What She Is (On Super Hold)

Chapter 1: Realistic Dreams

She was beautiful. That was my first thought as her ivory face came into focus. She was wearing a white dress that swept the floor and held much contrast to her green eyes and black hair. Every movement was measured and graceful. She was spinning. Was she dancing? I couldn’t tell. My thoughts were lethargic and simplistic as I continued to watch completely entranced by her. There was a sadness that remained blatant even though she seemed to find contentment in the ‘dance’ as I had called it.

            I woke with a start. The remnants of my dream rushed to mind. That had been a dream? Never before had the realm of the sleeping held so much reality for me. I literally shook my head, as if that would clear some of the fogginess of my confusion. It didn’t.

            I pushed myself off of my bed. My hair was in my eyes as I got dressed. My mother was always nagging me to cut it; she could live with it if I could. I grabbed my book bag as I walked out the door. It had been worn to death, not that my family was poor (actually they were pretty well to do) but I’d never bothered to look for a new one when this one still worked. I think it was once orange but the color has faded.

            I ate a pop-tart my dad had thrown me while I walked. The man was obsessed with those little details in life. One time I got a glazed donut in my hair. I was just thankful he had switched to packaged foods, although it still wasn’t that fun to have a cereal bar beam you between the eyes.

            “NICK!” I turned as I heard a high-pitched voice scream my name. Gabriella came barreling towards me. The girl attempted to come to a stop as she got close but she couldn’t. The end result was me laying on the concrete with a ninety-pound 6th grader sitting on my chest.

            “You forgot me,” she said coolly. She didn’t move off of me.

            “Oh. Today is Friday. Isn’t it?” I murmured half to myself and half to her. I always walked Gabriella to school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. She lived next door to me.

            She got off of me and glared at me for a moment, but she got over it quickly.

            “Sorry Gabby,” I said pushing myself up from the sidewalk. I wondered how my dad could remember to throw things at me and not remember to remind me I had to walk Gabby to school. I guess throwing stuff was more fun.

            Gabby was already back to her blond haired blue eyed self, skipping to school and telling me I needed to get a haircut. Had she been talking to my mom?

            I dropped Gabby off at the middle school before going on to the High School that was next door. I found my way to the sophomore lockers and pretty much stood there for a few minutes with the other students who had showed up early. It wasn’t long before Andrew showed up. He was quickly scrawling down his homework for the next period. We’d been given that assignment last week.

            “Nick, can I-” he started to ask to copy my homework.

            “No.”

            “Why not.”

            “Because I didn’t do mine either.”

            We laughed before sitting down in front of my locker and trying to finish enough to could keep Mr. Lane from killing us.

            I talked with Andrew for a few minutes until it was almost time for school to start and people started pouring into the hallway. I took moment to find my world history book before heading to Mr. Lane’s class.

            Mr. Lane glared at everyone as they walked into the room. He was a young teacher with dark hair and eyes, and he was tall. He just seemed to hate everyone under the age of twenty-five.

            Andrew was trying to fashion an airplane out of a sheet of paper he’d stolen from me, Laura was painting her nails,

Lance was playing a game on one of those portable game players and Izzy was reading. Those are just random snapshots of the insanity in the room for one second, then the next second: silence.

            It was like someone had clicked mute. The only sound in the room was a girl’s heels clicking on the linoleum tile as she walked up to Mr. Lane and handed him a slip of paper.

            Mr. Lane nodded and turned to the class, “This is our new student, Mirada Johnson. Try not to drag her into trouble with you. Mirada you can sit next to Nick,” he said before pointing to me.

            I immediately regretted having an open seat next to me. I started to feel nauseous as she walked closer. She smiled at me before taking the seat next to me. The room had started to spin as I came to in infallible conclusion.

            This was the same girl from my dream last night.