The next day, when she got up with chicken hair, making herself an instant coffee, Lance was already showered and reading the leaflet again on the couch. He looked up, stunned at her dizzy appearance.
"Did you cut your hair?" he asked.
Yesterday it was until her lower back, now it barely reached her shoulder, and after sleeping it was all over the place. With the weight, she lost until now, she looked more curvy than average girls, but she looked surprisingly good if not wearing her pajamas or jogging suit.
She spotted the black school uniform, her full breasts filling her white blouse beautifully. Just her expression looked neither alive nor dead, moving like a zombie.
"Yeah, it's more convenient like this."
Besides having had her hair short since she was a child in her original world, she would never admit that she was also scared that some teenage girl would randomly go crazy pulling her long hair out. Naturally, this could happen now too, but the range of attacks would be shorter.
He heard her muttering under her breath.
"Do you have some misgivings about teenagers? What happened in your generation?"
She looked up confused, so she spoke out loud what she thought. It was embarrassing, but it couldn't be helped; if you live alone for so long, not communicating with anybody, your thoughts become your voice and your voice becomes your thoughts.
"I'm freaking out—to have to go to school again. Back in my time, they were all monsters, I tell you."
It was hilarious that she just accepted the role of an elder; he had just joked with her. He didn't really think 34 was that old to speak from different generations. Then to add the crazy hairstyle and this sentence coming from a tender fifteen-year-old with a big black cup full of coffee.
She pulled a headband out of nowhere and pulled her hair into a messy, short ponytail.
"Don't be nervous; you can even get rid of one of them today." He grinned evilly. "Don't speak like that about your future wife, young man." She said casually, continuing.
"Do you have everything? Go ahead, and I'll go a little after you. If someone sees you coming out of the same building as I do in the future, just say you live with your cousin and have never seen me."
He got goosebumps from being reprimanded about an illusory wife. He shook himself in irritation and followed with a "Yeah, yeah," to her reminder.
Finally, he left, as if running away. Even though he believed her whole story and reasoning, he had moments like just now where a little soft voice in his head reminded him: 'That woman is crazy, run away.' Believing themselves to be characters in a book were nothing to do this fast. Still, he obediently walked to school and waited a bit before the gate. Paige waited ten minutes before following. The school was just a twenty-minute walk away, or 3 stations with the bus for rich school kids in this area. She was already tense, so she didn't take the bus, trying to procrastinate meeting the other kids.
Arriving at the tall gate of the high-end school, a mix of modern and old architecture, she was still a bit surprised by the small size. It wasn't as big as she had expected, making it more convenient for spreading rumors or bullying.
If there were as many people as at a university, then everyone had too much to do in their own group to care about what X said about Y at the other end of the campus.
She spotted Lance, who languidly leaned against the gate, getting flirty looks from the girls walking past him. Nodding at each other secretly like some special agents, she led the way, him following a few meters behind her. She walked through the little open green compound, going through the wide entrance door of the school building.
Looking at the big staircase before her, she narrowed her eyes at it, the culprit of the first scene.