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Crystal Hernández was falling apart.
Crystal walked forward, each step taking her closer to her destination. She was walking through the hallway of her school, at 6 in the morning. She exhaled, gripping the clipboard she held in her palms as tight as possible. You might ask what a young girl like her was doing wandering the halls of the school.
Well my friends, our dear Crystal had nowhere else to go. Crystal is not a very lucky girl, you see. She had a house, but she didn't have a home. She was alive, but slowly crumbling.
Walking up to a notify board, Crystal pulled out a flyer and thumbtacked it to the board, nicking her finger in the process. Rolling her eyes, she pulled out a bandaid, something that she seemed to always have handy with her, and taped up her thumb. Looking over the board, her eyes drifted to see something that sat next to her flyer. In bold letters, the words FAMILY VISITATION DAY were sprawled on the flyer, as if taunting her.
You see, Crystal doesn't have any family except her sister, who works day and night to provide for the both of them. That would be bad, but it's doubled on with the sadness of losing three sets of parents, whether to death or to worries.
She looked at the poster, and plucked the scissors she always had with her out of her bag. Yanking the flyer down, she cut it up, thick lines slicing through the white yardstick, the flakes of paper landing her head like flower petals, though to Crystal, they felt like thorns.
Plopping herself in a nearby chair, she let her clipboard fall to the floor, and had the urge to break it in half. Taking a deep breath, she balanced herself. No one in her school could ever know about her.
Crystal was a golden student. She wan't "popular", she was actually popular, in a way that meant the whole school thought of her as a saint. She was the perfect student, the one with straight A's, who could sing like an angel, and helped out kindergarteners get to school. Whoever knew that someone so perfect on the outside could have so many scars on the inside.
Crystal was imperfect, and she knew it. She knew it from the way she would feel like she was falling down into her mind, as if that was her prison. She knew it from the way pain was the answer, from the way sometimes she just cried. But her school could never know that.
She pulled herself out of the chair, and picked up the fallen clipboard, casting a side glance to the shredded flyer and her scissors. She continued walking, leaving them behind. She knew exactly where to go. Grinning to herself, she stepped up to room 38, and rapped twice on the door.
When no one answered, she walked into the room, and came face to face with her drama teacher belting out operatic tunes. Ms. Raquet raised one eyebrow at her, then continued singing. After two seconds of that, she dropped her hands to her sides and shot Crystal a glare.
"So? Why the need to interrupt my session de chant?" Ah. Ms. Raquet was like a breath of fresh air. She was also hilarious in the way that she looked 80, acted 20, and was actually 40.
"Just wanted to tell you that all the flyers have been handed out." That was wrong, but she'd make up for it later. Or Ms. Raquet would forget. Crystal was fine with either of them.
"Flyers? What flyers?" Crystal took a deep breath, and tried not to burst into laughter.
"The ones for the play ma'am." Ms. Raquet's arms shot up, and she lifted a broom into the air, and began running around the room with it.
"Oh my goodness! The play! We need 240 different grizzly bears stat. Wait, are we doing A Midsummer Nights Dream?"
"No ma'am, we are doing Hamilton. Remember?" Ms. Raquet gave her an odd look, and dropped the broom to the floor. Crystal closed her ears as it fell down with a sickening crash.
"Crystal, you will be the star of our show!" She took Crystal's head in her gorgeous nails, and examined over her face, poking at her cheeks and messing up her hair.
"Ma'am, you've already cast Christine Zhang."
"Christine Zhang! Oh we need her. Have you gotten started on the grizzly bears yet? Oh, and we need background dancers. Oh, we should ask the dance team!"
"Ma'am, grizzly bears are not part of the show. And we have a dance team?" Ms. Raquet's eyes widened, and she grabbed Crystal by the arm.
"You haven't asked the dance team?!" She shrieked the words as if they were the most important things in the world, and didn't even give Crystal time to answer before she continued. "Oh darling, you have to ask them! They are in room 17. Nope, that's the bowling room."
"Ma'am, that's the debate room." Crystal said, her eyes rolling so much they looked as if they were going to fall out of their sockets.
"Oh. Then go to room 87." Crystal's mouth fell open. Readers, Crystal had no idea that room 87 even existed.
Crystal nodded her head once, and hurried out, walking up the stairs two at a time. Reaching the room just as the bell rang, she looked at the sign on the door.
WE ARE IN CLASS. IF YOU WANT TO SEE US DANCE, COME AT LUNCH.
Crystal nodded, and then tacked up her flyer next to the sign on the door. She would come back later to see them dancing and ask them to join the play.
Now, focus on this exact moment, and remember the way everything looks. Because everyone, this is where our story really begins.
