In the Halls

He had never been fond of school, the swirling, crowded hallways, a hundred faces moving past, none ever seeming to notice him being tossed about by the crowd. The cafeteria, stuffed to capacity with hungry teenagers bustling about, the space’s air polluted by the heavy smell of the food being served. Even in the depths of the library he couldn’t escape the masses, and so he avoided the public places, taking longer routes to classes to stay away from the busier halls, carrying his lunch in a paper bag all day and eating on the curb outside, using his afternoons up in the public library rather than spend his free period in the school’s.

To say he disliked school was a lie, to say he disliked people though, that at times was true. He excelled in classes and even enjoyed some of them, but the crowds, the feel of foreign bodies knocking against him, the smell of overused cologne and dizzying fruit-scented lip gloss assaulting his senses, the sounds of girls gossiping, friends laughing, and the hurried apologies of a poor freshman girl as she knocked into a particularly cute boy she admired filled his ears, and the sight of the varying colors and textures of clothing, hair, and skin flashing around him was enough to give him a headache and make him wish he had an Aspirin on him.  

And today was no different for Morgan, since that was his name, except today might be considered worse than usual since he had a rather annoying senior by the name of Michael McFee following him around. Mike, as he was known among his friends, knew him through his friendship with Morgan’s older sister Cassie, who was a junior this year, and it was utter coincidence that Morgan’s best friend Ian, who was a sophomore like himself, was Mike’s younger brother. Some might find this quite funny, but at present Morgan was a little too irritated by Mike’s feminine prattle in his high-pitched voice to consider anything humorous.

“I mean I don’t see what her problem is! Hell, you’d think I’d done something bad the way she slapped me,” Mike whined, rubbing his sore cheek.

Morgan grunted slightly as a sign he was paying some small amount of attention to what the upperclassman was saying and Michael continued to spew garbage and gossip as they walked on.