School on a Thursday is a stale cake. The way the frosting gets plasticky and hurts your teeth, the way the cake itself crumbles under your fork, that’s how Thursdays behave.

So, on this one particular Thursday, the one after the supposed blizzard that turned out to be nothing more than a flurry and only closed school for a two-hour delay, it was no surprise to me when I opened my locker and found a cake.

It was a real cake, but stale from being left overnight. I knew exactly who it was from, and what it was meant to say, but none of that mattered anymore.

I dropped the cake in the trashcan on my way out the side door to skip fourth period.