Break of Day

8) The Voice of Silence

It is a truth often accepted that teenagers, especially Juniors and Seniors, have an apprehensive and unappreciative relationship with school.

Mare claims that it is the people she dislikes about school and the learning is the real reason she bothers to go.

I once agreed with her about the learning being what makes school worthwhile.

Until today.

Today was the first time I have resented being at school in a long time. I know it will get better when I make friends. I know the problem is having no one to sit next to and no one to really talk to. While everyone has been polite and mostly ignored me after I was introduced — most of these kids remember me vaguely from the year I spent in sixth grade—, no one had done much more than small talk or smile. A few kids offered to help with directions if I got confused, thankfully. I may have gone to a larger school in Texas, but this place was a maze.

Perhaps, Mary being in none of my morning classes has made the day all the worse —I personally exclude Advisory as a class. I had never been bothered that through most of our life we were put in the same classes and seated next to each other. In fact, I loved it.

I miss it.

Highschool administrators seem to be under the impression that we need an identity outside of each other. I think they are full of horseshit.

There has been nothing particularly bad about the day. Thanks to the location of Russ's favourite park and Sarah's unpredictable truck, I knew where the student parking was. It had surprised me, at first, how nothing had changed here since Sarah's death. Perhaps, because everything else in the world had been changing all too quickly. For a moment, as I sat in the parking staring at the building in the misty rain, I was a child again. I was sitting in the middle seat of Sarah's truck while Russ bounced in the seat next to me as we sang to an old CD of children's songs while waiting for Dad to come help. The Ants Go Marching was Russ's favourite.

The problem, I suppose, was the lack of anything interesting. The most interesting thing today was the very attractive boy I was assigned to sit next to in fourth period. Thankfully, since it was the first day of second trimester, there were either no seating arrangements that I had to disrupt or the seating arrangement had been made with me already included.

When I entered the class, there were near abouts a dozen kids already sitting. The teacher, Mr. Barlowe, was a kind man who reminded me of a Tolkien elf and a 1920s professor. I suspect, due to his height, his brown suit had to be tailored to his lanky body.

With a kind smile, he glanced at the clipboard resting in his arm. "Aquileia Callahan. You'll be in the second row on the right side, whichever seat you like will do." He spoke how complex sentences feel, only pausing on the punctuation. The words in between spoken quickly in a smooth line.

"Thank you," I nodded to him. "And, it's just Aqua, if you would please."

Grabbing a pen from his suit coat he scribbled something on the paper. "Of course." When he smiled, the shadow between his high cheekbones and a jaw that followed in a parallel line grew more noticeable, looking more sunken in.

I had sat alone at my table for little more than a few minutes before he directed a boy over to the table I was at. "I'm Theodore." The softness of his voice surprised me. Most people spoke to Mare like that, gentle, hushed, slow as if they were fearful she was a scared dog, about to bolt at any moment. "Dr. Coileán's nephew."

"I'm Aqua." As he accepted my hand shake —one quick shake— his cool fingers curling around my usually cold hand, I smiled. "Chief Callahan's oldest daughter." He had the kind of looks that made people take a second look. I wouldn't call him otherworldly, but he seemed out of place. Like how I am sure people who went to highschool with famous actors felt.