CHAPTER NINE:
Break ends with me again in the bathroom splashing some water on my face. Ally had tracked me down after my full freak out.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” She asks me, one hand on my shoulder as I look at my face in the mirror.
I glance around and notice there is another person in here with us. I don’t want to talk about all this with a random stranger as a witness, so I shrug her off. She looks concerned. I use a paper towel to dab my face fully dry and walk back out to the hall. We should be rushing to class.
“Yeah, I’ll be okay. I’ll explain later, okay? We’ve got to get going.”
Ally didn’t look quite satisfied, “Okaaay.., but I’ll at least show you where you’re going. Ally led the way to my next class, Humanities. The class was two doors down from Mr. Chu’s Homeroom, where I had started part of my day yesterday. A student opened the door from inside and turned around to face those of us gathered by the door.
Ally nudged my arm, “That’s Ms. Del Rios. Our Humanities teacher.”
Sure enough, at a closer look, the petite woman who had opened the door was an adult. She wore a large gray sweater, dark pants, and above-the-knee boots. She looked like her clothes were swallowing her whole. Her choice in attire probably contributed to how small framed she looked, but her serious face had me believing Ally’s statement to be true. Ally waved bye to me, and I followed the trickle of students inside. This will be another weird result of my oddball schedule. While Ally is in my Humanities class tomorrow, she isn’t today. Once I stepped inside, Ms. Del Rios made eye contact with me. She swayed up to where I was standing, oversized sweater and all, and held out her hand.
“Hi, I’m Ms. Del Rios,” she introduced herself with a soothing, calm tone. She seemed warm and personable. Judging from her facial features I deemed her to be perhaps Filipina, many students in the school were of Filipino background. She gave me the last available seat in the room, up near the front whiteboard. The student desks were arranged into a giant U-shape. More students showed up while I took a minute to look at the front board. Looks like we would be starting the day with silent reading time, making me really happy since I was going to be able to read a book I had been carrying in my bag for weeks. Looking around, I recognized a few faces from my science class, including Lucy and Elizabeth who were at the opposite side of the classroom. Sarah, who sat next to me in science, came through the door, and waved kindly at me while she walked to her seat.
“Oh hey!” exclaimed a voice to my side, and I turned to see Bella from Science and Trigonometry, “How’s it going?” she asked.
Her genuine interest really helped snap me to the present after the lingering terrible feeling from earlier.
I smiled and responded, “Oh you know, second day stuff - well sort of like first day stuff?”
“Ah yeah, it’ll take a minute but before you know it I’m sure everything will start to feel more natural here,” she looked down and noticed my book. “Oh yeah, for schedule stuff,” she pointed at the agenda on the front board, “Ms. Del Rios’ classes start either with silent reading or silent writing, it's a rotating activity.”
I nodded, and our teacher gathered our attention, signaling the start of silent reading. I mostly read but did glance up a few times to notice other people, including the dark soul/ bright soul who had approached Ally and I after school yesterday. He was wearing a black beanie but it did almost nothing to hide the brightness of his blazing hair and bright eyes. His wrist had a chunky black band on it and he was holding a book from the top, with the book standing up on the desk. Kinda odd. I refocused on my book until I heard a door open. Looking towards the sound I shuddered, there was that guy again, Vance, standing in the doorway, looking at my teacher. Son of a - he’s in this class too. He turned to look at me and I shot my eyes back down to my book, shrinking down in my seat like if only I could shrink down short enough he won’t look at me. The words on the page sat there unread, as I stared at a single letter on a page, trying to breathe. Trying to relax my body. I started counting in eight-counts. Eight-counts are repetitive measurements in dance class to count out our timing. I’m not sure where it came from, but it felt like it was starting to ground me. I heard a chair slide across the floor, and a bag dropped down. Thinking it could be safe to peak up again, I looked towards the door and scanned the crowd of students. Passing my gaze over Ms. Del Rios, the bright-haired grunge guy, Sarah, and a few other familiar faces, all focused on something. I felt my body relaxing as my gaze continued across the room until it reached him. He was staring at me. Aggressively. Could a stare be aggressive? Holy sh - Look away! I tell myself.
My body is on overdrive, in hyperfocus, for the remainder of class. I can barely look up. I can barely hear Ms. Del Rios as she reviews the agenda and explains our reading project. My ears - everything feels like I am underwater. I can feel this cold electricity at the top of my spine, and I cannot understand how such a creep could possibly be making me feel this way. I don’t know this guy, I’ve never spoken to him before - why is he staring? And why does his attention make me feel like I have a giant snake slithering over my body?
