Day's,”
“He's failing his English class?” Lucy hid her disbelief. This was arguably their easiest year, and it's not like Schroeder wasn't smart.
“We were wondering if we could, I don't know, have you help him? Just to get him caught up, of course,”
Of course. Lucy picked at her bottom lip and frowned. “I don't know, Vi,”
Violet huffed. “Oh come on, Lucy, you're one of the best in Day's class! Plus, you're the only one of us who shares second period with him,” She looked at Lucy with pleading eyes.
“Why?” Lucy asked, “I haven't talked to him in forever, and why does it matter to you? Or to Franklin?”
“Lucy, don't be like that. Do it for your friend! He just needs a little help keeping up,” Violet insisted. People had started to trickle into the classroom.
Lucy sat for a second. She would hardly consider Schroeder a friend anymore, but that didn't mean he didn't deserve her help. It would probably look good to teachers and give her some tutoring experience.
“Maybe.” She said, leaning back and crossing her arms.
“Perfect!” Violet stood up and gave a tiny clap.
“Does he even know about your little scheme?” Lucy asked as Violet started to turn away.
“I'll see you third period!” She called back. Lucy looked back at Macbeth, frowning.
Goodness gracious, what was she in for?