Falling Skyward

The Accident

Chapter 2

After crying myself to sleep, I wake up to the blaring wail of my alarm clock. WAAAA!! WAAAA!! WWAAAAAA!!!! The noise reverberates in my head and rips me out of my dream. The only shred of memory left of my dream is an image of endless miles of trees, stretching out all around the mountain top I'm standing on. Weird. A cool breeze tickles the bottoms of my feet, and I yank them back up under the covers.

The obnoxiously loud noise coming from the table beside my bed seems to have increased in volume. Moaning, I roll over, and stick my head under my pillow. Peeking my face out, I glance at the face of my clock. Frickin' heck! Ive been laying in bed listening to my alarm for half an hour! It's 7:00, and my bus comes at 7:15!!! Rocketing out of my bed as if propelled by jet plane engines, I dash over to my dresser and rip open one of the drawers. I tear through the various pairs of jeans and shorts scattered about in the sea of forgotten bottoms. I pick the one pair of jeans that doesn't look as if I'd slept in them, and turn my attention to my closet. Throwing open the door almost hard enough to break the glass, I flip through my tops like a manic until I find a tight green "Panic At The Disco" cutoff that sort of matches my faded blue jeans. Off go the rainbow shorts I use as pajama bottoms and the "Lifeguard" tee i got down the shore last summer, and I toss on a bra and a pair of underwear and then on go the jeans and shirt.

Practically tearing my door off of its hinges, I fly down the hallway, my feet barely making contact with the floor as I race into the bathroom to get ready. I pathetically attempt to fix my bed head, finally giving up and just deciding to brush my hair on the bus. I glance in the mirror and see my eyes are still a little red from bawling last night. I grab my eyeliner from the drawer as I rush back to my bedroom. I snatch my purse from the floor where I dumped it yesterday and frantically cast my eyes around my room for my backpack. Seeing it hanging on the back of my chair, I take it and steal a glance at the clock. 7:07! Still got 8 minutes!

I fly down the stairs, a supersonic jet, and make a run for the kitchen. Turning the corner, I see Darren, Lyla, the step-monster and Dad looking at me like I'm insane. And I probably am.

Jerking open the cabinet door, I grope around for an energy bar, and my hand lands on something that feels like one. I pull my hand back and start to run into the foyer for my shoes, when my dad asks me a question.

"Honey, weren't you supposed to leave 20 minutes ago?" He queries incredulously.

"Yea I overslept!" I call over my shoulder as I shove my black high-tops onto my feet. Dashing out of the starting gate that is my front door, I jump down the 5 steps outside and make a mad dash down the street to my bus stop. The bus is just pulling up! VICTORY!! Sprinting the last hundred yards, I come to a stop next to the doors just as they are about to close.

"Thanks." I murmur breathlessly to my bus driver, Ms. Pritch or something. Worst last name ever for a cantankerous curmudgeon like her. She just grunts in response. I step into the bus and am greeted by a crescendoing melody of shouts and yelps coming from the eclectic range of Sea Point High School students. Walking back to where the sophomores sit, I plunk down in an empty two-seater and hoist my filled-with-bricks backpack into the vacant spot beside me. I hate sitting with people on buses, except if they're my friend.

Pulling out my mini mirror, with eyeliner in hand, I begin to fix my puffiness. With a few quick lines, I go from looking tired and run down to punk and peppy. My green and black hair goes well with my lime green top, and my old worn jeans complete the look. Just a typical teen heading to school on a typical day.

I open up my black leather Ambercrombie & Fitch backpack and root through the various books and other crap accumulated since the beginning of school 2 months ago. Closing my hand around the glossy outside of my IPod, I pull it out and unwrap my Bose IE2 headphones. They're fairly expensive, but I won them in some Internet thing, so they were free. Pretty good deal if I do say so myself. I put the earbuds in and crank up the volume. I've found the perfect volume at which I can't hear the rest of the random crap happening on the bus, but I won't bust my eardrums. Clicking onto my music app, I scroll down to "Check Yes Juliet" by We The Kings. Hearing the first riff begin to play, I space off into a world of my own creation.

**************

We pull into the looped parking lot of SPHS and I see that we are the last bus here. Even though school doesn't start until 8 a.m., all of the buses are usually here by 7:45, meaning that there's a bunch of high schoolers sitting around doing nothing for 15 minutes. Worst mistake ever on the part of the bus drivers. That's about 40 kids on each bus, having nothing to entertain them except torturing the poor suckers who have the misfortune of being younger than some people. The freshmen are always the ones tortured the most, but a few seniors do rag on sophomores. Unfortunately, I was one of the choice few sophomores who got harassed.

"Hey Ass-trid! Why don't you come talk to us?" A mocking voice cajoles from a few seats back. The volume on my IPod only goes so high, and the one voice I can never seem to block our is Ted Nare, the varsity football team fullback. Him and his teammates/cronies ALWAYS have called me Ass-trid, since 8th grade when they oh-so-cleverly figured out that my name had an obscene word in it. Frankly, I'm surprised it took them that long to figure it out, it only took me until 2nd grade.

I ignore them, and start zipping up my backpack so they can't grab it as easily. I put my purse inside my pack for safekeeping.

They are laughing, though at what, I can't tell. Suddenly I feel a hand brush against my back. You know what, I'm sick of them toe ting me. I think I'm gonna do something about it. Not even knowing where the heck this is going to go, I whip around. Seeing Jack Fielding, one of the lineman, starting to shove something into his letterman jacket pocket, my hand flashes out, as fast as an asp, and I get his hand in a vice grip. Squeezing his hand as hard as I can, I wrench my hand backwards towards me to take whatever he snatched. I look him dead in the eye, planning to tell him to go to hell and to give whatever it it he stole back, but instead I see tears coursing down his cheeks, carving small paths into his boyish face. Surprised, I release his hand, and he gently pulls it back to his chest, and a gentle metal click sounds on the floor. I look to see my mothers necklace crumpled in a small heap on the aisle floor. I reach down to pick it up, and them look back at Jack. My gaze travels from his tear marked face to his hand. Looking on in shock and horror, I see blood spiderwebbing across his entire arm. His fingers are covered in a dripping red liquid. My eyes widen into two small moons when I see small white slivers sticking out at awkward angles along his fingers. My mouth drops through the floor and my hand drifts upward to cover it. The only thought running through my head is "What have I done?!"