Saving Your Life

Empty Eyes and Arrivals

It had been almost 2 months since Ben's disappearance. By the time that Angel had woken up everything in the Park house was in order. The chair was back in its place, the tv was on, and most importantly there was a note on the door declaring that they had gone on vacation and should not be expected back for a while. Angel had called the police but they just ended up calling her mother and told her she was exaggerating.

During the two months between Ben's disappearance and the start of school, Angel had spent her time investigating the Park family's, what she thought it was at least, kidnapping. Taking a note from one of those detective tv shows, Angel had lined her bedroom wall with newspaper articles about families going on vacation and never coming back, articles on frost and the way it spreads, and pictures of blue eyes. The blue eyes she had seen shortly before she was knocked out haunted her dreams. In short, Angel was obsessed.

It was the start of September when Angel's mom began to worry. Mrs. Antoniou was pacing back and forth in her room trying to figure out what to do when she saw an envelope on her desk. Mrs. Antoniou slowly walked towards her desk confused, she was usually very neat, obsessively, some may say and never misplaced things much less forget forget placing the invitation on her desk. Nevertheless, she shrugged and opened the invitation. It had a pale peach background and beautiful calligraphy written on it:
"We invite Miss Angelica Antoniou to apply to Meriet's School for Naturals."

"That's weird" Mrs. Antoniou thought, she hadn't heard of this school before but she still felt compelled to go to her computer and apply her daughter for it.  As if by magic, and maybe it was, the browser was already opened to the application. For some reason Mrs. Antoniou didn't think that was weird. Filling out the application she tried to figure out why she thought signing up her daughter for a random school, without so much as asking her, was okay. "She really needs to get away. To try and get this whole Ben business out of her head." She thought. "This could be a nice change of pace for her." Pressing submit Mrs. Antoniou couldn't help but feel as though she wasn't exactly in control of her actions. "That's a silly thought" echoed in her head, she assumed that was her own internal voice that said that.

Angel was sitting in her room looking up the exact cause of coldness. She heard a small knock on her door and she groaned a reply. Her mom's dirty blonde head peaked from the door, her eyes were confused and yet empty at the same time. "Hi sweetie, how are you?" She heard her mom say in the background, she wasn't really paying attention. "I need to talk to you." This time Angel actually paid attention as her mom entered the room and sat on Angel's bed. She was holding a large peach envelope with "Angelica Antoniou" hand written on it. Something about it seemed familiar to Angel. "To be honest with you Angelica, I'm tired of your sulking around and conspiracy theories about Ben."

"Mom?" Angel replied a bit shocked. Her mom never talked to her that way, she had been completely understanding this whole time, never once telling her to get over Ben.

"I'm sorry Angelica but I can't stand it anymore." Her mom said her voice wavering and her eyes sad and even emptier, if that was possible, than before. "I've signed you up for this school" she said handing Angel the envelope. "It's for people like you, those who don't belong and are curious about the world around them." Angel couldn't say anything, she was honestly out of words.

"Okay." Angel finally stuttered out in defeat. Her thoughts were going a thousand miles per hour and she had no hope of ever catching up to them.

The following week Angel was packed and saying goodbye to her mother. It was when she had already entered the taxi that her mom seemed to finally come to her senses. Her mom's eyes seemed to come alive and full of emotions. She was frantic and confused, "Angel!" She yelled out, but it was already too late, the taxi was already well down the road. "My baby! Angel come back!" She screamed running after the cab. To anyone else watching, it would seem as though Angel had just ran away and wasn't part of some big scheme to get her to her destination.

When Angel stepped on the school campus an air of comfort fell over her. She felt free from all that had happened the past summer. Taking in her surroundings Angel sat down on a bench near a tall full tree near the center of the campus. Groups of students walked in sync with the rest of their friends. There seemed to be some type of dress code, each little group of students wore the same color in some way. A small group girls laughed over some private joke near Angel, they had casual clothes on but each of them had an item of clothing the color green. A tall blonde in the group noticed Angel starring at them and smiled. The girl was elegant, nobody could deny it, her head was held high in a way that made her seem more important than everyone else. For some reason Angel didn't find that condescending, the girl just seemed as someone that should be in charge. Angel was enthralled in her thoughts when she noticed the girl was calling her over. Angel stood up and approached the group of students.

"Hi-ya!" Greeted the tall elegant girl with a slight southern drawl. "I'm Ebony, you must be new here." She said offering her hand. Angel smiled and shook Ebony's hand.

"Yeah...I actually just got here." Angel muttered awkwardly playing with her hair.

"Well I'd love to show you how things work around here!" Ebony said as one of her friends tried to muffle a laugh. "Come on I'll show you around!" And with that Angel followed Ebony and her friends wearing green into the new world around her.