My brother slowed his old, hand-me-down cherry red '04 Charger to a stop alongside the curb at the front entrance of the Mountain View High. The ten-minute drive here had been a long, excruciating ride of uncomfortable silence. It struck a chord somewhere beneath the walls I'd build around my heart that I was no longer comfortable in my brother's company. I'd spent so long basking in the familiarity of his presence in the last sixteen years that it felt as if the realization was taking with it the last of my childhood.
He grasped the steering wheel in his hand now, gazing passed me and out the window at the school. I could see from the faint look of longing in his eyes, that he wished to be entering the school with me. High school had been his time to shine; he'd been at the top for years only to steadily drop back to where he began at the university. In that moment, I almost believed that my brother had lost a little of himself this summer too. He'd lost a remnant of his childhood as he moved from the end of one story and into the beginning of another. The thought quickly faded when he dropped his hands to his lap and breathed a sigh of relief.
"I am so glad to finally be out of this place." he stated. "What about you? Are you ready for your first day?"
He'd been asking the question repeatedly for the last two weeks, as if my answer would miraculously change at some point. I touched my fingertips to the cold glass of the window, watching my breath create a spot of condensation beside my wrist. It fade into nothing, my brother's quiet, steady breathing the only thing heard inside the car. My fingers curled into a loose fist, momentarily distracted when Landon grasped my forearm and forced me to look at him.
I jumped back, startled by the sudden action, something close to a cry breaking passed my lips before I could stop it. His green eyes grew wide as he released my hand and held his own up in surrender. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
I nodded. After a moment of tense silence, he eyed me wearily and whispered, "Are you okay, Ave? You seem a little off."
"I'm fine, Landon." I whispered. "Just first day of school jitters, nothing to worry about."
My lie comforted him enough to unlock the doors with a familiar, warm smile.
"I'll be here to pick you up. Try and have a good day. It's always easier when the year starts off nice." he said.
I opened my door and stepped out, shutting it behind me before bending over so I could see him through the window. He rolled it down halfway and waved. Stepping back on to the curb, I swung my backpack over my shoulder, slouching a little under its weight. He nodded curtly before speeding off out of the lot, sure to get a speeding ticket out on the street if he didn't slow down. I stared at the cloud of exhaust left in the old car's wake for a minute, sure he was gone, before I whispered a soft response.
"I'll try."
*
My eyes scoured the overcrowded cafeteria for my best friend Isabelle the minute I stepped in. She shouldn't have been hard to spot. In a school of over three thousand kids, Isabelle Watson was one of the two kids with red hair. For this reason, she had been taunted and teased most of our freshman year and decided then that she'd give the school an attitude to match her "ginger" nickname.
My eyes fell on her at a small, empty table in the middle of the cafeteria. I wasn't at all surprised to find that the new spot she chose wasn't in the forefront or in the back. We'd learned years ago, starting at this school, that the middle was always best.
Her curtain of bone straight red hair was the only thing visible as I crossed the packed lunchroom to her. I nearly tripped over various people's backpacks or feet, and face planted right into my food. Under no circumstances was I going to eat it, but I figured that the action of grabbing the tray would prevent Isabelle from bombarding me with questions about my health. She would no doubt see how much weight I'd dropped over the last couple months.
Hearing my footsteps, she glanced up, her green eyes wide behind her thick rimmed pink glasses. The lipstick she wore was a similar color tone, and after a moment of pressing her phone against her ear and talking quickly into it, she set the phone on the table beside her tray and grinned.
I'd always found it undeniable that Isabelle was gorgeous. She was tall, had the legs of a model, and the perfect figure. She wasn't too thin or thick but had a tendency to wear oversized sweatshirts to barricade herself under. She refused to accept the fact that she was pretty; it'd been the same battle between the two of us since the sixth grade. I would try all I could to boost her confidence in herself, but she'd only batted away the compliments and refused to believe anything that left my mouth. I'd even asked Landon to give a little of his opinion at one point, which on my part, had been a terrible idea. The compliment from my brother had scared her into a little shell she hadn't come out of for two weeks following it. I had stopped a couple years ago, figuring she'd come into herself eventually, both physically and mentally.
The only issue that came to light from her beauty was the attitude that came with it. She'd been dissing guys away from her with sarcastic comments and nerdy innuendos since seventh grade. There had always been a part of me that had striven to be like her; to not care and swat them away like pesky flies on a hot day in the middle of summer.
But I'd never been brave enough to do it.
"I'd say I'm happy to be home, but this hellhole isn't much better than the inferno I spent the summer in." Isabelle joked as I set my tray on the tabletop. I smiled a little, hoping it didn't appear as much like a grimace as It felt, and sat down.
