I ended up not even eating the lunch that I had gotten for myself. I didn't feel hungry anymore after that little scene in the cafeteria. I can't believe that those idiots thought that about me. I mean, seriously!? What the hell was wrong with them? What major malfunction did they have going on inside of their brains? Whatever it was, it had to be something that was quite debilitating for them. One day, that problem of theirs was going to catch up to them and they will be crying about how they were supposed to fix it all.
I barely paid attention in my class that afternoon. That was how pissed off I still was. I knew what I needed to study and what was going on, but aside from that, I didn't really care at all. I just wrote it down in my binder and stormed out of the class when it was all done and over with. I didn't think about school again for the rest of the day. I just wanted to forget and relax. That was my best option at the moment.
Better yet, I was going to go to the garage. I was going to go work on my car. The one that Dad was giving me for my graduation present. What better way to work off stress than to do what I loved the most? I couldn't think of one and I doubted that one existed at all.
I took the same path out of the school that I always did. I got on the same bus that I usually did. And I took it all the way to the stop that I usually got off at. That was how I got home all the time. And just like yesterday, I didn't notice that someone was looking at me. I probably would never notice that someone was silently watching me at school like that.
Whether I noticed this person or not wasn't my concern at the moment. Considering the fact that I didn't even know that it was happening it really didn't matter at all. What did matter was that I was in my happy place. This was my safe zone. The one place that I could wholly and truly be myself. I was finally in my 'home'.
"Alex, you're here earlier than expected." Everett called out to me from the back of the garage when I walked in. "I didn't expect you for a little while longer."
"I only had one class this afternoon. So, I didn't need to linger around there at all." I went straight to the car that I had been working on with a smile on my face.
"And you're not going to be lingering here either. You're going to get your ass out of here." I heard an all too familiar voice call out to me from across the garage.
When I spun around I saw that my dad was marching across the work space directly toward me. He didn't look very happy with me right now and I didn't know why.
"What the hell, Dad? What is going on here?" I called out in my confusion as he grabbed my arm and dragged me back over to the door.
"You should know, Alex. You have a project to do and you're procrastinating. You are just trying to skip out on your work by being here. I know you don't like that assignment that you were given, but you're going to do it whether you like it or not. That's what it means to be an adult. You do the work given to you by your boss. You need to understand that."
"I know that, Dad. I do. So, stop acting like I am doing something shady and illegal. I can start work on that assignment tomorrow." I tried to reason with him but he was too busy pushing me out of the building.
"No Alex. If I let you wait, then you will never do it. You need to just get it done and over with. You are smart, I know that if you just stopped whining you will have it all done by the morning. You don't have any classes tomorrow as it is. Just go do your damned research and get it over with. Then you can relax and recuperate tomorrow. You can even call me an evil bastard and use me as a character outline if you need to, but you're going to be doing that damned paper tonight. Do you understand me?" I had never seen my dad this angry with me. What the hell had happened to him? Why was he acting like this?
"But Dad, I-."
"No buts." He interrupted me. "The bus will be here in about two minutes. Make sure you are on it, or I will drive your ass to the library myself." He meant that. I could tell that he did. I just didn't know why he had meant it.
"Yeah Dad, I get it." I resigned myself to my fate.
I turned away from him and hurried to the bus stop back to the library. This was not a very pleasant feeling for me right now. I didn't want to think about school. I didn't want to be at school. I didn't want to have anything to do with this school for the rest of the night. However, I had no choice.
I knew that the stubborn ass that was my father would not back down. It didn't matter what had happened to me through the day or anything like that. He would tell me that I was stronger than that and I shouldn't let it get to me. He would be right of course, I never usually let things like this bother me at all. I was a strong and independent woman that could handle her own. I would see to it that I got this assignment done in no time at all.
Yeah, that is what I needed to do. I would make sure that I wrote the best rewrite, and I would do it in record time. That was the type of effort that I usually put into things like this. I needed to just dominate this. I was stronger than this assignment. I was stronger than those bitches from the cafeteria. I was stronger than it all, and I was not going to mope or complain about it at all. That was not like me.
I just kept telling myself these things while I got back on the bus and steadied myself for the coming hours. I settled into my seat and put on my headphones to block out the world and started to think about which fairy tale I found to be the least nauseating. And then there was that book that Professor Quill told me about. 'Unconventional Fairy Tales'. That might help me too, if I could find it, that is.