Holly's History

Copyright Julia Bydulia.

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The classroom felt small and sticky. Holly could feel herself sweating.

He was standing at the front of the room, his tie loose around his neck, holding the meter stick and using it as a pointer. She smiled despite herself at the way he almost spun when he turned around to write notes on the white board.

In front of her, DJ was sitting with her head down, surely scribbling something that had nothing to do with history, the subject of the class they were in the middle of. Behind her, she knew that Chris was sitting with one leg stuck out into the aisle, the other folded up under him as he intently took notes between drawing Pokemon.

The day was bright. Holly sat right next to the window, so it felt like she was in limbo between two completely separate worlds. One with bright green grass, mellow skies, and almost eerie murders of crows gathered; the other with tan, speckled ceiling tiles, tiled linoleum floors, twenty-two indetical chairs and a wall spattered with posters on famous African-Americans.

Her notebook was open and covered in song lyrics that were running through her head. She wrote the artist's name in bold, block letters and ran her fingers through her hair, looking up every so often to capture him in her vision and keep the image in her head.

There was a bass line pumping through her veins. She let it leak out through her pencil and let go of the notes she was supposed to be taking. There were days for history and there were days for this...whatever it was.

The classroom felt small and sticky. Holly could feel herself sweating.

Holly felt a lot of things. Everything and nothing, all at once.