Poison- H.S

one

School.

The word I've been dreading for eighty three days. The sound I haven't heard in over a month. The place I haven't seen since the day of the incident.

I never really thought about how much the word school really affected me. It used to just be a place of education, a place to make friends, to learn all of the pointless aspects of life.

Now it's the place I fear the most, the place that still haunts me in my dreams every single night, and the place that I never thought I would ever have to see again. I hate that word, I can't stand it.

Over the summer, almost everyone had forgotten about that day, letting the memory slip past their molten minds, replacing the memory with sunshine, relaxation, and vacations. While I've spent the last eighty three days trying to forget, they've spent the last eighty three days trying to remember.

No one knows exactly what happened that day, all the small details that led up to the event. Even to this day, I keep all of the memories to myself. No one will ever know exactly what happened that day except me, and I refuse to let anyone share the memory.

I step outside of my house onto the porch and lose my balance, almost falling to my knees. When I look around, there's a thin layer of frost covering the ground. It's only mid-September and there's already frost?

Carefully, I walk towards my truck and hop in, escaping the cold air outside and submerging myself in the blazing heat of my car.

The drive to school is slow and boring. I listen to nothing but the roar of my rusty engine cackle and the cries of my breaks when I come to a halt. When I pull into the school parking lot, I drive towards the back, farthest away from the school as possible, hoping to rid myself of all of its dull qualities.

Nothing's changed. The school is still made of cracked old brick with ugly lavender painted gutters. People still stand by their cars with their cliques. And there is still that damn copper lion statue in the front of the school, watching over all of the students. Nothing's changed.

The first day of school is the worst day of school, followed by the last day. On the last day, you have to smile at everyone and pretend to make plans to hang out with each other during vacation. You sign each other's yearbook and write cheesy letters. And then on the first day, you have to apologize and come up with an excuse or reason for your absence the whole summer. It's all fake smiles.

I sit in the truck for a minute, trying to hang onto every last possible minute before reentering the real world, but when I check my phone for the time and see that I have five minutes until the first bell, I kill the engine and hop out of my truck.

A gust of wind whips past me and I almost lose my balance before I even get inside the building, but it could be worse. It could be raining.

When I walk up to the tall building, I imagine myself entering the school with confidence and a cool attitude, but when I open the doors and step through to the other side, I cowardly walk down the hall. Everything is exactly the same, yet so different. The last time I walked through these halls, eighty three days ago, was the worst day of my life.

There are people everywhere, greeting each other, and not just a 'hey what's up?' kind of greeting, but a 'hey I missed you all summer how come we didn't hang out?' first day of school kind of greeting.

I walk along the walls trying my best to maneuver through these narrow halls, packed with students milling their ways through the crowd. Keeping my head down, I watch my feet and count my footsteps until I hear my name.