I Am Anna

Don't Panic

ONE

Don't Panic

Two years later

        "Blair, get up! It's time for school!" I groaned. Yasmin snatched the pillow from my face, where I was holding it down, and I stretched up. I had begged her to call me Blair when I arrived just in case anyone heard and she eventually got used to it.

        "Okay, okay, I'm up." She smiled and got off my bed before leaving the room with the door shut behind her. I got out of bed and put on a tight black skirt under a floral flowy top that finished below my butt, held together at my waist with a white belt with a gold buckle. I tied a slim, small scarf around my head like a headband and let my middle parted bangs hang down. After brushing my teeth and hair, doing my makeup and slipping on some dark grey heeled boots I scurried into the kitchen with my bag on my shoulder.

        "Hey Yas. Ooh, Lucky Charms." I poured some into a bowl and added some milk.

      "Morning B. I need to talk to you about something really important." I swallowed my mouthful. That got me curious.

        "What about?"

       "Meet me at The Riverhut Bean after school, I don't want you worrying about this today." I looked at her suspisciously but she was hard to read.

        "Okay..." I finished my cereal and we hopped into her bright red Mini.

        "Listen B," she started as she drove me to school. Whitewater High was en route to where she worked at Seasoner, a small clothing near the river, so she drove me there everyday. "I want you to have really good day today. Seriously, make the most out of it." I was getting kind of worried now.

        "That shouldn't be hard, I don't have gym today," I joked weakly. She laughed a little, but her face quickly became serious again. "But why? It's just another normal Friday of eleventh grade, what's so different about it?" She didn't say anything and I realised she wasn't going to until we got to Riverhut, so I left it alone.

//

"But she was just so weird. 'Make the most out if it'. Do you think we're moving or something?" I told my friends Maisie and Nia.

      "I hope not! I don't want you to leave, how else am I going to get through Chemistry?!" Maisie stressed. I giggled, but my mind was still on Yasmin's strange behaviour earlier that day.

        "I'm sure everything's fine. You're always saying she acts like this, it's probably nothing to worry about," Nia reasoned. That's when I realised that all of those other times, it had been about Anna, about my past. I got a sickening feeling in my stomach.

        "Yeah. I'm sure you're right." But something told me she was wrong. I hugged my friends tightly in fear that Nia was wrong. I didn't want to go anywhere, my life at Augusta been great and I loved going to Whitewater. I wasn't emmensely popular but no-one seemed to hate me, unlike the people in Portland. That was one of the reasons I left in the first place, but I didn't want to think about that too much.

        When I pulled away they looked at me like I was crazy.

        "Um, thanks B, but what was that for?" Maisie questioned. I shrugged, trying to look casual but feeling incredibly anxious at the same time.

        "I just wanted you to know that I love you guys so much. You're my best friends in the world, okay?" They nodded slowly, wondering looks still on their faces.

        "Okay. We know," Nia said. I took a deep breath and put the books I needed into my locker. It was the end of the day and I had to meet Yasmin at Riverhut.