Aris hops into the corner of her bed backward. Her room is like her: messy in some places and organized in others. But never clean. She is too lazy to clean. However, her bed is nice and comfy, and it's well-organized. Well, as organized as it could be.
She takes out her phone from her front pocket and unlocks it. She goes through her messages. She received messages from her older sister, Ava Reynolds, telling her to wait three more weeks for her to return from the other state, where she is studying. And she gets dozens of messages still coming in from their new senior class group chat. Since Aris has nothing better to do right now, she opens it:
Silver star: Heyyy, everyone! It's senior year!!! So, group chat has been renamed!
Dangling daisy: Yessss Claire, it's finally senior year!!
Silver star: Bruh, Daisy, why is your username 'Dangling Daisy'?
Jo Cheong: For real, do you have a wish of hanging yourself or smth?
Dangling daisy: Says the guy whose username is literally Jo cheong. Do you think you look like him or something?
This argument about usernames goes on for a long time today, and more people join in until someone switches the subject to Aris. Yes, her.
Peterrr: Hey, did you guys see Aris today? She was so goddam funny.
Lily Liver: Oh my god, don't even start, Pete. The number of sassy jokes she made with the teacherstoday-like, damn, she has a ton of audacity.
Jo Cheong: Actually, I just realized, Aris is the one who even made this group chat and added us, yet she hasn't even texted here.
Peterrr: For real, man. Where did she go after she left school? Has anyone seen her?
Oh shoot. Aris has been offline for a long time now.
AnonymouslyAris: Yeah, hey guys. I am not dead yet, don't worry. I was just burning at the beach.
Instantly, almost everyone in the chat starts typing and filling Aris's screen with messages- mostly laughing and skull emojis.
Aris lets out a sigh. As she waits for everyone to finish texting, she checks who, in this group, hasn't texted at all yet:
NeverNathan.
Nathan Calloway is the school bully. He never really talks to anyone in their class other than his two sidekicks, Jasper Miles and Ralph Smith. And when he does, it is called bullying. Because he never normally talks.
Never-normally-talking-Nathan sounds better.
Aris hasn't seen Nathan in class today. Did he even come to school? She should ask him. And maybe delete him from this group, because, well, things might not end well if he decides to text here. Besides, he probably won't text here anyway.
You know what? If Nathan doesn't come tomorrow, then she'll text him. Because texting him also means seeing the last time she texted him, which was actually the first time also.
The last and first time she ever texted him was not a very good time. She hates thinking about that time.
Aris shakes her head to get that awful memory out of her head and moves to the middle of the bed and lies there. She slowly breathes in and out and pulls her phone screen to her face and starts typing and replying to all the messages in the group chat, a smile spreading across her face as she does so.
These people make her happy. This is why she goes to school so regularly that she has achieved full attendance every semester.
Therefore, she enjoys school. But not like the way nerds do.
She honestly loves her life. Honestly.