Wear - Chapter 3

Wednesday, August 21st 2019. Wyatt and Emma woke up in the morning and attended the first class. Wyatt managed to sneak Emma out of the dorms through the back entrance, rather than the front, and get to class on time. The day had a quiet start. Most of the classmates near Wyatt still avoided him, and Emma continued to sit next to Wyatt. Jackson sat in his usual spot, minding his own business. However, he seemed irritated this morning. Shortly after their teacher, Refus Maloney entered the class, the usual students began mumbling amongst each other again. Refus was surely getting tired of this same old occurrence, but it seemed to be getting to Jackson as well. As people kept talking, they got louder and louder. Jackson was rubbing the sides of his head as if to try to soothe a headache.

“Stop talking during class” Refus says to the students, “I told you that if you really hate being here, then don’t show up. If you’re going to keep talking during class, I’ll make you stand in the hallway”.

“I wish we had a different home room teacher!” One of the students call out, “you always just-“.

“Oh my god” Jackson says as he stands up, “SHUT THE HELL UP! Not in the mood for people’s bickering! If you have a complaint about something, write it down on a piece of paper, fold it up nicely, and stick it up your ass! Clearly no one else actually cares! I swear, it’s just the same four students complaining every damn morning!”.

The students in the front row fell silent. “Jackson Lonny” Refus says, “see me after class. As for the rest of you, quiet down or you’ll be seeing the principal after class”. Jackson sits back down, still rubbing the sides of his head.

“You, uh… alright?” Wyatt asks Jackson. “Didn’t sleep or something?”.

Jackson glances at Wyatt for a quick second, sighs and then lays his head on his desk. After class ended, Jackson follows Refus out of class. They began talking just outside of the classroom door, and some of the students were trying to listen in on their conversation.

“You can’t have an outburst like that during class” Refus says to Jackson. “If you needed more sleep, you could’ve slept in and then asked for the materials to study afterwords. You can’t just try to start a fight in class”.

“Yeah, yeah” Jackson says, “I know we’re not SUPPOSED to start a fight, but quite frankly, I’m already short on patience”. Some students were peeking through the door as they spoke. Refus looks over and closes the door completely, and then has Jackson follow him down the hallway as they continue to talk.

After they got far enough away from the class, Refus asks “I know you’re a laibah too, and it probably angers you to see humans act that way, but you have to bear with it. If they found out you were a laibah, and still kept trying to pick a fight, then what do you think they’ll start imaging all the other laibah are like? Some humans still expect the laibah to start another Great War. If you give them a reason, they’ll start believing that and become more aggressive around all the other laibah. You know there are two other laibah in that class right? Aside from you and myself, that is. Think about their position right now”.

“Wait, two?” Jackson asks. “I know Emma is one, but who is the other”.

“If I told you that” Refus says, “then would you not start playing favorites?”.

“I don’t see a problem with that” Jackson says.

“The problem is blending in” Refus says. “The laibah students here already have it hard enough just trying to blend in with the humans. If you all stayed together, wouldn’t it be obvious which students are laibah, and which are human? The class would be easily segregated! I’m trying to create an actual school experience that’s fair for all of you. I’ve already given up enough just for the students, don’t make it worse than it is”.

“Wait…” Jackson asks, “given up what?”.

“Don’t worry about it” Refus says, “what’s done is done. Go get some rest, I’ll let the next teacher know to prepare study materials for you. You need to take better care of yourself”.

“Yeah…” Jackson says, looking at his feet, “Alright”.

After Refus and Jackson walk away from each other, Refus enters the teacher’s lounge. He doesn’t have a next class to teach yet, so he’s taking his break. He sits down at a table and begins to eat, and another teacher sits at his table. “I’ve heard your class has been pretty rowdy” this teacher, Quincy Daffen says.

“I wonder who’s fault that is…” Refus says sarcastically. “Because of your stupid idea, your blackmail that you passed off as ‘promoting the school’, you’ve already made my career hard enough. Can’t you at least leave me in peace during break?”.

“Leave you alone?” Quincy asks, “the school should leave you on the streets! It’s still the first week of this college term and your class is already out of control”.

“It’s because you publicly announced that this school is getting the first laibah teacher ever” Refus says. “Not only that, but you went through the trouble of telling them which teacher that was… and just to keep me from going against it, you used my students as blackmail, knowing how I feel about my job. Your deal is a shitty one, but I’m still holding up my end of the bargain”.

“Your end of the bargain?” Quincy asks.

“The deal was” Refus says, “either the whole school knows who I am, or the whole school knows which classmates are laibah. Since you’re one of the senior staff here, you easily have access to the full student roster, including information like if they’re human or not… I decided it was easier to risk my own pleasure to save that of many”.

