You and Me

                What was I thinking?! Gosh dang it you’re such as spaz sometimes. I thought to myself as sat in my car, hands glued to the steering wheel. I had remained stationary at the wheel for most of the morning. It took Maddie almost an hour to even get me in that wretched car that morning.

                For some reason about a month ago some mysterious force had compelled me to beg my Maddie and Ken, my parents, to conclude my history of being a homeschooled child. I must have been feeling extra social or something and thought high school might be fun for a change. Who knows what I was thinking, but I couldn’t have possibly been in my right mind.

                My entire life I’ve had the shelter of my house and haven’t ever had to deal with the pressures of the world... mainly because Maddie doesn’t exactly approve of the real world. She doesn’t care for people who judge others, or wars, or grass, or slackers, or, well… she doesn’t approve much of anything really.

 Her and Ken both believe in even numbers therefore, I’m the youngest of two, meaning we have a perfect four family. My brother, Benjamin (named after his grandfather) is currently attending College in Alaska. He was smart and got as far away from home soon as possible. I’ve always envied him because he’d always attended public school. Maddie left the honor of being cut off from the outside world, just for me. I assumed that her and my father didn’t want me to attend public school because of the mess it made Benjamin. He’d come home from school every day smelling faintly of cigarettes and alcohol. He died his hair black, pierced his nose, and got a tattoo that ran up most of his arm. He was always shouting at Ken and Maddie, saying they were suffocating him and telling them how much he hated to say he was a part of our family.

Once I asked Benjamin why he was always so angry at them, he just shook his head and ruffled my hair. “You’ll understand someday, squirt.” He’d said. At that point I couldn’t ever imagine understanding, but as the years went by, I easily found myself wishing I had friends, or even just a life. Who wants to be alone their entire life?

I sure didn’t.

Two years later from that day, Benjamin was graduating and heading off to a College all the way in Alaska. The way Maddie and Ken spoke to him, you would have assumed he was the stupidest kid alive, but it turns out he’d gotten a full ride to the U of Alaska. He was a genius and I’d never even know. He’d packed his bags the second he got home, his belongings filling only one suit case, and then he was leaving.

“Take care of yourself kid.” He said smiling “If you ever need anything, and I mean ever, you just call me and I’ll be on the first flight home.” Then he got in his car and drove away.

He left me alone with them, never telling me just how alone I would really feel the second he was gone.

   As I sat there in the parking lot, I wished I could have just been content with feeling a little alone every now and again. I am not a social person- or at least I think I’m not- and for some reason I’d decided to throw myself into this environment that required social skills.

Tap, Tap, I nearly jumped out of skin when I heard a sharp wrap of knuckles against my window. “Hey hot stuff, you lost?” a chorus of laughter followed shortly after “Well you found me!” My heart thudded in my chest as I tried to decide how to respond to this remark. I shyly peaked out my window where there was a guy hunched over with his face pressed to the glass. “Boo.” He said when he noticed me looking at him. He looked like the typical high-schooler I’d seen in the movies. His hair was blonde and cut short. He was skinny and dressed in a light blue polo which was loosely hanging around his frame. This is the kind of guy Maddie would refer to as “sloppy.”  She said these kinds of guys had no future planed and no life ahead of them, and to stay away. It sounded like a typical case of the sour grapes to me.

“Yo, man leave her alone, she’s new.” I heard someone say. Thank God! The guy in the polo unplastered his face from my window to look at whoever just opened their mouth. I used this opportunity to make my escape. I grabbed my bag hastily and pushed open my door as quick as I could, making sure to keep my head down, I eyeballed the pavement as I made my way up to the school doors. I was absolutely positive there were people staring at me as I zipped toward the front entrance not because I was walking like a manic but because I could feel their eyes gorging into my back. I frantically ripped open the main entrance door trying to avoid all the eyes that were probably on me. I took one step inside the door before colliding with another body.

                “Gah!” My impressive speech ability ladies and gentleman…

                “Jeeze watch where you going would you, you could’ve killed me!” the girl I’d just trampled screamed at me.

                “Um… er… I’m sorry…” I said scrambling for words as we stood in-between the double doors, her papers floating around us. She started rummaging through everything that just fell on the floor and I guessed it was probably customary for me to assist the clean up process.

                “Yeah well sorry isn’t…” she stopped ranting to give me a funny look “wait, are you new here?”

                “My first day…” I mumbled awkwardly as I handed her a stack of papers.

                “Oh! Well isn’t that great” she said sarcastically “I’m the first person you’ve met and I just  chewed you out for running into me” her angry look was replaced by a giant smile. “Just ignore everything I just said, for real, I’m super sorry.”

                I just stared at her, not exactly sure what to say.

                “So do you have a name?” she asked after a momentary pause.

                “Skylar.” I said shortly. Breath! I reminded myself.

                “Oh cool, I’m Britney.” She said sticking her hand out for me to shake. I awkwardly shook her hand.

                “Do you know where you’re going?” she asked.

                “No, not really.” I admitted helplessly.

                “Come on, I’ll show you around!” she said flipping her bronze hair over her shoulder. She’s what you’d call pretty. I felt like everyone around me was prettier than I was. It may have just been because I didn’t exactly know what pretty was. Every girl at this school looked like a slightly different version of the girl standing next to her. They all looked the same and all seemed to know where they fit in and I felt like a complete outsider.

                My hair looped in light blonde, graceful curls, halfway down my back. My eyes were green as the swampy water in the pond behind my housed (which, for the record, is extremely green.) Thanks to a well nutritioned family, my size isn’t overly huge, and I’d like to think I’m simply medium.

                As I looked around the common area, where everyone was either reading of communing- I felt entirely small and outcast. “… and don’t worry about the food, you’ll get used to it soon enough… Oh here we are!” Britney was talking up a storm next to me as we appeared in front of the office. She dragged me through the front office explaining that I was new and needed a schedule, and that she would be my tutor for the day so needed a pass.

                After a few awkward moment we acquired everything we’d come to the office for. “You wanna meet some of my friends?” Britney asked. I looked at her quizzically wondering if this was a rhetorical question or not. I had no interest in meeting her friends but no doubt that’s where we would be headed next whether I liked it or not...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So sorry that this has to end on an awkward note. Technically, this chapter and the next one were supposed to be one chapter but then i saw it was six pages all together and was like... wow. Maybe i should split that up so people don't have a heart attack when they comet to look at it? And so i did. So if you want to meet Kit... maybe go to the next part? Pleasy and Thanks!