Chapter Text
Estelle, Sally and Paul sat in their car, sitting in the parking lot of Midtown. Estelle’s leg bounced up and down, her heel rhythmically tapping the floor of the car.
Sally took a deep breath.
“Is everyone ready?”
“Yeah.” Estelle said, starting to get out of the car.
The school was pretty big, but about average for a NYC high school. Almost-dead vines crawled up the corners of the school, around the dusty bricks that made up the building.
The parking lot was pretty crowded already, so they had to park pretty far. It was good though, gave Estelle time to collect her thoughts and take in the school.
There were lots of signs pointing where to go.
The open house entrance was big, but not the main entrance. It was a small hallway that went two directions: to the cafeteria, and to the rest of the school.
There was a line to get in, which didn’t surprise Estelle.
Finally, the trio got to the front and Estelle signed in. The worker shuffled through a pile of papers before grabbing one and handing it to Estelle. The worker pointed Sally and Paul to the cafeteria, where they could meet school admin and get information about gods know what else.
Estelle said goodbye and moved forward with the rush of students to get into the main hallways. Once far enough to not be pushed over by a hoard of teenagers, Estelle paused to look at her schedule. It was mostly classes she’d requested: AP chem, architecture, AP calc and anatomy. They’d filled the schedule with other required classes; an English class, a history class and a study hall.
Estelle decided to find her humanities classes first, then her math and sciences.
The school was covered in “English wing this way ->” type posters, making the finding of classes easy. Somehow, every single class she had was basically on the opposite side of the school from the last, which slowed her self-tour down a lot.
The English and history wings weren’t that crowded, but the science, math and engineering wings had at least three times as many people.
Estelle managed to find her AP calc and architecture classes, but the science wing was much harder.
The chemistry classes are all in a specific part of the wing, but she didn’t know where it was. Plus, the room number was labeled differently, due to the class having a lab attached.
Estelle squinted, then looked up to try and find a nearby room number to base where she was off of.
She blinked.
Twice.
Three times.
Then her eyes stayed wide open.
She knew that person.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He went to Goode.
Why was he here?
She needed to get out of here.
Before Estelle could even take a closer look and see, no, that’s not him, that’s just someone with a similar haircut, she turned around.
Out. Out. Out.
The hallway was blurry.
Estelle was too hot.
It was too crowded in here.
Get out. Get out. Get out.
The hallway was too loud.
A bathroom.
Estelle ducked into the bathroom.
Then out.
The stalls were full of people, and the sinks full of people.
People. People. People.
Estelle could hear her heartbeat in her head, in her throat, her mouth.
It was reaching out, leaving her all alone and heartless.
Okay.
Empty hallway.
That’ll do.
Estelle leaned against the wall, sliding down it to the ground.
She pulled her knees up to her face, and breathed.
Breath.
Breath.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Okay.
Okay.
She reaches into her bag and grabs her dagger. Estelle holds it in both hands, fiddling with the crossguard.
She looked up, and found: a water fountain. A large window. A banister. A ceiling light. Floor tiles.
Cold floor. Denim skirt. Soft curls. Plaster wall.
Her breathing. Footsteps. Talking.
Oh. Shit.
Estelle didn’t have time to stand up before the people rounded the corner.
“Oh.” the one in the middle says.
“There’s not usually people down here.” the girl says.
(Estelle takes note of that for later.)
Estelle brings her wrist to her eyes, then down again. “Sorry, I’ll..” she trails off as she gets up.
“No, wait. Are you okay?” The girl asks.
Estelle opens her mouth to respond, but can’t before the girl talks again. “I’m Mj.” She points to the others as she keeps talking. “Peter, Ned. Are you new here?”
“It’s the open house. Aren’t we all new here?” Estelle fakes a sarcastic joke and forces a smile.
“I like you. Do you want our numbers?” the girl, Mj, says.
Estelle blinks. ‘Is this a prank?’
“S-sure.”
Mj reaches out her hand, and it takes Estelle a second to realize what she’s doing. “U-oh.” Estelle reaches into her bag, trading the dagger for her phone.
She unlocks it, opening contacts and handing it over to Mj.
She types on the phone, then hands it to Peter, who does the same, then hands it to Ned.
“Are- are we adding our numbers here?”
Mj dramatically hits her forehead (though it didn’t seem that ironic), and sighs.
“Yeah.” Peter says.
Ned nods and types on the phone for a second, before handing it back to Estelle.
“Do you need anything else? Need us to show you where anything is?” Peter asks.
“No, but thank you.”
“Oh, wait.” Mj says, blocking Estelle from walking off. “Can I see your schedule?”
Estelle nods, reaching into her bag and grabbing it.
Mj’s eyes skim the page. “Okay, so we have architecture together, you have chem with Ned and Peter, and you have English with Peter and I. You have the good anatomy teacher, you’ll really like him. I’ve never heard of your AP calc teacher, he must be new, and that history teacher is pretty good too.”
“Oh! Okay. Thank you. Got it. Um, I’m gonna go, though?” Estelle says it like it’s a question, but she’s basically already walking away.
The three send a chorus of goodbyes as she rounds the corner, then she overhears Peter say, “did either of you notice she was holding a dagger?”
“What? Dude, that was a pen.” Ned responds.
“That was a pen.” Mj agrees.
Well. She should keep that in for future reference.
Estelle quickly found Sally and Paul in the cafeteria. (It wasn’t hard. Sally has published multiple books and Paul is an English teacher, and the English department at a science and tech school is bound
to be small.)
Estelle smiles at the teacher at the table as she walks up to where her parents are.
“Hey.”
“Estelle! Who’s your English teacher?” Paul asks.
Estelle reaches for the paper in her bag, but it’s gone. Shit.
“I just gave three random people my schedule.”
“What?” The other two say in unison as Estelle turns around to head back into the overcrowded hallways.
Estelle pulls up her message, creating a new text message to Mj, smiling as she sees her contact name.
(the coolest) mj :p
‘hey’
‘uhh i think you still have my schedule’
‘oh shit youre rigt’
‘where r u’
‘by the main staircase’
‘okay wait there’
Estelle does so, soon seeing Mj come into her view from the top of the stairs.
“I thought I gave this back to you. Glad you were still in the building at least.” Mj hands the paper back to Estelle.
“Thanks.” She looks between Mj and Ned. “No Peter?”
“No, he had to, uh-” Ned starts.
“He was talking to a teacher, so just the two of us came down here.”
“Ah.”
“We’re dating.”
“What?”
“Me and Peter. He’s taken.”
“Oh, gods, no. Sorry, I’m not..”
Mj nods. “Sorry.”
“It’s chill. Uh, I gotta go, but I’ll see in a couple weeks, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Bye!” Estelle says as she turns back for the cafeteria.
That was a…strange conversation.
Estelle makes it back to the cafeteria, just to learn that her parents are still in fact talking to that English teacher.
This time, though, she’s able to check her schedule and see that she does have her for English.
“How long have you been talking?” Estelle asks.
Avoiding the question, Sally responds, “are you ready to go?”
“Mhm.”
“Lets.”
Her parents quickly finish up the conversation, and the three head out the door, back to their car.