-One
Walking into school after months of not showing up was like walking into a nightmare. I forgot the smell and the peeling paint and the tiled floor. I forgot how the people talk and walk and stare. But being here again, it comes back in huge explosive waves. I feel sick. All I’ve been feeling lately is sick.
I search for my locker. All the numbers are wrong, jumbled and unreadable. Asking would mean something is clearly wrong. I hold onto all my books, my backpack pressing hard on my shoulders.
The bell rings and it is louder than I remember. I clench my teeth. The sounds resembles nails on a chalkboard, at least to me it does. Every day for two months I went to history class at this time in Mrs. Waters’ room. And now, I have no idea where it is.
“Edith,” a girl’s voice says.
I turn. “Yeah,” I say to Clara.
Clara is the sweetest person on the planet. For the longest time I thought she was super fake because how can someone be that nice all the time. But she just is.
“You have Waters still, right?”
“Yeah,” I say.
She loops her arm around mine. “I’m glad they didn’t change it.”
“Me too,” but I don’t really care.
Pulling me around corners and through different hallways we end up in history class. The room looks familiar, but a faraway familiar. Like a dream or déjà vu. She sits in the front row right next to the teacher’s desk. I escape to the back, the corner, right next to the window. Clara looks around and then moves to the seat in front of me.
“I get it,” she says. “Most people hate the front, I suppose.”
I smile, or attempt a smile. It feels awkward and wrong. I’m sure it looks that way too.
She turns around as soon as the teacher walks into the room.
Mrs. Waters doesn’t make a big show out of my return. I had nightmares for weeks after my aunt said I would be starting school again soon. It was always the same. I walked into school, into