We Love a Tortured Artist - Xavier Thorpe

New Schools and Anxiety

I didn't expect the summer to go by as fast as it did. I expected with everything going on that it would feel like it would drag on forever but I swear it felt like all I did was blink and then boom there I was.

Sitting on my bedroom floor putting all of my clothing into a large trunk and the suitcase Callahan gave me. I debated on bringing it but decided on it. My gut told me to.

I had texted him a few times over the summer to give updates, and Denis made sure I called him every night, but it wasn't as good as the real thing. This would be the first first week of school that I had ever spent without Denis.

Wednesday was sitting on my bed again reading her book. We, believe it or not, had become surprisingly close. Morticia had told me Wednesday had never taken much of a liking to me, and this was as close to someone as she'd ever seen her get. I felt honored by this.

"What's wrong?" I heard her ask. She was looking down at her book still but I guess she just sensed that something was wrong.

"Nothing, I'm alright." She looked at me. Thing, who was sitting next to her signed something really fast. I had picked the whole thing up quite quickly.

"Okay okay, jeez. I'm just nervous, that's all." Thing was sympathetic. He crawled over to me and patted my hand.

"You should be." Wednesday said. This caught me off guard and I just stared at her. Thing scolded her from by my side.

"I know mother said I shouldn't tell her, but it's not like she wont find out." Wednesday shot bck coldly. Thing shrank down into the carpet and i gave him a sympathetic look.

"What am I going to find out?"

"The murders and the monsters."

"Murders and Monsters?! What is this school?"

"Nevermore Academy." I sighed and she smirked at her little joke.

"I know that, but like... Thing help me out here." Thing signed to Wednesday, who then rolled her eyes.

"Its a school for outcasts and Freaks like you and me. Its a no normie school. The last normie they did let in tried to kill everyone there."

I gasped and dropped the shirt I was working on folding.

"You're kidding, right?" I asked her. She shot me a look.

"Do I look like I'm kidding Ophelia? I almost died. It was what you would call 'awesome'"

"Doesn't sound like it..." I continued folding my clothes, although slower this time. "Tell me everything that happened."

"It's a long story."

"It's a good thing we have time." 

And so Wednesday told me all about her semester at Nevermore. About Rowan, about the Hyde, about the secret societies, the shape shifting principal, the corrupted government working to keep things quiet, the blame on the Addams, the murder charges on Gomez, the love interest who turned out to be a killer, a Pilgrim raised from the dead, and the Normie teacher in red boots who was behind it all.

"Wait, hold on, you kissed a boy?" I asked her when she finished. Wednesday raised her eyebrows.

"Out of everything that I told you, that is what surprised you the most?" She asked me. I thought about it for a minute and nodded.

"It's surprising. He must've been a really special guy to have got you that type of way... that or a good actor and very manipulative."

"The latter..." She said dryly and looked back to her book.

"what about that other guy, the artist you thought was the Hyde?"

"Xavier? What about him." I shrugged.

"Seems like he liked you, that's all."

"Were just... friends if you could even call us that. We aren't that close, and I don't plan on becoming any closer. 

"Okay, okay... so you're telling me that in a week we will be driving to a school that is now widely known for murders?" She nodded.

"Well that just makes my previous anxiety about a new school even worse."

"I wont let anything happen to you."

"Thanks, but I can take care of myself..."

"Yet you still get scared every time I come to talk to you."

"Because you take it upon yourself to scare me every time..."

"You need to learn to detect these things." I sighed. 

"I can, you just know how to mess with my powers." I replied. She shook her head.

"Well then they aren't strong enough." My face grew hot.

"I-" I started angrily. Wednesday cut me off.

"Emotion is weakness." 

"I don't think it is. Sometimes it can drive you to fight during even the hardest of times." Wednesday just looked at me.

"Edgar Allen Poe once said, 'Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.' Emotions can weaken us, but they can also strengthen us and teach us valuable things about ourselves."

"When did you get so smart?" She asked me. I laughed a little.

"I don't know." And that was the truth. She accepted it and quietly returned to her book.

I finished packing within the hour, and by the time Morticia had called us down for dinner I had accepted the fact that I was going to a horror show of a school.

For the next few days I couldn't manage to shake the mixed feelings of dread and excitement, but all I knew was that I didn't know anything about what was coming, and I didn't like that.