Sam

"Teachers and students, please excuse this interruption. I need Samantha Wyatt to report to the principal's office. Samantha Wyatt, to the principal's office please."

God dammit.

When I'm called to the office over the intercom in the middle of first period, right away I know I'm in trouble. I'm also pretty sure that it has to do with the fact that I'm not in my first period class. I never even checked in for attendance. Instead, I have been hiding in the boys' bathroom in the science wing, quietly reading a book for the past twenty minutes.

My only regret is that I only had twenty minutes.

I briefly consider ignoring my summons, but then decide that it's not worth it. I've been caught, and it's my own fault for thinking that I could stealthily skip class this early in the school year.

Sighing, I close my book and exit the bathroom, trudging to the office in defeat.

------------

The high school principal is a huge bearded guy named Mr. Suss (pronounced like "Seuss"). The first thing I asked him when he invited me into his office was if he had ever considered getting his doctorate, just for shits and giggles.

"Cause you know, then you'd be Dr. Seuss," I added when he didn't laugh. Unsurprisingly, he still wasn't amused.

"Samantha, what makes you think that it's okay to just not go to class?" He asks me, as I sit on the other side of his large desk, staring down at my shoes in pretend shame. "Do you realize that this would have made your fifth detention in two days? I would have had to call your parents personally, and on only the second day of school!"

My head snaps up. "What do you mean 'would have'?" I ask. "You're not going to call them?" Is there hope for me after all?

He leans back in his chair, giving me a familiar sympathetic look. "Well, I've spoken to the principal of your middle school. Apparently, you had a bit of an attendance problem there as well. As I understand it, your teachers were very flexible with you. They all seemed to agree that you had depression."

Ah, yes. Yet another reason why I have always been despised by nearly everyone in my grade. In addition to being a quasi goth, antisocial freak with an equally weird twin, I always seemed to get away with murder throughout middle school.

After I got my....thing....in seventh grade, I fell into a horrible depression. There were some days when I only showed up to half of my classes, and hid in the bathroom for the rest. Some days, I didn't go to class at all. I remember waiting for the day when one of my teachers would call me out on my constant ditching, or when my parents would receive a threatening letter from my principal. But that day never came. All I ever got were sympathetic nods from my teachers and free passes on homework and tests.

To this day, I can only assume it was something that Rose did.

"So what, I don't have detention then?" I ask.

Mr. Suss leans forward again, looking as if he has thought a great deal about what he's going to say. "Here's the thing, Samantha-"

"Just Sam is fine."

"Oh. Alright then, Sam. In light of everything I have learned recently, I've decided that starting high school on this kind of note wouldn't do you any good."

I nod, waiting for the catch.

"So I've spoken to your teachers, and we've agreed to disregard any trouble you got into yesterday-"

"Woah, really-?!"

"As long as," he emphasizes. "You make an effort to stay out of trouble from this point forward. Your teachers have agreed to keep your depression in mind if they think you're having an attitude, but our understanding will only go so far. This is high school. Whatever personal issues you have, it would be nice if you practiced leaving them at home. Understood?"

I nod enthusiastically, still hardly able to believe that something good was actually happening to me. "Yes sir," I added, for effect. Satisfied, he dismisses me.

And like the good little kid I am, I report straight to my first period class.

-----------

Rose

I was enjoying another peaceful art class when, out of nowhere, Sam's name is called over the intercom. At the sound of my twin's name, all eyes in the room immediately go to me.

I keep my head down, but out of the corner of my eye I can see the girls at the next table launch into a heated whisper session, no doubt theorizing about what trouble "that Samantha Wyatt" has gotten herself into this early in the year.

At my own table, Kelsey knows well enough to keep her mouth shut, but Brianna isn't as smart. "Woah, what's she done now?" She asks, semi-rhetorically. "Skipping class already?"

I'm positive that that's whats happened, but I don't want to talk about it. "Just leave it please," I mutter. Kelsey shoots Bri a glare and she doesn't press the issue.

I pray to whatever god may exist that Sam isn't in huge trouble. No matter how much I lecture him about it, he's never been good about the whole "attending class" thing. I managed to keep the teachers off his ass in middle school by telling them all that he had severe depression (which wasn't really a lie at the time), but I sincerely doubt that high school teachers will be so understanding. 

My nervous worrying is interrupted suddenly by the slim shadow of Miss Vaughn over my paper. "How's it going over here, George?" She asks, in that silky sweet voice that I envy so much. "Done already?"

"Um, yeah," I respond with my head down, simultaneously avoiding her gaze and analyzing my work. Today, she said that she wanted us to pick any object in the room and sketch it from the perspective of where we were sitting. Most of my classmates spent twenty minutes alone trying to decide what to draw, but for me it was simple: Miss Vaughn has a vase on her desk with a single rose in it.

She kneels down next to me to look at my drawing, and I can't help but feel embarrassed by it. The vase is too bulbous in the center and much too narrow at the top, and the grapevine designs at the bottom aren't to scale. I tried to capture the distortion of the flower's stem as it is viewed through the water, but it turned out looking crooked instead of magnified. The petals are too symmetrical. Overall, it looks like shit.

I brace myself for the toughest criticism, but instead Miss Vaughn's voice is filled with awe again. "Oh this is marvelous, George! Absolutely stunning. Such magnificent shading....class, look at this."

Dammit, not again. I sink into my seat as my classmates glance up with hardly-concealed bitterness. Miss Vaughn may be astounded by my drawings, but these kids have been sitting in art classes with me for years. I'm sure they long ago grew tired of art teachers always using my work for examples, putting my skills on display. As if I'm some kind of prodigy (which some teachers have even sworn that I am). Even Kelsey and Bri, although they try to act supportive, seem to get jealous sometimes.

When Miss Vaughn finishes showing off my art to the entire class, I take it back from her eagerly. I think she noticed my embarrassment, because she doesn't say anymore about it.

However, when the bell rings for second period, she hands me an orange pamphlet before I walk out the door. "It's for the district-wide art contest," she explains. "The community art center hosts one every year, and the winning piece gets a two thousand dollar prize..."

She goes on about it and I smile and nod along, as if I haven't received this same pamphlet every year, from every one of my art teachers since the third grade. And when she finally let's me go, I do the same thing with this pamphlet that I did with all the others.

Halfway down the hall, I crumple it up and throw it in the trash.