CHAPTER TEN: By the end of class, I don’t think I could’ve told anyone what we had done the whole time. I felt cold after so much discomfort and as soon as class wound down, I frantically started packing things away. I had some handouts in front of me, I noted to myself to look at them later. A few times during class Bella had tried to talk to me but I could barely speak, feeling like there was a huge weight on my chest, and like my throat was squeezed shut. I made small “mhmm” sounds but couldn’t do much beyond that. People started standing up and gathering by the door, waiting for the few seconds before the bell. I forced myself up by the door all the way to the left of the crowd. I still felt eyes on me and needed air.The bell rang, the door was opened, and I walked as fast as I could back towards the courtyard, taking in big breaths of the fresh air. Other students started filing out nearby doors, and several gathered at benches along the courtyard walls. I was so determined to
CHAPTER ELEVEN: “Oh my god!” Marsha’s hands flailed about as she and Maxine approached my spot on the bench. “Tell me, tell me, tell me!” Marsha chanted excitedly like a little kid being told we were going to Disneyland. I chuckled, looking at her, and back at Sean’s retreating frame. Even his walking swagger attracted me, this all felt unreal. I still had my phone in my hand when I turned to them and said, “Well, he gave me his number.” I grinned, feeling warm and blushed in my face, “and I think we may be going on a date?” “You think?” Maxine asked me teasingly. I laughed. “Well he sort of arranged the whole thing while pretending to be me, and he made plans for us to go to the beach tomorrow after school - and I don’t think I can go” I added sadly, realizing that while realizing I still needed to tell him that wouldn’t work for me. “Well why the hell not?” Marsha asked. “There is only one bus that takes us home after school and I didn’t live in this town. My mom works
CHAPTER TWELVE: Ally and I walked to our next class, which we actually had together, Spanish. We waited by the door with the little crowd of other students while she caught me up on how ridiculous our Spanish teacher apparently was. Mr. Hall was supposedly a horrible teacher in that he waved his master’s degree around and demanded that the class respect him for it. He also supposedly had terrible class management skills but most of the class’ nonsense faded away on its own already because the class was just totally over him. Fun. “Oh crap! I almost forgot!” Ally exclaimed, a huge grin on her face. She whispered, “Sean is in this class.” She wiggled her eyebrows and I laughed so hard I nearly snorted when none other than Sean himself showed up. “Ladies,” he greeted. He just stood there next to us, like he has been our friend for years. He leaned over to me, “You didn’t say you were in this class. Might make it actually worth going to.” “I, uh, didn’t realize. Still getting my fi
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: We caught up on our way out to the exit. Me, sharing Sean’s message and how we still decided to go forward with hanging out tomorrow, and Ally/ Maxine/ Marsha sharing their points of view on the whole class period. They had me laughing so hard with Ally’s reenactments of Marsha trying to rein herself in. At the front Simon waved us over by this tree near our bus pickup, and we waved goodbye to Marsha and Maxine who made their way down the hill. They took the regular public bus down at the very bottom. After chatting with Simon a bit about weekend plans he wished us a good evening and walked to his older brother’s car who came around to pick him up. It was cute watching Simon really come into the personality Ally talked about. He seemed to be becoming more at ease around me. “Oh hey,” Ally turned to me as we sat down on the grass, “I forgot to ask you. Did you ever figure out what the deal with the redhead goth dude was? I don’t think I’ve seen him around?” I th
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: I watched from a safe distance as she crossed the next street. Something had made her smile. I wanted it to be me, who made her smile. I felt anger rising. It better not have been that giant clumsy fool she was just speaking to. She couldn’t be interested in him. Could she? Why couldn’t she just know it was me. I’m the one she has to be with. I need her. I continue to follow from across the street, using the cars along the way to block her view of me. I wouldn’t want to startle her. I need to know her. I need to study her without her knowing before I reveal myself. The real me. She looks up again from her phone to cross the next street. Smart girl. For a normal human she seems to be pretty aware of her surroundings. Almost at the elementary school now. I should be able to blend in with the crowd. I did that on our last walk. I have to stay calm though, if I get too comfortable she might sense me like yesterday. She nearly looked right at me from the bottom of the st
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Today marked my last ‘first’ day. I began today with Humanities, Ally’s Humanities class, which I hadn’t been in before. This morning after exiting the bus, successfully avoiding any eye contact situations, I sat in the cafeteria with Angela, Melanie and June again until Ally came by. We had decided to walk and talk a bit and came across the school librarian, Mr. Waller, who taught my film class too. He was surprised to see students on campus so early, at 7:35am and was surprised when we told him I got there at 7:20. Empathizing with us a bit, he invited us into the library to wait until school started. The library had been delightfully warm compared to the dense cold fog surrounding the school. A few minutes before the first bell Simon joined us, having texted Ally prior asking where we were. We all chatted a bit and then walked together to Ms. Del Rios’ class. Class went by fairly well. This group of people felt like such a break compared to my other Humanities
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: “Hey, um, Rachel?” I slowed down my charge and turned to see Kyle looking at me with… hope or something close to it in his eyes. “Oh hey” I said back. “Were you still up for the grand tour at some point? I figure you’ve already been around pretty much the whole place - but maybe?” He asked as we kept walking. We approached the courtyard and were hit with direct sunlight. “Yeah, sure, I’m still up for it. When were you thinking?” I asked back. I was very curious about this very odd guy. We slowed our walk to a crawling pace. “Great!” He exclaimed. “Maybe, after school today? Can we meet right back here?” “Rachel,” Sean said from a few paces away, beckoning me over. I turned back to Kyle, “Sorry, I’ve got some plans off campus after school. Maybe tomorrow, like Break?” Kyle seemed to just notice Sean’s approach and quickly said, “Okay, see yeah,” before retreating back the way we came. Sean walked up to me, uneasy. “That’s not him right? The guy who was givin
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: I found Ally in Trigonometry and she pointed at a seat in front of her that she had saved for me. Class went by quickly. I felt really engaged and challenged. I really did see why so many people loved Mr. Yoo. He just explained things in a way that made sense. I participated quite a bit and really felt comfortable asking questions and giving my answers. Mr. Yoo ended class ten minutes early, so we had some time to do our homework, chat, or whatever we liked. I saw Bella start work on her homework, and it cued Ally and I to do the same. “This is probably really smart of you to do some homework now, you know. Since you’ll be home late because of your date,” Ally said, elongating the ‘a’ to sound more like ‘daaayte.’ “Yeah, yeah Ally,” I said back trying to brush her off but just smiling like a giant idiot instead. It made us both laugh. Someone nearby got out of their seat and Simon moved to it. “Care to share what’s so funny?” Simon asked while sitting down