Nor (Wattpad Featured Story, WriteAffair finalist)

Chapter 2: Something About School

I look fine. I feel fine. Everything is fine.

No, it isn't. I'm a liar. I hate this. This is such a drag. I want to get out of here. I want to leave, just leave, get away from all these people, all these kids.

Watch, tell me the time. Eight thirty. So what? Watch, tell me the date. September second, year two-thousand seven. So what?

I stare out in front of me as I grip the steering wheel of my Mercedes. Cars. Parking lot. Teenagers in the same get-up I'm in – white shirt, black blazer, red tie, though the boys wear dark pants and the girls share my skirt of tri-color plaidness. I'm facing the sandstone side of a building. It's a normal building. Windows, cracks, posters, faded graffiti.

I was more concerned about the drive over here, getting here on time, things like that. But now that I'm here, I can't seem to get out of my car. I don't know what's wrong with me.

Can they see me? Are they looking at me, wondering what I'm doing just sitting inside my car when I should be outside, milling with the rest of them?

I hear something. What is that? Oh, my new ringtone. U2, thank you very much. I have to paw around in my bag for a while before producing my cell. I thought it might be my father, but it's Wes.

"Wes?"

"Nora," his laid-back voice comes on. "Bad time?"

"No, other than the fact that this is my first day back at school."

"Yes, I know. Sounds quiet over there."

"I'm still in the car."

"Oh, OK." A considerable pause. "It's still quiet."

"I'm still in the car."

"Doing what?"

"Is there anything interesting to be done in cars?"

"From experience, yes, plenty."

"God, Wes!"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"It's too late."

"Although you're actually pretty perceptive for a sixteen-year-old."

"You catch on."

Another pause. "Are you still in the car?"

"Why does my current environment interest you?"

"Everything about you interests me." Then in a more serious voice, "So is everything OK?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." A nervous moment. "I just … can't help thinking about last year."

"Hey, last year was last year. It'll be different this time around."

"Oh, really? And how do you know?"

"I just know," he says kind of earnestly, like he's pleading with me to believe him. "You'll be fine."

"What does it matter if I'm not fine now?"

"It won't last. Tell yourself that."

I give out a sigh, adjusting my rear-view mirror. "Where are you, anyway?"

"Office."

My father owns a lot of real estate in our part of the city, and his office, or offices rather, take up the bottom six floors of the Daniel Sullivan Building. Our home takes up the seventh. Lucky seven. Happy home. "It sounds quiet over there," I muse.