Susan was walking down the hall to her English class when she spotted Nicole.
"Susan! Just the person I wanted to see. Taylor wanted me to give you the journal" said Nicole, grabbing the journal out of her backpack and handing it to Susan.
"Why?"
"You see my dad works for UPS. They are a very global company. Basically, in order for my dad to keep his position in the company, our family has to move to Belgium."
Susan was shocked.
"Well I understand but for god's sake I need you at this school with me!" exclaimed Susan.
Susan could hear the argument that Nicole would already have lined up against her and the bullet points came easily into her head
. The economy is bad.
. Mr. Panera has a well-paying job.
Mr. Panera had this UPS job all his life so it was pretty absurd that they didn't move an inch from Atlanta until now.
Nicole proceeded to tell her that she cried the whole night.He apparently had told her that night as well, obviously not thinking of whether she would be able to get asleep or not.
"Justin is very mad and doesn't want to talk to me. How am I supposed to part with him without saying goodbye? Ironically, he couldn't help but tell everyone in the group"complained Nicole.
"Everyone knows!"
"Oh, crud. Justin told. Didn't he? He's so immature" Susan said.
Nicole nodded.
"I wish he could just keep a secret for once in his life."
After the start of her freshman year, Susan discovered this one truth - your crush is NEVER as impressive as you hoped they are. While Taylor daydreamed of Justin, her sister befriended him - seeing the contrast to be wildly different. If this was what will happen should Susan ever have a similar occurrence with Henry Panera - the consequences would be catastrophic to her hopeless romantic ideals.
Nicole walked in thirty minutes before the first period began just like all the other kids who needed time to re-organize their locker.
Caroline waited for her on a nearby bench.
"I know what's going to happen"whispered Caroline.
Nicole didn't ask any questions but just went and hugged her.
"Who told you?" Nicole soon demanded, already guessing who spilled the beans.
"Justin."
Nicole dragged Caroline by the hand into the school - to the area in the left of the hallway where her friends talked in the morning. This area was inconveniently by a set of Junior-used lockers who often complained of seeing Nicole's friends in the mornings calling them "Nerds" and "Anime geeks."
Another friend, Sandy, ran to her with fake sobs and threw her arms around Nicole.
"I don't want you to leave!!!!" cried Sandy.
"You!" said Nicole, turning her finger upon the guilty culprit.
"You weren't supposed to tell!"
Brenda walked up to Justin and started to pinch his ear.
"Listen to your girlfriend!" ordered Brenda.
Clark then came up to Nicole and smiled.
"You have to let us see pictures!" he cooed.
"Oh sure. You all will get gifts from there. Chocolate especially!" said Nicole.
"Chocolate!" cried Justin.
He was always really high whenever he was around any of his friends, especially girls.
They would come up and hug him to which he said "It Burns!"
Then when the singing "It's A Small World After All" he would say "It Burns!" again.
He was the dog of the group of friends; even to Clark who loved pinching his ear and messing around with Justin's head with jokes of Nicole, this side was one unfamiliar to Taylor.
Nicole again had to remain silent.
What else could be done? It didn't really help to make a big deal about it or they'd assume Nicole was having a tantrum.
Just like her parents would when she was little.
Nicole stood around quiet, remembering of how she planned for Justin and Susan to be the only one who was to know.
"Beeeep!" sung the lunch time bell.
The kids all rushed out of the classroom in a rush of speed, everyone fighting to get through the door first.
Susan and Nicole just waited until they all squeezed themselves out the door.
They had class in the trailers and had to walk good ways to get to the cafeteria.
Susan was so swept up in all the new events of the move, unable to hold onto any speck of memory she would rather have filled her head.
Lunch arrived and the friends sat together in their usual spots.
Clark had recently begun sitting by Elena which made Susan jealous. Elena was always quiet and docile - never rocking waves but always a reminder of how immature Susan was.
Susan was reminded of who could have been her boyfriend: Henry Panera.
Who cared about connections now?
Everything was falling apart.
"Oh, we have a lovely World War 2 test today" sung Caroline.
Robert and Brenda didn't pay attention but instead were air-guitaring music on their iPod. Clark eyed Susan.
"Did you study for that test?" he asked with one eye raised.
Susan's heart thumped at his resemblance to...
"Elena, what's wrong? You look sick!" said Margie concerned and drew the table's attention.
Elena was crying.
"I'm sorry guys. I'll just miss Nicole" she said quickly.
The pain was too hard to be without Henry. She had to see him again.
Nicole looked from friend to friend, feeling as if her heart could burst.
Susan scratched nervously at her hands. She couldn't stay here.
Susan excused herself from the table telling Margie,"I have to go to the library."
She did 10 problems in the library but her emotions overtook her.
She stormed out of the library, leaving a decent mass of students staring after her.
She locked herself in a stall out of habit. There she started to cry.
It was a sad moment but it wasn't irregular for Susan to go run off and cry in the bathrooms at school, even at the old Partake School that she had attended the previous year before.
She just stood there behind a stall door and let the tears roll down her cheeks. She would often have to turn to this depressing ritual when she didn't have control over the events that happened in her life.
This could be any event from missing homework to the occasional deadly period. Sometimes, it felt as if her tears had to be seen to someone; but she knew any pity she craved from people was mostly in her imagination. There was NOTHING pitiable about Susan - the next disaster in her life was nothing to the notorious girl: annoying to a fault and always nosy.
Susan thought about Henry and how she hadn't talked to him for the longest time. She knew she missed her chance and that he would be going to Europe to coo over French and German girls.
It was similar to Justin and Nicole's issue, she thought to herself, only it was different from that situation as well.
Unlike Justin and Nicole, Henry and Susan never had a relationship, to begin with.
Henry also didn't want her around which was something that Susan had to get straight in her head. Why did Susan continue to imagine that there was a possibility of them getting together? It was already the second semester and Susan should have been moving on by now. Hanging on to people like this is not a normal thing.
Now the lunch bell rang and Susan had to go to her next class but she told herself"I'm not going anywhere until I figure things out."
She sat there for a long time silent, thoughts trailing to all the people in her family, then settling on her great great grandmother. The Dodgson line was always a little bit kooky, and every relative that passed since that faithful "Wonderland" seem to have a penchant for drinking and madness.
It led to some speculation that the land Lewis Carroll wrote of what not fiction, but simply one of the countries of the Inner Earth. Of course, Susan's dad taught her to believe in Science, but that didn't stop her from trying to imagine the impossible. If she gave herself up to it, would she be able to go to Wonderland too?
"Oh! Won't you take me to Wonderland?" sighed Susan.
She fell asleep innocently, her body curling up like an injured rolly-polly against the grimy high school toilet.