Lullabies

Six.

After an hour or two of calming down at the tree, watching the sun sink lower and lower in the sky I decided it was time to go home. It was time to face the music – so to speak. With a sigh that seemed to shake off the last of my reservations, I rose to my feet.

The tree was breath taking at this time of day, the sun bowing down to give the moon the stage. The sky was tinged with pink and orange, all of it reflected on the lake, which seemed to glitter and glimmer under the colours that looked like they belonged on an artist’s canvas. The branches of the tree tossed lightly in the breeze creating soothing sounds that made it all the more easier to calm down. I threw one more wistful look back at the place that had become my place. My place to get my thoughts in order and escape from the world, even if only for a moment. And then I started the trek home, hoping to God that I wouldn’t be late. That was the absolute last thing I needed.

I hiked my bag onto my shoulder and strode away from the peaceful place with purposeful strides. Confidence, that’s all I needed to have to hide my true emotions. “Confidence,” I told myself, repeating it in my head like a mantra. As if repeating the words would hold it in place.

The student parking lot was as empty as the desert, abandoned as soon as they were all allowed to flee from the building that kept us imprisoned for six hours each day. I sighed and resisted the urge to punch or kick one of the few teachers’ cars that were still parked in between the white lines.  Getting a ride home was out of the question then. Even though I knew it had been, I’d still hoped, I guess that’s where the problem lay. Hope was such a dangerous thing, it could kill someone just as easily as a bullet or knife.

I tipped my head back to look at the sky, as if it held all the answers of the universe. An aggravated noise broke through the back of my throat when none of those answers came.

“Seriously, today is the worst day ever.”

After my complaining fell on deaf ears I thought it would be best to start walking now or my mother would most definitely kill me. As I approached the guard’s station I saw Malcolm was on duty, sitting back in his tiny booth with his feet perched precariously on the windowsill. To say the position looked uncomfortable would be the understatement of the century. His tall body – which if I had to guess, I would say was at least 6 foot tall – was bent at the waist and folded in on himself.

Kingston Prep was paranoid, to say the least. When I was in my freshman year, a break in occurred. A bunch of seniors had decided it would be a real blast to break into the school and steal the answer sheets to the upcoming exams. While they were there they also made a mess of the entire school and smashed in almost all of the windows. The perpetrators had been caught, prosecuted and grown up to be upstanding members of the community. Still, the school was guarded twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. I swear, you’d think we were housing some of the Queen of England’s jewels in there.

I pulled my bag off my shoulder, opening it with hasty movements and pulling out the bottle that I’d swiped from Dad’s liquor cabinet this morning for this very reason. Being on school grounds after 5 o’clock was not only prohibited, it was also extremely rare for any student to do. All of them wanted to escape as soon as they could. I, on the other hand, would rather stay in this prison than go home to an even stricter one. I just couldn’t afford to be caught once more on school property after hours though. With the threat of expulsion looming over my head if I was caught it was sure to come crashing down like a hammer, knocking the final nail into my coffin.

“Confidence,” I mumbled. Swiping my tongue over my teeth and fluffing my hair up in an attempt to make myself look somewhat presentable. I let my lips stretch into a perfected fake grin that seemed to be permanently attached to my face whenever people were around, my teeth clenched together so tight that my jaw was starting to protest.