Dead To You

02. to chanler high

Despite the school having been built in the nineteenth century, with little other than maintenance done to its traditional exterior, the interior had last been renovated about seven years ago over the summer with some construction work lingering in the new school year. My sister, a freshman at the time, still attributes the jackhammering as the reason she nearly failed her first test of the semester.

The floor was a polished marble that stretched out seamlessly ahead of my footsteps, corkscrew billboards mounted on beige painted walls with dark wooden panels that reached half up to the ceiling, one of the few earlier designs preserved. The lockers were painted black and repainted almost every summer to conceal any chipping or marks. The staircases were wooden instead of metal, creaked occasionally underfoot, almost mismatched from the much more easily replaced railings, still wood but one shined and the other didn't.

I blinked, glancing down as I realized that my fingers were tightly clenched around the cardboard coffee sleeve that proudly declared that forty percent of all materials were recyclable, and tried to remember the breathing techniques from the app on my phone. In for five seconds, hold for five seconds, release for five seconds.

The backpack was suddenly a heavier weight against my shoulder, the squeaking of shoes against the marble seemed bizarrely loud, and I was acutely aware that I was lingering in the hallway for so long that someone was likely to clear their throat behind me again. Everything had been so hectic with the move that I hadn't even come into the school to talk with my teachers, the guidance counselor, or even find my locker. It all had to be done over email.

This is all fine, I repeated to myself as I forced my feet to move forward, glancing around the halls while rounding the corners to find my locker, waiting for the moment I recognized someone, or someone recognized me. There were a couple of faces I vaguely remembered, Penn Kensington from the football team, probably the wide receiver on the varsity team now, and Lizzie Graham, a partner I had for biology class once, but no one I really knew. No one I had waited three years to finally see again.

I was carefully arranging my textbooks in my locker, wondering if I should get to homeroom early or find reasons to hang around my locker for a moment—casually, not like I wanted to bump into anyone—when I caught a glimpse of blond hair with an almost familiar golden sheen against the overhead lights. Her back was turned to me, fingers trailing the bubbled paint of a closed locker door, about to slip around a corner past a water fountain and out of sight. I didn't know for sure, but something in me believed it could've been Bridgette. I thought about following her before ultimately deciding against it, because of how embarrassing it would be if I walked up to her and it wasn't Bridgette after all, but began second guessing that decision because it wouldn't be that embarrassing if I walked past her first or something.

I was still trying to decide when I happened to glance over to the breakfast kiosk down the hall and saw a face I definitely recognized.

My textbooks felt slippery in my palms, starting to sweat, and I was worried for a moment that the online refresher courses weren't enough, that my fingers would get tangled together and stumble over each other like my tongue often did, but there was something in me so undeniably excited to see Dylan Haddad that I only hesitated for a moment before closing my locker and approaching her.

She was sitting on a barstool behind the counter of the kiosk, one the school offered for students like me who usually skipped breakfast in favor of studying and needed a mid-morning granola bar. It sold more than just breakfast foods, but the bottled juices, room temperature fruits, and breakfast bars were the bestsellers. Seniors usually managed the breakfast kiosk in shifts, something that offered extra credits and added to the word count on college applications, and apparently Dylan Haddad had the first shift. Her dark curly hair was pulled into bun that looked both careless and perfect, her eyebrows still as thick as they were freshman year, something both her and I could bemoan about before they were trending. Her eyelashes were just as dark and defined, often mistaken for eyeliner, as she glanced over her shoulder away from me, bored.