“Your end of the bargain” Quincy says with a short laugh, “is fulfilled when you inevitably get fired for being unfit as a teacher. I’ve told you before you worked here, a laibah teacher will NEVER work out. End of story”. Quincy then stands up from the table and slowly walks away, leaving Refus to dwell on his thought alone for a while.

After the next couple classes ended, lunch period began. Emma and Wyatt got food together and sat on the roof to eat, like usual. After just a couple minutes, Jackson walks out onto the roof as well with a plate of food. Jackson yawns before he sits down. “Did you finally get your rest?” Wyatt asks.

“Are you trying to be friendly just to annoy me?” Jackson asks, “or do you just like annoying me in general?”.

“Sorry I asked…” Wyatt says in a disappointed tone.

“Can’t you two get along?” Emma asks quietly. “We’re all obviously here to get away from the other people. The roof is a secluded enough spot for that, the least we could do is get along with each other”.

“Holy shit, she speaks in actual sentences” Jackson says. “When did you become the vocal type?”.

“I’m just… trying… to help” Emma says quietly.

Wyatt sighs and says “she’s right. If there’s something I did that rubbed you the wrong way, let me know. The least we could do is start from square one with each other and try to get along. I mean, the other students in our class aren’t exactly… the friendly type”.

“I’M not the friendly type” Jackson says, “and what you did to ‘rub me the wrong way’ is continue to talk”.

“Well… I tried” Wyatt says.

“Oh come on” Emma says, “you two… ah… never mind”.

“I can find other friends” Jackson says. “Preferably quieter ones. I could use less socializing”.

Emma takes a deep exhale of disappointment. Before long, they were done eating and began to leave. Jackson was the last to leave. As Jackson walks down several flights of stairs, back to the first floor, he walked past someone who was eating alone on the bottom step. She was from their class, and had short black hair, light blue eyes, wore glasses and a beanie cap. She seemed peculiarly quiet, and Jackson recognized her immediately because she sits just a couple chairs ahead of Jackson in class. Her name was Aeris Lyriat. Jackson turns around and looks at the girl, “Hey, you” he says. The girl looks up at him with a confused look. “I wanna talk real quick”.

After they arrive back in class, Wyatt notices that Aeris changed her seats and was sitting at the desk right in front of Jackson now. They seemed to be talking quietly to each other, and Wyatt thought to himself “He sure got a new friend pretty quick. I wonder why he wasn’t willing to do that with us…”. They stopped talking once the teacher walked in the classroom, and the next few classes ended without much else going on. After school ended, Emma and Wyatt sneak back into Wyatt’s dorm again. “I’ve gotta head to work” Wyatt says to Emma. “Are you going anywhere tonight? I can give you the key so you can lock the door and get back in whenever you want”.

Emma shakes her head ‘No’ and says “I’m going to be working on clothing for now. I need to make a new uniform before the girls start picking on me again”.

“Don’t listen to them” Wyatt says, “they don’t know what they’re talking about”.

Emma shakes her head ‘No’ again and says “Even if they were mean about it, they were right. I do need more than one school uniform so I can stay clean”. Emma then thinks to herself “It’ll be harder to blend in with humans if I keep looking this suspicious”.

“Well…” Wyatt says, “that’s up to you. Anyways, I’ll be back when my shift is over”.

Emma nods her head and says “Okay!”.

Wyatt leaves, and a few hours later, comes home from Out & About. When he comes home, Wyatt looks tired. Emma, on the other hand, looked focused and energized. She was still working on stitching new clothes together. When Wyatt enters the dorm room, she says “Welcome back” without looking up at Wyatt.

“Still working?” Wyatt asks. “Don’t you ever get tired?” Wyatt then laughs a little.

“I like making clothes” Emma says. “It’s my hobby”.

“Well, I’m about ready to fall asleep” Wyatt says, “do you want me to leave the light on for you?”.

Emma looks up and says “Oh! No, no! That’s fine. I can see in the dark”. Emma then realizes what she said and then says “W-What I mean is, the moonlight is plenty bright for me. You can turn off the lights if that makes it easier for you to sleep”.

