Don't Stop Believin' (COMPLETED)

19. Don't Stop Believin'

DON'T STOP BELIEVIN' - JOURNEY

A/N:

Here's chapter 19 :) Hop eyou like it

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When I woke up on Friday morning, a week after that disastrous party where all my chances of ever getting Derek to like me had been totally destroyed, I wished I had never opened my eyes. I wished I had never made a particular call, that I had never gone to a certain party, that Derek and I had never been paired up in school and that we had never moved to Detroit. I even wished, if only for a brief second, that I had never met Derek.

It was, as said, Friday morning, June 11 at 6:03 and my eyelids felt heavy as iron. It was the morning before my last day as a senior in High School ... The bell signaling that it was time for school start wouldn’t ring until eleven and I didn’t have the faintest idea why I was already awake. Maybe I had forgotten to turn off the alarm clock, but my brain was too busy to remember what had woken me up. Whatever it was, it had not only brought me out of my sleep; it had also brought the butterflies of nervousness out of the dormancy deep down in my stomach. Even the morning after the party, I had regretted my decision to sing at the graduation but Mrs. Black had not allowed me to pull myself out. Unfortunately…

A big yawn left my lips and I rubbed my eyes as I sat up in bed. The sunlight that found its way through the blinds was weak and soon disappeared behind a gray cloud, while the wind increased in strength outside the window. On the news the night before, the weather guy said that there would be rain in the afternoon, but I had hoped that we would get through the ceremony without rain. Apparently I was wrong ... However, Mrs. Polley had had a good eye on the weather reports the last week and took the safe thing before the unsure, and had already seen that the ceremony had been moved in to the theater. In there, we would all get our grades, honor students were going to be appointed and performances performed. That's where I came into the picture...

During the past week, I had come home from school before 6:00 pm only once and hadn’t fallen asleep before 03:00 am one single night. The only thing that was reasonably normal when it came to time was when I got up in the mornings: bell rang as usual at 06:00 am, which meant that I had an average of three hours of sleep the last few days. And as if to study for final exams wasn’t enough, I also had two hours of practice with Mrs.. Black after school. School ended at four, singing practice and rehearsal with the choir at six o'clock and study for tomorrow's test between eight to one, and then lie and twist and turn in bed for at least two hours. Unnecessary math formulas and expressions were still spinning around in my head, even though all the tests were already completed.

I had actually gotten through most of all examinations with honors, but because I missed a few credits in biology (which was my worst subject) and had always been three points away from the highest grade in PE, I just missed the chance to be appointed as one of the five honor students. I didn’t mind it, because it would have meant that I would have had to go up on stage and make one of those boring speeches. I had made sure to get enough attention in the coming ceremony without an acceptance speech.

I threw off my blanket and shivered as goose bumps quickly spread across my bare legs. I didn’t go up, but something told me that I wasn’t able to lie in bed and think about what I would have to do during the day. So I angled up the blinds and let in the gray morning light through the window. It didn’t make me particularly happy to look up at the grey sky and hear the wind howl outside the glass that protected me from the outside world. The day that would make me feel good and loving life instead got me to feel sick and want to cry myself back to sleep.

It was my last day in High School.

It was my last day with Derek.

We hadn’t said a word to each other in the last week even though we repeatedly got eye contact, and somehow couldn’t take our eyes off each other. It was as if our innocent eyes were drawn to one another, as if we both thought of the same thing. But our silent, wordless communication didn’t make things better between us.