LIMINAL || 𝙅𝙖𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧 𝙃𝙖𝙡𝙚 [1]

𝟜 | 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕕𝕒𝕪 𝕠𝕗 𝕤𝕔𝕙𝕠𝕠𝕝

Time passed slowly up until Monday, but when it came, it seemed to all have been in a rush. Suddenly, I had to wake up at six 'o' clock and carry a backpack. All of my notebooks and highlighters were color coded for each class and there was a fresh pack of my favorite pens just waiting to be used. School supply shopping was like cocaine and I, the willing addict.

The morning of my first day, the snooze button was pressed nary a time. Of all the days to sleep in, today wasn't it. Besides, I couldn't fall back asleep anyway. I was too wired, too anxious about being in a new school with new classes, full of new people that would hopefully not hate me. I wanted to put my best foot forward, preferably clad in a rain boot. After a nice shower and blow drying my hair, I felt a little more stable. I was having a good hair day, and my skin looked smooth for once. Perhaps the stars were aligning. Usually when I tried to keep my makeup simple and low key, it still looked over the top. So I forced my jittery hands to stop after filling in my eyebrows and applying generous coats of mascara and a lip tint.

I threw on one of my new sweaters, a pair of jeans, and the boots I'd gotten yesterday, along with my rain jacket. Dark gray clouds blanketed the sky outside the window, some promising amount of rain before the day ended.

Cara was sitting at the breakfast table by the time I made it down stairs, a bagel in one hand and the sport's section of the newspaper in the other. I grabbed an apple and took the chair opposite of her.

"Nervous about school?" she asked without looking up. Her eyebrow quirked upwards, the one thing that all the women in the Walker family shared.

"A little," I admitted before biting into the apple. I really would have rather eaten a waffle with eggs and bacon, but my stomach didn't need anything else weighing it down. It had already dropped to the floor. I hated how sick I felt when I got nervous. It was so unnecessary.

"You'll be fine. Forks isn't much bigger student wise than back home. It is spaced out a little weird, though."

I nodded, chewing my breakfast slowly.

"Yeah, I think I'm gonna head out early so I can find my classes. I'll see you this afternoon." I tossed the core of my apple in the trash and went back upstairs to grab my book bag. There really was no reason to get to school a whole thirty minutes before the first bell, but it would make me feel a little better. Right as I shut the door of my car, rain started falling in big, fat drops over the windshield. Here we go.

I noticed a silver Volvo at the Swan's house as I drove past, most likely belonging to that Cullen guy Cara had mentioned. I really hated driving in the rain, though there was no escaping it here. Thankfully, not many cars were on the road yet, and the school was only a couple of miles north. I could drive slow and still get there in plenty of time.

The student lot sat in the back of campus, mostly empty this early in the morning. The rain calmed to a drizzle by the time my car rolled to a stop in one of the spaces nearest to the office. I shrugged on my new rain jacket and checked that all of my notebooks and pens were in my bag. Then I double and triple checked, just to be sure. After that, I had no reason to stay in the safety of my car any longer.

One, two, three, go. Don't think about what you're doing. Just do it.

My hand was on the door handle and my feet on the wet gravel before I realized what I was doing. Just one step at a time. Whether it was an hour or just a minute until I reached the front office, I couldn't be sure. The cold had seeped in through my clothes and chilled my skin before I had made it halfway there. My hand automatically reached up to push my hair back as I made it to the double glass doors. It was already starting to frizz despite the hairspray. Warm air from inside washed over my face as I pulled the door open and stepped over the threshold. A middle aged secretary with horn-rimmed glasses looked up as I approached the counter.