The Doorway

Chapter 4: The First Day of School (Skylar)

The good thing about going to school is you usually have so many problems there that you don’t have time to worry about the problems you have at home.

Yet somehow, that didn’t stop me from obsessing over the stupid house across the street, and my own dwindling sanity.

So, to try and drown out all the extremely horrific scenes, and thoughts shifting through my mind while I sat in my classes I decided when each teacher introduced themselves I’d mentally make a list of the ones I know I’d like or not.

I mean, although I’m against judging other people, teachers usually give you that whole “I’m going to love this class”, or “I’m going to hate this class” vibe.

First period I had Mrs. Handler for Honors English. She was a tall, elegant looking older woman who resembled a bird of prey, and talked like she was way too good to be in a classroom teaching teenagers. I mean, it was pretty damn obvious she thought she deserved to be teaching a class at Yale or Princeton instead, she talked down to her class to the point where it was basically demeaning.  I understood that she was a teacher and knew more than we did, but that didn’t mean she should talk to us like we were a class of dogs with wet towels for brains.

I mean, I could be a bitch, but last time I checked my brain was a brain and was fully functioning, thank you very freakin’ much.

Second period I had Mr. Locklyn, a middle-aged family man with what seemed like a good disposition and tons of jokes. I was actually pretty surprised he was a biology teacher because I could totally see him being a motivational speaker; he had a great smile and was way too good at projecting his voice.

Third was art with Ms. Bea, she was one of those young progressive teachers that had paint speckled on 95% of her wardrobe and wore flip flops in her classroom. I liked her a lot, she really embodied what an art teacher should be about; self-expression. I mean, I actually found myself paying close attention to her whole, “Welcome to my class,” speech.

Fourth period I had Mr. Rodriguez for math. Well, in reality it’s called Algebra 5/6 but who cares about fancy class names? Math will always just be math to me, and I will always hate it. I mean, Mr. R seemed okay, not very impressionable, but I knew I was going to hate his class despite how he acted just because I just can’t stand math. That was that.

Now, some things you should know about Lakeview Highschool and my first day there:

1.       I don’t know why they fucking call it Lakeview because there’s no lake anywhere…I honest to God spent at least ten minutes before class started trying to find a lake that didn’t exist.

2.       It’s the tiniest school on the planet. A simple three story building with a small track/football field, a small auditorium, and a small lunchroom.

3.        There’s only about 200 students.

4.       I still managed to get lost…three times.

5.       I now had detention.

6.       I was glad I had detention because it meant I wouldn’t automatically have to go home.

7.       I was trying to find where Caile sat at lunch and when I texted him and asked him he said he ate lunch with a small group “under the tree”, this was no fucking help at all because there are like 10 million trees on campus.

8.        I was forced to eat lunch alone due to my fast fading time and I just sat on a bench two feet away from a trash can.

I stared down at my ham and cheese sandwich that I made myself and I couldn’t help but think that lunch would be so much better if my mom had made it.