A Seek for Reason

A Seek for Reason - Chapter 1

Why is it that I have friends, yet I always feel so lonely? I wake up in the morning and I go to school. I go to my locker and then I go to the usual place where my 'friends' are. Everybody is so involved in conversations and I arrive, and nobody notices. Nobody. Is it because I am not pretty? Is it because I don't just slip right into my skinny jeans? Is it because boys don't usually like me? Please tell me why because I don't know. And I don't know how to join into these conversations that are already so involved. I don't know! I admit, I might be part of the 'popular' clique, but that doesn't mean I am happy. Don't you ever notice that when you look around, and you look at the less popular, they look the most happy. Is this because they have less people to deal with and they don't have to include so many people in their list of friends? I feel insecure and I don't like it. I don't like it at all. Tomorrow was the first day back to school from winter break and I was going to be continuing eleventh grade for the remaining 6 months of the school year. I was not excited.

The only ounce of excitement that I felt for tomorrow was hopefully going back to extremely changed personalities of people. Maybe my 'friends' would change. You might ask why I'm friends with these people if I don't like their personalities. Well the thing is, they're good people, but I don't know what I am around them because they don't seem to respond to me or give me any sort of clue about who I am. I wish they would, though. I really do because I like them and I like being around them. This is the process, though, that some people call 'High School', but I'm gonna call it 'figuring things out' because that's what the next one and a half years are about-- figuring things out.

'Danielle! Wake up! It's your first day of school! You don't want to be late! Wake up!' called the loud, dominant voice of which was my mother's. Before I got up, I grabbed the pillow next to me and squeezed it on to my face, as if I was annoyed. Probably because I was. There were those rare moments where I loved life, but those common ones where I just wanted to disappear. This moment, right now, was one where I wanted to disappear. That's the only thing I want in life; to disappear. I wanted to disappear into a life full of reasons. I needed to live off of reasons because being at the Chicago Park High School didn't give me any. I needed to know why I felt insecure and like I didn't belong. Why did I have to live? Once I get a reason as to why I am unhappy, then I will be happy. For now, though, I had to live off of this stupid school where you had to get up at 6:30 in the morning. I got out of bed and shouted to my mother that I was up and getting ready. I never usually dressed nicely for school. My choice of clothes was based off the weather and it was freezing at this time of year, as it always was in Chicago. I decided to go with some dark blue jeans, a light blue t-shirt and a not-too-thick winter coat. I grabbed my scarf off the rack that hung next to my closet and wrapped it around my neck. Unbelievably, I felt secure for a moment. I was all covered up and it felt as if there was a bubble around me and if anybody tried to come close to me they would just bounce right off the bubble, away from me. Before I could get any deeper into my words, I grabbed my backpack and hustled down the stairs. 'Do you want me to drive you?' asked my mother, in a voice that sounded much less dominant than it was earlier this morning. I shook my head and replied, 'No, it's fine. I feel like walking today.' She replied, 'Okay, but be careful,' with a sigh. I replied, 'Always,' as I ran out the door.

Arriving at school, I went into my normal routine; locker and then the 'deck' where my friends probably were. On the way to the deck, I decided to scan the crowd of juniors to see if there were any new faces. I noticed a couple. They looked a little bit like how I felt; insecure. Though, that's probably only because they're new and that's how the new people always are. I decided I'd go talk to this girl that was standing in the corner by the last set of lockers. She had long, wavy light brown hair with dark brown highlights. They were actually really stunning. She was wearing boots with jeans, a black blazer and a scarf. It all looked really good on her. Then I noticed. She was reading a book and that book was my favorite book; The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. It was basically about a girl that had a bad case of cancer and went to this support group thing and met this guy and they fell in love, but at first she didn't want to be with him, in the fear of dying (like his past girlfriend had) but she dated him anyway. This guy, obviously, had cancer (as he'd been in the support group with her) but his cancer wasn't too severe at the moment. Green made the reader feel as if the girl was dying, but then the boy's case of cancer got very bad again and *Spoiler Alert* he died before she ever did. It was a sad story, not so much because of the dying people with cancer, but because of the meaning that invaded me throughout reading the book. So I walked over to this girl that was beautiful and reading my favorite book and I said, 'Hi. I haven't seen you before. Are you new?' I knew she was new. 'Yes,' she said with a wide smile that displayed all her front teeth, 'My name is Ariana.' I smiled back, 'I'm Danielle.' Then, there was a moment of silence. I decided to break the silence by saying, 'I really love your hair. Are those highlights natural?' I knew they weren't natural. 'Thank you! And yes, they are natural.' Just kidding. They were natural. How was that possible, though? How could she have such beautiful hair naturally? I'd never witnessed anything like that in my life. I had never thought that beauty could come naturally. 'So, I see you're reading The Fault In Our Stars. That is my favorite book.' She nodded, 'Yeah, I just started it last night and I'm already three quarters of the way through. That's how much I like it.' I knew how much she liked it because that's how fast it took me to read it. 'Hey, do you want to come with me to the deck. It's this place where me and some of my friends hang out in the mornings?' She did her wide-teeth smile again and said, 'I'd really love to, but I sorta just wanna get through this book.' I laughed and said, 'I understand! I would've done the same thing if it was my first time reading that book. I would probably even do the same thing if it was my second time reading that book.' She laughed. I thought it might have been a bit rude if I just walked off so I just decided to say, 'Well then I'll see you around!' She replied with a 'Yeah' and waved at me as I walked off.