Lunch was as boring as her first three classes, the kids were shallow and uninteresting, the only thing that caught her attention was a flash of blonde hair, she’d looked over and saw Chelsea carrying Spencer’s tray of food as they walked out of the cafeteria, the young girl had a huge smile on her face.

“Come on Ash,” Kyla nudged her sister.

“Huh?”

“The bell rang, what were you looking at?” the brunette surveyed the room to see what could have possibly held her attention.

“Nothing,” Ashley avoided eye contact as she swooped up her back bag and headed toward her next class, Advanced Mathematics, how she ended up there no clue as she despised math with its numbers and letters…to Ashley that just did not fit, how can you add, subtract, multiply or divide letters, just not possible that’s how. Incessant vibrating in her pant pocket brought her out of her hatred of math equations; she reached in making sure to balance her bag so it didn’t slip off her shoulder and brought out her phone, “Hello?”

“Hey honey how are you?” her mother’s voice came through, it sounded less chipper than she was used to even if Christine was trying to force it into her normal tone.

Ashley stopped in her tracks and leaned against the lockers, she knew she wanted to talk to her mom way more than going to class, “Been better,”

“I know…are you in school?” Christine wondered.

“Is this why you called me, to see if I was being good like I promised, huh?” she felt her anger start to build, why would her mom want to just call and chat to her screw up of a daughter.

“No, sweetie, I called cause I wanted to talk, but…”

“…but nothing, yes I’m in school, I was actually on my way to class when you called,” she huffed picking at her nails trying to hold back her tears.

“Oh good, well I’ll let you get back to…school or what not, I have to go, call me after wards?” the question was muffled but Ashley heard it and knew how hard it was for her mom to even try and talk like they used to after what she’d done back home.