“Are you sure?” Wyatt asks. Emma nods her head and then Wyatt turns off the light and begins to sleep. As Wyatt sleeps, Emma works throughout the night on stitching. When Wyatt wakes up the next morning, Emma was sound asleep. He tried calling to her lightly to see if she would wake up, but she was totally out. Before Wyatt begins to take a shower, he lifts up her head and slips a pillow underneath her. He then covers her with his blanket, and then quietly tip-toes into the bathroom. Emma spent too much time, staying up and working on clothes, and didn’t wake up this morning. Wyatt goes to class without her, to let her sleep. It wasn’t until just before lunch period that Emma came to the classroom. The teacher had just left, and the students were getting ready to leave for lunch. Emma sticks her head into the class, and immediately Wyatt notices her. She was squinting angrily at Wyatt, as if to ask “Why didn’t you wake me up!?”. Emma and Wyatt go get food and eat together on the rooftop. When they get there, Jackson was already there with someone else. It was Aeris.

“One more for the group of misfits?” Wyatt asks as he and Emma sit down to eat.

“This is Aeris” Jackson says. “Also, funny you should mention ‘group of misfits’. You know what they call us, right?”.

“Who calls what?” Wyatt asks.

“The rest of the class is spreading rumors about us” Jackson says, “more specifically, all of the students that sit in the back of class. They call us the rejects”.

“I’m… not very surprised” Wyatt says. “But Aeris doesn’t sit in the back, usually, so is she included?”.

Aeris stares at her feet as Jackson says “I’m assuming they just included her, because she began sitting in the back of class today. You know how these dumb h-… people are with rumors”.

“There’s also one other person who sits in the back though, isn’t there?” Wyatt asks.

“Yeah” Emma says, “she sits close to us. She’s been quiet”.

“Then I’m sure she’s a part of the rejects group already” Jackson says.

Wyatt laughs and says “Maybe we should get her to eat with us too. Apparently we’re a club or something now, and this is like our club meeting spot”.

Aeris and Emma both laugh, and Jackson asks “Why do I put up with you?”.

“What was the other girls name?” Emma asks. “I never really… talk to anyone else in class”.

“Correction” Jackson says, “you rarely ever talked until recently”.

“Some people are just shy or need time to get used to people” Wyatt says.

“I swear” Jackson argues, “every time you talk, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. Can you stop?”.

“I thought I was helping, shit” Wyatt says.

“I think her name was Jessica or something” Aeris says. “If I remember correctly. I never talked to them, but I think I heard someone call out her name once”.

“Are you guys actually planning on making this like a club or something?” Jackson asks.

“Why not?” Wyatt asks. “They’ve dealt us a shitty hand, why not roll with what we’ve got? Also, the more the merrier, I guess… or whatever”.

“Or whatever” Jackson says as he sighs. “Look, I get it. You guys wanna find a place for yourselves to fit in during the first part of school. Even if you can’t fit in with the rest. That’s cool, I get it. But why are you just automatically including me into this equation?”.

“The more… the merrier?” Emma asks. Aeris giggles at what Emma says.

“Well, you’re a reject too, aren’t you?” Wyatt asks.

Jackson sighs and says “You don’t know the half of it”.

The rest of the school day ends. Emma stays at the dorm and continues to work on stitching while Wyatt goes to work. When Wyatt comes back, Emma was holding something behind her back. “I finished it!” Emma says gleefully. Emma takes the new school uniform out from behind her back. It looked as good as a new pair of clothes just bought from a store. “Ta-Da!” She says.

“That’s amazing!” Wyatt says. “I can’t believe how good it looks”. Emma just smiles at the compliment and Wyatt says “You make a really good clothier! Why don’t you get paid more for the stuff you make? You always seem to only get a little bit of change”.

“Well… uh” Emma says, “I’m not worried about how much I get… for the ones that don’t fit me”.

“How much of it doesn’t fit?” Wyatt asks.

“Kind of… all of it” Emma says, defeated.

“Does your uniform fit you?” Wyatt asks. “It wouldn’t be very good if it doesn’t”.

“Sure it does” Emma says, “I made sure to take measurements and work carefully this time! Wanna see?”.

“No! No, no, no, no, no” Wyatt says, “I’ll take your word for it… just don’t-“.

“I was going to change in… the bathroom” Emma interrupts, “what were you thinking?”.

“Ah, uh… nothing!” Wyatt says. “Of course you were, I just mean… uh-“.

“Anyways” Emma says, “you can see it tomorrow when we go to class. Tomorrow’s Friday, right?”.

“Yeah, almost our first weekend of college” Wyatt says. “This week has really dragged on… the past few days have felt really long”.

Emma giggles and says “Well let’s see what us rejects can do tomorrow. Maybe we can figure out how many students are in our class that just need people to talk to, like us”.

“Yeah” Wyatt says, “I wouldn’t doubt we’d find at least one. Everyone needs someone”.

“Yeah” Emma says, her voice lightening, “yeah we do…”.