Erik had to stay after his final class for the day was over, even though school was now out for the day. He only hoped that the teacher wouldn't keep him too late, he had to get to work, since his work schedule revolved around his school schedule. Since it was spring break and today was the final day of finals, which kicked off spring break for the entire school district. That meant that his work schedule just got that much more demanding, since he was working three jobs. Spring break didn't mean time to rest and have fun, it meant extra hours and with it, extra pay.
They really needed the money, since it seemed the cost of living in this town was higher than anywhere else they had lived. Food and especially necessities, like diapers and formula for Tyler, were so expensive. His meager pay from the grocery store, combined with his employee discount, barely made a dent in the cost of those things. It was almost cheaper to go to a big supermarket and purchase these things from there.
But the problem was that if they went to a big store, that would require practically having your shopping habits scrutinized with a microscope. Then you might as well have every single camera in the store monitoring you because you fit the description in their anti-theft AI program. It was just asking to have a target on your back for no reason.
Well, it wasn't really for no reason, he and his sisters had, in the past, stolen diapers and formula for their siblings when they were desperate. Sometimes they stole the less desirable foods from these kinds of stores, like a bruised apple, or a last day markdown of discounted meat that was questionable in its quality by that point. It was only done out of desperation.
They had all gone hungry for a couple of days to save as much money as possible, especially if one of them got sick. Thankfully, though, his mom was really knowledgeable with nursing and could help them more at home than an expensive doctor. That doctor would just tell them to eat more and get more rest, as if they could afford those luxuries on top of what the outrageous price of seeing them was.
After listening to his teacher talk out of his ass for the last 10 minutes, he anxiously looked at the clock. It was starting to cut his window close for the safety margin of catching the city bus to his work. His bus pass had cost his mom a lot of their remaining funds from the move, so their budget for food and anything else was extremely tight right now. He needed to make sure he wasn't docked a single cent from his paychecks if they were to survive this month.
Finally, the teacher let him go, with the lecture that his finals were invalid and that there was no point in him even having taken them in the first place. By taking them so recently after joining the school and entering this class, they were not going to affect his grades since he didn't have any previous to this. He just tuned him out. He had found the finals for all his classes, rather too easy, having studied it all before in previous schools.
It was almost laughable what was being taught here and how. It was like they expected the students to only be capable of the most basic of any subject. Nothing he had learned was new to him, and in fact had been covered at least a dozen different ways from every school he had ever attended from the time he was a freshman.
After being allowed to leave, Erik was hurrying through the breezeways, and shivered as the cold breeze promised rain on the horizon. This school's design sucked so bad. Why were there outdoor corridors for a school in an area that supposedly received a ton of rain? He had to question the sanity of the person that okayed this design, however long ago this school had been built. Hearing a large group of unruly students nearby, Erik paused for a moment, unwilling to run into another potential problem when he was already worried about running late for the bus.
He was curious, who these students were talking down to, was. They kept referring to the person as a Lion and going on about sports. He wasn't familiar with the sports teams in this area and really didn't have time to care about them when he had more important things to do. Deciding to turn around and seek an alternative way to get past this group of students, he took a chance on the intersecting T of the breezeway he had passed moments before. He wanted nothing to do with the potential trouble of those loudmouths confronting whoever was soft-spoken enough that they were getting bullied, even if he was curious. It would do him no good to stick his nose in someone else's issue.
As he hurried through the breezeway, he found the alternative route to where he needed to go in these maze-like corridors. It was a long way around, but he was sure that if he hurried, he could get out to the bus without any further delays. Not paying too much attention to the blind corners of these narrow passages, he bumped into someone. Someone with a soft chest. He looked up and immediately flushed as he realized just who that soft chest had belonged to. He didn't know if it was better or worse that the person was none other than the girl that had proclaimed them to be friends, just the other day.
She immediately greeted him with that bright smile he was starting to grow accustomed to. He immediately was going to apologize, but she beat him to the punch and apologized first! He didn't think he would ever get used to her apologizing to him, of all people.
Mumbling his own apology, since he really hadn't been paying attention when he bumped into her, he tried not to look into her beautiful eyes…. 'Stop that! No good will come from thinking like that! Do you want to jeopardize this new friendship by being a creep?!' He scolded himself as he looked down at his feet. He wished he wasn't dressed so shabbily, but he didn't exactly have a lot of clothes. So as to not get them dirty or torn, his only good pair of pants and uniform shirt, that he wore for work, were in his old beat-up backpack along with his school books.
"So, uh, how are you liking this school so far? Are your sisters doing okay? Are you getting more familiar with the community and finding your way around the city? If you have any questions for the best hang-out spots, I'll gladly share them. Alli and Chloe would have fun if you joined us occasionally too." She sounded like she was nervous and rambling, so he looked up at her. That was a mistake. Her eyes were sparkling, and she was shining so brilliantly in the shaft of light that had managed to penetrate the dimly lit breezeway. She looked like an angel or a goddess of some kind. It was almost criminal how pretty she was.
"The school isn't bad, but some teachers are a pain. I really hate my History teacher, he seems to think that my taking the finals so soon after transferring was a complete waste of his time. But if I could pick a favorite teacher, it would be my Health and PE teacher. He seems so chill, especially compared to my uptight Government teacher. As for finding my way around town and my sisters, we're slowly getting used to this place. We can navigate just fine…" He didn't mention the hang-out spots that she mentioned, since he didn't have the luxury to spend time hanging out.
"Oh? Who do you have for Health?" She seemed genuinely curious.
"A Mr. Edevane. He seems so laid back, and he's funny too! He makes the lessons fun for everyone. I never thought I'd see a teacher be such a jokester! He's really easy to talk to as well. It makes me wish all my teachers were like him. He never once seemed like he was trying to discourage me from taking the final in his class, even though I've only been here a couple of weeks. He was really awesome about giving me the information I needed to study for, to catch up with his class. Thankfully, most of it was stuff I already have studied at my previous school." Erik found himself just easily speaking to Liona again.
He didn't know what it was about her or Mr. Edevane, but both of them always put him at ease. To his surprise, Liona let out a boisterous laugh that echoed up and down the near empty breezeway. He looked around, afraid that they were going to be scolded or accused of disturbing the few remaining students lingering in the halls.