Seventeen Forever

New Home Forever

"Sweetie, you'll like your new school, I promise." Grandma gave me her usual smile. I admit, it was hard not to believe her even though we'd never met before I had to move in with her a few weeks ago. She stopped her car in front of the school, Eleanor Roosevelt Middle. Something felt aged about it. Iowa wasn't California I suppose. The school had ivy crawling up it.

"Alright, class. We have a new student joining us today. Kaileigh, come on in!" The teacher was a middle-aged man, but he seemed to be happy to be teaching. I wrote my name on the board: K-A-I-L-E-I... at that point a few people began giggling. I finished writing it and the teacher looked at me.

"Tell us a little about yourself. Like how you came to Dubuque from California," he smiled.

"Umm... I'm living with my grandma here for a while. I like surfing and cartoons." I smiled as sincerely as I could fake.

"Well, surfing might be hard here in Iowa. But, I think you'll find some things in common with a few kids here." He gestured me to an open seat near the back.

"Psst. Hey. Why would you trade Cali for Iowa? I hear it's great there." A smallish boy with fair skin sat next to me.

I sunk into the hard chair and sighed. "It wasn't exactly my choice. And I don't really want to talk." It was harsh but true, I really just wanted to hide the whole day.

"I'm James!" Clearly he did not get the memo.

The end of the school day came incredibly slowly, even for school standards, and I still had to ride the bus home. To my ire, James sat beside me as the bus left the school, his backpack jamming into my hip as he took the aisle seat.

"You know, I like sports too! I play football, and baseball, and basketball-" I stopped him.

"Please, don't. I just want to go home." After a few minutes the bus made an unexpected stop: Stephen Hempstead High.

"What's this?" I asked James.

"Oh, right, you're new. The district had to cut costs, so the highschoolers share buses with us." Great, I thought to myself. I didn't watch the highschoolers board the bus, but it turned out that one of them was ready to talk to me.

"Hey, James! I like the new girlfriend!" A girl with blonde hair and pink highlights was leaning over our seat.

"Oh, she's not my girlfriend. She's a new kid!" James was far too excited about everything.

"What's your name, new kid?" She seemed to be staring into my soul.

"Kaileigh," I answered quietly.

"Emily!" Suddenly another high school girl was hovering. "What are you talking to these babies for!" The new girl crossed her arms. Emily's face suddenly flushed red.

"Just checking on James and his new girlfriend!" She said it with such vigor that the whole bus heard, and began making mocking sounds at us. Emily laughed a sinister laugh as she sank behind us. I buried myself in the seat, trying to hide until I got home.

My things were mostly still in boxes, but at some point, Grandma had set my seashell collection out on the kitchen table. I'm not sure I was ready to see these. My mom had strung a few of the shells into a necklace when I was younger. I grabbed it and held it in my hands for a moment. Then I noticed another shell, one that I had painted for some reason. It was blue and yellow, my favorite colors. I decided to sit down for a bit, and add some other shells onto the necklace chain. Cowrie, whelk, shark eye, cowrie, tulip shell, and last but not least, I had carefully added a hole to the painted one and added it to the necklace.