Sleeping On Daisies

I: Kingsgate High

I am fivesix, which is a height that is not exactly tall and neither short, but it works for me. It works for this long, inverted pleat skirt that hugs my slender frame. This skirt along with a long-sleeved blouse is the uniform requirement for girls attending Kingsgate High.

A school of priority and discipline, where the policies and codes of conduct are to be obeyed invariably, and the slightest of insubordination is referred as juvenile delinquency. 

Sleep has left my hair tousled. 

As I stare into the bathroom mirror, I can’t help but to dab some water onto the strands that keeps forming a halo ring around my head. My hair has always been utterly flat and lifeless. Something else I’d have to cope with because it is a part of my genetics. It is natural—just like the snubby brim of my nose, my thin almond eyes, and narrow-sized ears. 

I shuffle my way into the bedroom. Mother is waiting for me by the threshold.

“Are you trying to be late the first day after break?” She asks.

I shake my head. “Sorry. I was just leaving.”

After I grab my satchel, I dash out the house towards the bus stop.

 

                                                                                ***

 

There are dents in the road. Cracks in the earth. The bus jolts every two minutes as the wheels encounter these things. I steady myself with my hands, keeping them tightly clasped onto the seat ahead of me. As I stare outside the fairly small window, I can see the barbed wire fences. A brick stone building lies in its vicinity, built a few years ago, but already blending in with the poverty of other neighboring dilapidated buildings.

A few years ago, Englewood High used to exist in the place of Kingsgate. The school was closed down due to the principal’s failure to meet academic expectations for the seventh time. School board officials no longer saw value in providing funds for a school with the lowest grade average in the state. Ergo, the principal was impeached.

What used to be the building for Englewood High, Home of the Eagles, was set on fire three months later. Kingsgate was then rebuilt in replacement of Englewood with a new principal placed at the throne—Principal Floyd. She was the one who came up with the idea that Kingsgate should be a penitentiary for students.

The bus comes to a halt. 

One-by-one, students unload off the bus in a single filed manner. I am second-to-last to come off the bus, the boy that sat adjacent to me being the last one. We all mount up two flights of stone-steps while other buses arrive in the loop. I find my friend Clair nearby a throng of students socializing against a railing. She stands on the top of the last stone-step, a smirk on her face when she notices me too.

“Hey girl, how was your break?”  She asks as soon as I reach her.  

We start to enter the school. 

“It was okay….the usual,” I say as we approach security clearance. The line is short.

“Did you do anything?” 

“Some relatives visited, but that was all.”

Soon it’s my turn to be checked.

I walk up and place my satchel on the metal detector machine. The security guards, Terrance and Shane, eyes each other and then approaches me. If the barbed wire fences weren’t already intimidating about Kingsgate, these two bulk, six-foot figure statues were. It was intimidating how they always mimicked each other in their face expressions and stances: their lips clasping together in a firm line, their arms folded across their creased chests; no leniency whatsoever.

Terrance is the one who searches through my bags for any lethalities or drugs, and Shane is the one who scans me with his handheld metal detector.

“Oh, well we went to Georgia.” Clair replies. 

I nod and wait for the scan to be over.

As soon as it’s over, they check Clair, and then we’re off to our lockers. Clair elaborates on how she spent her break as we stroll down the clustered corridor. 

“You know my family is of short-patience,” she says, I nod. “But I’m surprised we were able to have a cordial dinner without my aunt causing a scene.” 

“Shelly is still upset?” I ask, frowning. 

“Yeah,” she replies as we turn left down another corridor. "Ever since Darrell had his baby, she hasn’t been able to shut up about Lisa.”

Darrell is Clair’s brother, and Lisa is the mother of his child. They were together since freshman year, but after junior rolled in and he got her pregnant, they broke up.

They’re seniors now. 

“Aunt Shelly says that ‘she’s no good for him’,” Clair mocks, imitating her aunt’s voice in a snaggy, high-pitched tone. “She’s too loose.”

I laugh. “Really? She said that about her?”

“And to the girl’s face!” 

We arrive at our lockers.

“It was a shame.” Clair says, entering her combination with ease.

I struggle with mines for minutes, rotating the lock in the opposite direction, punching in the wrong combinations, until finally I give up and kick the locker in frustration.

“I swear, I can’t remember this thing to save my life!”  I say, a little louder than I intended to. 

As I run my finger through my scalp, a pair of warm hands settles on my shoulder blade. Oh, now she helps me, I mentally snarl. Clair always had this habit of being oblivious to others needs. She was always only concerned about herself. But this assistance wasn’t from Clair—it couldn’t be. Not when my nose starts to crinkle, or when a small tingle starts from the pinnacles of my toes and navigates to the pit of my stomach.

I turn around and it’s him. 

Isaiah.

The smell of his cologne interrupts my breathing pattern as I inhale him. It’s been a week since I’ve last saw him—with Thanksgiving Break being in the way and all. 

“Hi,” I say softly.  

“Hi,” he says, casually.

My lungs are steel now. I shudder through shaky breaths as I exhale. Thankfully, though, Isaiah doesn’t notice. He’s too focused on entering my combination. One of his hands, the free one, settles on my hipbone. His mob of friends stands a few centimeters away from us, watching as we interact, as he unlocks my locker and then meets my gaze again.

“You’re welcome, Sydney.”

It’s like he’s poison, invading the flow of blood through my veins. My adrenaline rushes as I watch him walk back to his friends, as they all turn on their sneakers and walk away from me and Clair. 

Clair!

“I almost forgot you were standing there,” I say, flustered. My cheeks are probably rose now, but she doesn’t acknowledge this.

She just says, with the utmost snide, “Mhm.” 

And we carry on, like what just happened, never happened.