𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒

03.𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋 𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐓

Los Angeles, CA, USA
October

ALANA ALEXANDRA MILLER

I wake up abruptly to the loud sound of my alarm, and I slowly open my eyes to look around the room where I am. I think that I now fully registered that I was in California and a wave of sadness rushes through me when I actually realize that I'm not going to see my friends for a very long time. I sigh turning around to turn off the annoying alarm I activated last night before going to sleep.


I slowly get out of bed and go to my bathroom to brush my teeth. When I'm done, I go to my closet and start looking for an outfit to wear for the day, and I decide to wear a casual outfit, which is a white long-sleeved shirt and a pair of light blue low-rise baggy jeans. When I finished preparing my clothes for the day, I chose a pair of shoes that match my outfit, and I went to my bathroom to take a quick shower.

After my shower, I begin to get ready. I moisturize my skin with a hydrating lotion and put on my clothes. When I have my clothes on, I do my skincare as quickly as I possibly can, and I do a minimal makeup look, which only consists of black mascara and a clear vanilla-scented lip balm. Afterwards, I spray some of my Kayali Vanilla 28 perfume on myself, and I go back to my room to get my phone that I left on my nightstand. Soon after, I leave the room and go towards the staircase, which is close to my room.

I go down the stairs quickly, and when I get to the bottom, I walk towards the kitchen, where I can recognize the voice of my father and Amber talking. When they see me entering the room, my father tells me

"Good morning."

"Morning," I answer.

"Are you ready to go to Target to buy your school supplies?" Amber asks me.

"Yeah, I just have to go get my backpack really quick," I say, rushing to my room to get the bag that I forgot that I was supposed to take downstairs with me.

When I reach my bedroom door, I open it and go grab the bag that was on the floor near my bed. I go back out immediately after and retake the stairs that lead to the living room. I go back into the kitchen, and my father hands me a green smoothie.

"I know you're not going to have the time to eat, so I made you this."

"Thanks, Dad," I tell him, taking the juice that he was handing me.

I take a few sips of the smoothie, and Amber tells me that we have to go, so I hurry up and drink the rest fast. When I'm done, I put the glass in the sink and I follow Amber, who is heading towards a black door on the opposite side of the house entrance.

The door leads to a big garage full of cars, and Amber walks over to a black sports car that's different from the one she picked us up from the airport yesterday.

"You can sit in the passenger seat if you want," she says while opening her car with her car key.

I nod and open the passenger door. I sit on the leather black seat of the car and fasten my seatbelt. Amber gets in the car right after me, buckles up, and starts the car, heading to the nearest Target, which I don't know is how long away.

The view of LA that I see through the window is impressive, and I can't believe that I'm going to see this every day. Since I'm bored, I open my phone and start scrolling on the photo app.

"So do you like it here?" Amber asks, hoping to start a conversation.

"Since this is my first real day in LA, I don't really know yet, but so far it's not as bad as I thought."

"That's great. You'll probably fit in well with the Californian girl vibes." She says she is trying to sound cool.

"I hope so," I answer, knowing deep down that integrating a new environment will be harder than she thinks.

The rest of the drive to Target is silent except when Amber asks me some questions about myself that I enjoy answering.

When the car that I'm sitting in pulls into a parking spot, I turn off my phone and wait for Amber to turn off the car so I can get out. When she turns off the car, I unbuckle my seat belt, and I get out of the vehicle. I wait for her to leave the car so that we can start heading towards Target.

When we enter the store, she leads me to the section where there is a lot of school-related stuff, and I take everything that I don't have on the school supply list that the school sent to my father by email a week prior.

I quickly finish finding what I need, and since there are not surprisingly not many people in the store, we don't have to wait for a long time in line, and we leave the store quickly.

Amber then drives me to the school, and when we get there, I am as intimidated as I am amazed at the size of the establishment.

"Okay, so call me when you're done," Amber tells me as she unlocks the car doors.

I thank her and get out of the car. The minute that I leave the vehicle, I see that Amber is already speeding off the parking lot, so I anxiously walk towards the school's gray main doors. When I enter the building, I am shocked to see that the school seems even bigger from the inside than from the outside and that it does not feel as suffocating as my old private school back in New York, where the building seemed to date from the Stone Age.

Without knowing where to go in this huge, empty school, I walk mindlessly trying to find the office that I need to go to. The only people who are in the establishment with me are some of the staff members and a few students who seem to be studying.

I walk up to the group of students and ask them where the way is to the secretary's office. They look at me confused, and a ginger girl tells me that it is on the second floor next to the library. I thank her and go look around for the nearest staircase. When I finally see one, I walk up the stairs until I reach the second floor, which was above the floor I was on.

When I'm on the 2nd floor, I look around for the office, and a short time later, I find it. There is a blonde-haired man sitting in a black chair taking a call, and he barely acknowledges me as he just motions me to wait. I stay in front of the doorway, waiting for him to finish his call. And after angrily hanging up and putting down the phone, he looks straight into my eyes. A few seconds later, he motions for me to come forward with a nonchalant look.

I walk up to his desk, and he tells me to sit on one of the chairs in front of him. The second I sit, He begins to give me a very long speech about how the rest of the year would go, the school rules, the inexistent dress code, how I was lucky they accepted me when school already started, etc.

After his long speech, he gives me a paper with several class names, and after writing a check mark on which classes I want, the man points me to the principal office. I get up from the chair that started to feel uncomfortable, and I slowly approach a small hallway with 2 doors, both of which have one of the principals' names written on them.

I knock on the tall glass door with a gold sign written: Principal Elizabeth B. Collins, and a few seconds later, I hear a woman's voice from behind the door, telling me to come in.

When I open the door, the principal invites me to sit in a light gray, comfortable-looking chair in front of her desk. When I sit, she stares at me without saying anything for a few seconds, but eventually, she starts talking.

"Do you prefer to be called Alana or Alexandra?" Ask the woman sitting in front of me looking at what seems to be my school record.

"Alana," I tell her.

"I'll make a mental note of that." She says, looking down at the sheet.

Then, she clears her throat and starts to explain the values of the school and what she expects of every student. In the end, she gives me a paper schedule based on the choice that I made twenty minutes earlier and informs me that my schedule is also available online.

I leave the office shortly after, full of information, and I sigh, walking back to the stairs to find my locker, which is on the first floor. I walk back to the hallway where I say something written about the seniors' locker area, and when I finally find the lockers, I look closely at each number until I find mine.

After looking for my locker in two rows, I finally see the number 1411, so I open the locker using the code that the principal gave me, and I unpack all my school supplies that I previously put in my backpack. When I'm done, I take my schedule and start to look around the school to find the classes that I have tomorrow so that I don't get lost in the school when there will be almost two thousand students.

At the end of my self-tour of the establishment, I look at the time on my phone and see that it is already 2:00 p.m., so I call Amber, and she tells me that my father is on his way to pick me up. I leave the school and decide to wait for him on a bench near the parking lot. After some time, I see his car coming from afar, and I get up.

I put my phone in the back pocket of my jeans, and I wait for the car to stop next to me. When the car stops, I don't waste any time and get in. Then, I fasten my seatbelt, and he restarts the car.

"You spent a lot of time in here. Are you ready for school tomorrow?" Ask my father.

"Yes, I am," I answer confidently.

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I'm probably going to do some modification on this chapter but I really wanted to post it.