Sophomore Status

Chapter 2: Under The Bridge

When I stepped up onto the bus, I scanned everyone to see if there was someone I had seen throughout the day. Unfortunately, I didn't see anyone, so I sat down in an empty seat near the middle of the bus. More students entered the bus for the next five minutes and then the driver finally pulled out. She was old and probably single. I could tell by her haircut. Yeash! She had dark purple hair in a short bob cut with a white streak on the side. She was definitely single. I thought that one day she could improve her appearance, until she pulled out a cigarette and gave me a dirty look in the mirror.

"Ouch!" I murmured quietly. We had driven over a speed bump and my backpack flew into the air and fell right back down on my legs really hard. It hurt, but not enough to really matter.

The old woman slammed on the breaks and stopped in front of my yellowish-brown house. It was one story and pretty old. We had just moved in a week before school started, from Montana. Me and my family lived there for our whole lives, so it was a very large change for all three of us.

I stood up from my seat and started walking down the isle until I got close enough to the bus driver to see something. There was a beetle tattoo on half of her neck. It was brown and wrinkly. No wonder she was a bus driver, she can't even present herself properly.

When I saw the tattoo I paused for a half a second and then continued walking. I finally reached the door and I stepped down onto the street and approached my house as the bus drove away behind me. I walked through the grass until I reached the front door. Some birds were having an argument when I reached into my pocket and pulled out a silver key. I shoved it into the door handle and wiggled it until it was unlocked. Truth was, I didn't really know how to unlock a door. It was too complicated so I just resulted in wiggling it until it was open.

I stepped inside and closed door behind me, trying to make it quiet so my younger brother wouldn't hear. I didn't want him attacking me with questions of my first day of school.

Jason had stayed home all day because his school was closed down. Over the summer, there were two bomb threats to his school so the county had to make extra precautions. I wasn't sure if it was a good thing that the schools were closed. I mean, yes, I think that they should be careful just incase anything else happens, but the whole school? That's a lot of middle schoolers with nothing to do.

I walked into the family room and found my dad laying on the couch working, while chomping down a slice of pizza.

"It's dark in here." I said. I leaned over towards the wall and flipped up the light switch. My dad turned and smiled at me. Sometimes I felt bad for my dad because he worked at home (he was a Virginia Virtual School teacher, or VVS for short). He had no motivation to get up and exercise or get out of the house like Jason and I do, at least when his school started up again.

"How was your day sweetie?" He asked me.

"Good." I replied calmly, nodding my head.

"Did you make any friends today?"

"Yeah, there's this girl named Lindsey that's in two of my classes." I told him.

"Good! I'm glad you know someone. After you make one friend it's all uphill from there." My dad said with a happy expression on his face. Although he didn't actually know what it was like to be in high school. He was too old for that. And to be honest, it wasn't uphill from there. Every high schooler would know that you don't just automatically make friends from knowing people. They have to actually like you.

Not wanting to explain that to him, I smiled at him and walked to my room and closed the door behind me. I slid my shoes off, dropped my backpack and face planted into my bed. It felt amazing.

For the rest of the night, I didn't do much. I texted my friend Kennedy from Montana, and laid on my bed, trapped in thought of what my school year would be like, you know at a new school with new friends. Sometimes I even wondered how my life would turn out, like after college, If I ended up going.

Other than my thoughts, there was only one thing that could keep me busy for ages. Reading. Surprisingly, I read almost every book I owned. However, there was one book that I read at least ten times already. It was called Under The Bridge by Helen Locke. It was about three best friends who had to move away from each other after the Great Depression. However, the girls still walked miles everyday to a small spot in the woods where there was a secret bridge that they would play on. It was a very touching book that I read with my mother when I was younger. I wasn't positive but I thought that the reason I liked the book was because I needed friends and the bond between Elise, Ella and Rebecca, in the book, was something that I really wanted to have.

I was reading it again, so I flung myself straight into the book and got lost for hours. I could even recite some of my favorite quotes from the book that I had memorized. Sometimes, my brother would hear my reading them aloud, and thought I was secretly on the phone with my boyfriend or something, like I even had one. My brother had lots of weird thoughts, but that's a whole other conversation.

When I found myself drooling on my pillow, I turned my lamp off and stopped reading. I laid there staring and the glow in the dark stars taped to my ceiling that I got from the Lake Pines General Market. It was a cheesy and generic name but it was a cool place.

I finally fell asleep, thinking about why Elise, Ella, and Rebecca continued to be friends even though they had moved away from each other. Better yet, I found myself dreaming about it too.