Cara and Connor

Chapter 5

I woke up with feelings of hope...a fresh perspective about yesterday’s disaster. It seemed like during the night someone adjusted my thoughts.I guess that fire in early September wouldn’t crush me and even taught me something. It taught me that life happens. Things happen. That was part of my growing up during high school, and even though a fire was horrible, I was okay.

 

    I walked down the stairs. The Winstead home was literally giant. If I said anything, my voice echoed around the home. I hadn’t really talked to anybody since the fire, and my friends had been texting me with no response back. I had to ignore them because I couldn’t dwell on the fire. I realized they would all want to talk about it. That made me extremely nervous I might lose my new found hopefulness. I walked down the stairs in search of the kitchen. I found my mom with a cup of coffee at the dining table.

“Ready for school?” she asked.

I nodded and sat down beside her.

   Then my phone dinged again. Connor had texted me asking if I needed a ride, and I said yes. My parents were in no emotional state to drive me to school, and I hadn’t even seen Blake. I didn’t commonly see Blake though, and he always just secretly slinked around like a cat.  I grabbed my backpack and saw Connor’s BMW parked outside. I walked down the pathway towards him.

“Hey Cara,” he said.

He looked flustered over something, but I didn’t dare ask what.

“Hey,” I said.

I smiled at him, and he looked upset still. I had to bite the bullet and ask.

“Connor, are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he snapped.

    It seemed like all high school guys just hid what they were thinking, and it annoyed me. Our ride to school was pretty quiet, and Connor felt very distant. I mean, I had only known him for a short time, but he was way nicer other times. We arrived at school the same way we had for the last week. All the girls were probably gossiping about the fact that Connor drove me to school every day. Whatever.

    I ran up to Annie. She started hugging me, and she looked at my green eyes with such a sad look.

“Cara, I am so sorry,” she said.

The rest of my friends looked for my response.

“Let’s not talk about it. I’m happier if we don’t,” I said.

“Okay. Let’s just focus on the fact that Connor has been driving you to school everyday. What happens when you get that car you’ve been talking about? For your birthday, I mean,” Claire said.

“I guess we’ll see if  that comes. I don’t think I’ll be getting a car soon because of the fire,” I said.

With my friends at my side, I honestly felt pretty content considering my house had just gone up in flames.

    Of course, the first class I had was English. For some reason, our teacher was one of my least favorites. He always had extremely long tangents and no one ever understood. Today he was still talking about  what we would do this year. I zoned out once again. I pretended to ignore everyone in the class even though they were all whispering about me. Connor gave me a sympathetic glance, but I just couldn’t figure out what he’s thinking. And then there was Blake, who I was sharing a house with. Connor and Blake didn’t seem to like each other, and Blake seemed  mad when Connor drove me to school. Connor became irritated when he saw Blake talking to me.   They always got angry at football practice according to Luke, one of Connor’s friends. They always stayed away from each other.