Isabelle had spent the last two months up in Utah with her father and his new family. She'd put it into her own head before leaving that she wasn't going to enjoy it but had tried to be as optimistic as possible about staying with the father she hadn't seen in years. As I listened to Isabelle put down her father, the assumption that she regretted ever agreeing to go wasn't too far a stretch from the truth. She made it clear as day she hated leaving her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Craig, and me, for someone who didn't care about her.
I never got a chance to respond, something I had to blame on my inability to get to lunch early, or on time, as I usually did. I've always been a punctual person, but it had been a chore to even drag myself down the hallway to the cafeteria. The little energy I'd had stepping out of Landon's car this morning had since vanished and it was a miracle I was still standing.
The bell sounding through the room silenced everyone for a millisecond before an even louder eruption of talking returned. Isabelle stood, dumped her tray in the trash, and turned her attention to her phone for a moment as she headed for the door. I followed in suit, keeping a close enough distance behind her to not lose her in the sea of students pouring out of the room all at once.
The moment the bell rang a second time, everyone went their separate ways. Isabelle turned and hugged me, whispering something about getting ice cream on her way over tonight for Movie Night, then made her way down the hall and to her fourth period.
I didn't care enough to try and hurry around like a headless chicken as I maneuvered my way through the hall and to my locker for my textbooks. My fingertips brushed the combination lock before I began to turn it and opened the red door. A small mirror Isabelle had been insistent I put in, hung off the door beside a picture of the two of us at Junior Prom last year. It had been one of the few occasions she had taken off her tough exterior, and glasses, and really enjoyed herself. It was one of my favorite pictures, so much so that I'd made a copy and the other sat in our photo album back at home.
My mind and heart wanted to smile at the thought of the dance and the memory with it, but my lips had no desire to move. It was as if I physically couldn't smile, and that thought alone felt as if the air had become trapped in my throat, not allowing me to breathe out. Quickly, gathering my government textbook, I glanced sideways at the mirror and dropped the book so it hit the tile hard between my feet.
Kevin Marshall stood over my shoulder wearing a taunting smirk and warning eyes that forced me to retreat into myself in every way possible. I tried to blink away the image of his dark, icy blues baring through me, of his light brown hair a tousled mess from the excessive gel he put in and washed out daily. But the images remained and wouldn't fade. I could feel the warmth of his body against my back, the pressure of his arms brushing against mine as he edged closer. A glimpse of a few kids pointing and laughing were caught in my peripheral, an image I wish would disappear just as much as Kevin. I slammed the locker and spun on my heel; eyes squeezed shut in hopes he'd be gone when I pried them open again. That was where luck would never be on my side.
It didn't matter if my eyes were open or closed, I could still hear him, could still feel him; I couldn't escape him.
I peeked through one eye, then both when I realized that Kevin Marshall was nowhere in sight, and the few kids that did still linger in the hall were only staring because of the scene I'd just caused. I swallowed, warmth spreading up my neck and to my cheeks in embarrassment as I swept my textbook up from the shoe scuffed floor and hugged it against my chest.
*
I stretched my feet out on the warm blacktop in front of me, watching the heel of my shoe dig into the asphalt in silence. My serene peace was disturbed by the sound of obnoxiously loud laughter echoing through the emptying parking lot. Considering most of the cars in the lot were lined up at a stop sign at the other end, it was easy to spot Kevin's black Toyota Tundra across the lot near staff parking. My eyes drifted from the truck to the owner as he, with the accompaniment of two basketball players, pushed and shoved each other out to their destination. The closer they got to the truck, the more I struggled to get each breath out. It started to feel as if my throat was closing with every passing second and was letting a very minute passage of air through. The weight in my chest pressed even harder at the sight of him, forcing me to collapse even further into myself.
I leaned forward before I could comprehend what I was doing, elbows digging into my knees, head down, catching the boys' actions out of the corner of my eye. They appeared to be stocking the bed of Kevin's truck with a large array of campaign signs and posters for his father-our new candidate for Governor. One of the jocks snickered a little before throwing a look my way over his shoulder. I diverted my eyes, relieved as my brother's car slowed to a stop, the engine purring a beautiful melody that I was beyond thankful to be listening to. I stood shakily and opened the door, relieved to find him in a better mood than he had been when he'd dropped me off .
"Hey." he greeted. Realizing I wasn't in any mood to try and make small talk, he ordered me to put my seat belt on and sped off toward the other end of the school parking lot.
***AN***
*Unedited*
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