Empêchement

Not as bad as I thought

I bet you wouldn't believe how hard it is to wake up ten teenagers at five am. I'm sure some of you have your own teens at home to wake up, but probably only one or two at a time.

Of course, I wasn't the one waking us up. Tish, Raymond, and Cinder were, so I wouldn't know.

They started waking us up at five am exactly, but it wasn't until six fifteen that all of us shuffled out of our beds and had gotten dressed

To quickly recap this week, the ten of us had a lot of fun while shopping for clothes in a surprisingly accessible town about a mile away from here, getting to know the place, learning we could write letters to our families and getting to know each other. Today, however, the fun was over. It's the first day of training.

A total of three adults and ten pajama-clad, groaning, half-asleep teenagers gathered in the common room. Some people went straight to the kitchen, while others plopped on the furniture, dozing off, waiting for the day to begin.

Everyone was groggy except for Sabrina. She was a black-haired, green-eyed woman with a killer fashion sense who happened to really like mornings. Apparently, she just graduated high school and was really annoying with her early morning chatter.

I was half leaning on a wall and half standing while my subconscious floated in between sleep and consciousness when someone bumped into my shoulder. I felt my heart rate speed up and all the noises in the room got louder as I was yanked out of sleep. "What?" I mumbled, disoriented.

"Watch it shorty." Andrew murmured teasingly. He was still half asleep and his dark hair stuck up in a funny way on one side.

Over the past week, our 'teachers' encouraged us to get closer with our groups by forcing us to spend an hour together every day. My group wasn't too bad. Markus smelled like weed for the first few days, but he was incredibly intelligent and fun to talk to. Kailie was sort of a know it all, and in school, I would have labeled her as a bitch and avoided her, but she wasn't as bad as I thought she would be.

Indigo was Indigo. Constantly surprising everybody with her weird personality. She put a whole new level to the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover". But then there was Andrew.

He was sort of timid at first but proved to be smart, creative, attractive and everything I would look for in a boyfriend. His short black hair complimented his strong jawbone. His eyes were a warm, friendly brown color. Nonetheless, I found myself attracted to him and based on his flirtatious attitude towards me during the group's hour and even after it, he liked me too.

I'm not sure why he liked me. I was pretty average and have a hard time socializing with people. What's attractive about that?

I looked up at him. "I'm not that short."

He shrugged. "Shorter than me. That makes you a shorty."

I rolled my eyes. I always said perspective is one of my favorite things, but it's really annoying when someone uses it against you.

"Alright!" Nathan yelled from the doorway. "I'm going to need your attention for a wee bit." Everyone either stopped their sluggish mumbling or was jarred awake by the volume of Nathans' voice. "Today we start training. Group one will go with John and Martha to learn cultural stuff, and group two will be coming with me to learn physical stuff. Everyone ready?"

Sabrina nodded enthusiastically. Everyone else stared blankly.

"Great," he said mocking our lack of excitement. "Let's get going. Group two, follow me."

Alice pushed herself through the crowd to get to the front. She had been standing in the back with Indigo, and in the mornings, Alice had a short temper and a shitty attitude, so this her rude behavior didn't surprise me. Jordan Po was following behind her saying sorry to everyone she pushed out of the way.