Headphones, Books, and Boba

A Strange Beginning

Part One

A strange beginning

August 10th, 2021

Oh god.

Oh my fucking god.

It felt like a damn ticking time bomb that was slowly counting down to my doom. Time was going by slower than a snail ever could, inching along as I stood on my porch, desperately gripping my backpack straps with white knuckles. Please no. Please god oh no.

I had been dreading this day ever since the beginning of 8th grade, and now it was here, and I'm just as scared as I thought I was going to be. Maybe I could pretend to be sick, and skip the first day, skip the introductions, skip the nervous navigation through the halls, and skip the sheer panic that is a new school. Back to the bottom of the food chain. Back to square one.

But I couldn't call in sick. I would miss the introductions, miss the nervous navigations, and I had to power through the new panic. If I had to deal with it tomorrow, I would end up where I am now. As much as I would love to make my future self suffer, I would get caught in the nasty loop I always got trapped in. I can't delay the first day of high school.

Why was I so terrified? I didn't want to be standing in the hot sun early august, anxiously waiting on the bus I had never previously ridden on. It didn't help that most of the Disney movies about high school always had the terrifying mean girl group that I so desperately wanted to avoid. Why did Disney make high school seem like such a hell spawn? It wasn't helping my case in the slightest. 

My nightmare came to reality when I felt the rumble of the bus engine as it came bumping down my road, a bright yellow blob of terror leading me to my demise. No no no, please no. I don't want to go. However, my feet were leading me down my driveway to the bright bus, my face forcing a tight smile as I stepped onto the vehicle. I couldn't bare to look at the bus driver, I felt I was on the brink of tears. My hands refused to leave my backpack straps until I plopped down into a seat near the back, quickly fumbling with my headphones and turning on some music so I could bare the ride of this hell train, driving me straight to death. 

Keeping my eyes on the window was the only way I could bare the drive. I wanted to cave into a hole and disappear into a different reality, one where I wasn't on the bus drive to school. I had never dreaded school this much before, but it was all so new, and absolutely petrifying I'd rather've been anywhere else but there. The occasional stops throughout my neighborhood was the only thing keeping my sanity, another few minutes to add to the ungodly drive time to a place I had never been before. I played with my hoodie strings, using any hair I could to cover my face the most that was optional. Sinking deeper into my seat felt like a protective bubble from the other kids chatting to each other. How were they so casual? I wanted to pass away.

Backroad after backroad went way too fast for my liking. Soon enough my bus was pulling in to the school, a place I refused to be. Maybe I could hide on the bus and wait the day away?

Too late, my feet picked me up off of the chair and lead me quick off the bus, stepping out onto the sidewalk in front of this building of hell. Looking up at the bricks, I felt my throat close in on itself, and my hands grew clammy around my backpack straps. The open front doors molded into wide open jaws of monsters ready to swallow me into the hell of education. I wanted to will myself to stop, but I couldn't. I just kept walking.

Keeping my head down seemed to help. People would avoid me as I slipped through the hallway with ease, listening to some shitty love song through my headphones. My teeth nibbled on the skin lining the inside of my cheeks, the soft spill of metallic oozing onto my tongue giving me enough to distract myself from the other, older kids walking past me. It felt like a single spotlight shining down on me wherever I went, or a million judgmental eyes of the world locked onto every movement I did. I glanced down at my watch, watching the small hand slowly tick it's way to 12, so close to the start of school.