Emily didn't need to turn the corner to know how late she was.

She urged her legs from a light jog into a full sprint. The enormous canvas tote bag on her shoulder slammed uncomfortably into her right hip with each stride. Her lungs burned as the book bag on her back became an anchor dragging her down.

The sound of the bus engine rumbling to life increased her heart rate more than the cardio. Panting, the fire in her lungs traveled into her thighs as the lactic acid accumulated in her muscles.

"Oh no!" she choked out between ragged breaths.

The distinctive hiss of the hydraulics closing the doors came next and Emily blew out her own air while she doubled her efforts.

She careened around the brick building that blocked her view a moment earlier to see the brake lights were off now too. The traffic light turned green and the massive black wheels rolled away from the curb.

"Wait!" she called out in a voice that was too small, caught in her dry mouth. Swallowing her last bit of saliva, she finally bellowed "NO!"

The passengers turned towards the windows to gawk at her, as the 6:50am bus pulled away.

Emily collapsed onto the cement in disgust.

"Don't freak out! Do not let this ruin your entire day! It's just a bus. It's just one late day," she mumbled between gasps.

She mopped her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand as her heart drummed against her ribs.

Twenty minutes for the next bus... I don't need to pick myself up off the ground just yet...

Lounging back on top of her bags, Emily closed her eyes and felt the gritty concrete like sandpaper against her legs.

It's a small discomfort compared to the alternative...

Emily pushed the irritation aside so she could regain her composure and catch her breath while her heart rate slowed.

Soon a business-suit clad commuter, distracted by his phone, narrowly avoided trampling the unexpected human obstacle in his path to the subway steps.

"What the?" he exclaimed.

Emily's eyes popped open to see him glaring at her. Some coffee from his travel mug had sloshed onto his shirt.

He looks... Annoyed... I should apologize...

But then his face changed. "Well good morning to me!" He smiled and winked.

Emily looked down at her light blue uniform skirt to discover it bunched up on her hip, trapped under her tote bag.

The thin fabric must have shifted up with each running step I made during my attempt to catch the bus... Now this creep has a perfect view of my underwear!

Quickly pulling her skirt down and herself up, she yelled at his retreating back, "Perv!"

But it was pointless. The crowd streaming down into the dirty depths of the R train had already completely swallowed him.

Might as well make the most of the wait...

She took out her chemistry notebook to flip through her hastily scrawled review for the upcoming exam.

"The strength of chemical bonds can vary considerably and is determined by how much energy it takes to break the atoms apart..."

Eyes glazed over, her mind continued to store the information.

Or maybe it was the other way around and her mind turned off while her eyes followed the loops and lines of the ink on the page to etch them into the curves and coils of her brain matter.

Emily was never quite sure how the process of learning worked for her.

If a topic intrigued her, then her brain became a sponge soaking itself in all of the information, endeavoring to absorb everything possible there was to know about it. Then she could recall the most minuscule detail or factoid about it, as if she had just discovered it ten minutes earlier, even if it had actually been ten years.

But when disinterested in something, she struggled.

Inevitably she relied on her visual memory to regurgitate the data that people wanted from her and only held onto it for as long as she needed to. After that, she wrung it out like dirty dishwater.

Sometimes that process made a big mess.

But over the years Emily had gotten a lot of practice at it, and became much better at complying with the expectations around her, able to regurgitate what she knew adults wanted to hear.

She turned the page with a sigh.

Chemistry is definitely my weakest subject... I just can't seem to fully grasp why certain atoms are attracted to some elements and not others... That's why I gave up trying to understand it in the beginning of the year...

So Emily waited for the bus and read the rest of the sloppy notes, without really processing the information before her.

Her purpose was to simply memorize the words on the pages like a script.

An hour and twenty minutes later Emily walked into her first period, handed the late slip to the teacher, and then steered over to her best friend.

Jenny sat at their preferred table near the fireplace. She handed Emily a copy of the review packet the class was working on and pointed at the extra-large tote Emily placed at their feet. "Is that what I think it is?"

Emily kicked it. "Yep. I finally decided to go to Dad's new place for Memorial Day weekend. This freaking bag is way too big for my locker. Needless to say I'm regretting my decision already."

Jenny crinkled her blue eyes and admitted with a chuckle, "I thought I saw you in a heap on the sidewalk as the bus drove away."

"You could have asked the driver to wait." Emily swatted Jenny on the arm with the papers.

Jenny shrugged. "The city bus waits for no man, or woman, as the case may be."

"Anyway... because I waited until this morning to make up my mind, I needed to add packing to my regular routine. And you know what an involved process packing is for me." Emily sighed.

Jenny unzipped Emily's tote bag and peeked into the top. "You mean your penchant for trying to figure out multiple permutations of outfits for every occasion?" She raised her eyebrows.

Emily leaned over and zipped the bag closed again with a smirk. "So then, of course my bag was too heavy, and that slowed me down. To top it all off, some middle-aged guy saw my underwear. So it hasn't exactly been the best morning ever."

The folded hem of Emily's skirt rubbed back and forth against her hand.

Jenny's expression softened to a look of genuine concern. "Cheer up Em. I'm sure it won't be so bad this weekend. Now tell me how exactly some man saw your undies?!"

Tapping the sheets together into a neat stack, Emily looked over the pages. "How about we work on question two and I'll tell you about my peep show later?"