·Ray· (Age 14, 9th Grade)

Ray was lowkey done with everything and highkey done with everything. Especially his mom. And school. Both of those things seemed to have been created to vex him.

He wasn't even going to start on the English thing, nope, as far as he was concerned, that class could turn into a human and fuck itself. Or fuck Mr. Charcoal, the English teacher, Ray wasn't going to be picky. He hated both of them. And he did not like the fact that English was his next class, at all.

Not even the fact that some of the cutest guys of the grade were in that class could cheer him up--Mr. Charcoal would keep Ray so busy answering questions on Romeo and Juliet that he wouldn't have time to secretly gawk at them.

Damn that old man.

Ray trudged into English, lowkey burying his face in the collar of his trademark blue hoodie. He didn't have that big of a bust (luckily), but the hooded jacket helped keep any breast that might have been visible out of sight.

"Good afternoon, Miss Stella." Mr. Charcoal greeted with a sly smile. Ray cast the teacher a half disturbed, half bored glance and went to his desk, near the middle of the room. He put his dark purple backpack down next to the chair and sat down, leaning harshly against the back of the seat in an attempt to crack his back. More students filed in as Ray leaned down and opened his bag, withdrawing his English book.

He put it on his desk, then stared blankly at the board, waiting for the familiar bell that signalled another soul-sucking hour of English.

Ray absentmindedly reached up and played with the uniform edges of his bob-cut, deep in thought about random things.

The bell rang (interrupting a particularly interesting train of thought on what would happen if you fed a penguin pasta), and Ray jumped a little bit, blinking to clear the haze in his eyes.

Mr. Charcoal started talking about something and Ray pretended to be absorbed in whatever was written on the white board. He honestly couldn't have read it if he was trying, but then again, he wasn't. He was trying to remember what the hell he had been thinking about a few seconds ago. Screw his terrible memory.

Ray was jerked back to reality once again as Mr. Charcoal slapped a ruler against the board next to the intelligible writing.

"As you all know," He was saying, "Finals are in two weeks."

There were a few groans, but most of the class stayed quiet, not chancing it. Mr. Charcoal was trigger happy when it came to giving detentions.

"And since we've already spent so much time reading Romeo and Juliet, and I don't want to force you to read a whole 'nother story, I've decided that the test will be on Shakespeare's tragedy." Mr. Charcoal continued, picking up a black dry-erase marker and turning to write something new on the board.

"Great, more of this 'romantic tragedy' bullshit." Ray muttered. His cheeks grew warm when he realized how loud he had said that. The kids around him laughed. Mr. Charcoal didn't even turn around.

"Detention, Miss Stella, today, after school." He said, capping the marker and turning to the class with a smile. Ray swore he smirked at him.

"Now, we're going to re-read the fifth act, just to make sure that you understand what happened."

Ray groaned quietly and wished for the day to be over already.