Mortem

Three

I probably stayed up too late the night before the first day back to school. Summer seemed to end far too early for my liking, my birthday coming and going about a week ago, but to my dad and grandma, my birthday was just another tally mark on the calendar for how many years my mom had been gone. Eventually, and I'm not sure when, those thoughts began to seep into my head and taint the supposedly happy occasion. It didn't matter though, school was starting again, and sadly it was back to getting up too early and staying up too late worrying about due dates. There was no time to think about birthdays.

I put on makeup to cover up my freckles for the first day of school, straightened my hair more than it already was, grabbed my backpack full of notebooks, and headed out to the bus stop. A couple of newbie freshmen stood around, joking about "how much of a party" high school was going to be, but I could tell from the tone in their voices that they were nervous. I sighed as I stood off to the side from them. My birthday was last week; September eighth. I wasn't really excited for it, since it just seemed like any other day, only I was a year older than before. I mean, it's not that I didn't get presents or anything, but as usual they weren't that useful to me or something I didn't want, and my dad was almost never home for my birthday. He worked crazy hours, so I was mostly raised by my grandma.

"Hey!" One of the girls was calling out, and when I looked in their direction they seemed to be talking to me.

"What?"

"Is it hard? High school?" The other girl asked.

I shrugged. "You get more homework I guess and the older grades usually make fun of you for a little while, but I'm sure you'll be fine." This made them slightly more nervous but kept their postures, probably trying to seem tougher than they were. For some reason that thought made me smile; reminded me of myself.

I ambled through the front doors of the familiar high school, realizing quickly that this was going to be the first year going to high school where I wasn't a freshman, and I actually knew the school already.

The paper that told everyone what classroom to go get their schedules from was already posted on the wall near the office. After I'd waded through the crowd to figure out where to go, I headed down to the classroom to get my schedule. There were only a few other kids hanging out in the there, comparing their classes to their friends', and laughing with each other about memories they shared in old classrooms the year before. I sighed, sifting through the pile of schedules on the teacher's desk.

Every other year, I would've just sat down in a corner or something to look over the paper and listened to music until the bell for first hour started, but someone called out to me from behind.

"Hey, old-lady hair! You wanna show us which classes you got?" The deep but squeaky sound of a guy mid-puberty shouted. Great, they've found something else to make fun of me for. Maybe the hair dye was a little too much after all. I thought, turning around hesitantly. I was instantly met with a group of kids from my grade that I recognized from last year. They weren't exactly popular but they also weren't losers like I was.

"Don't listen to him, I think your hair looks really good." a girl with frizzy, black hair and crooked glasses piped up, trying to smile reassuredly. "But if you have other friends you're meeting up with, you don't have to."

I shook my head, partly to answer her question and partly to clear my own thoughts. "Nah, I don't really have anyone else to meet up with."

So I sat down with them, getting a few questioning glances from the others in the group, but after introducing myself, they went back to talking about a tv show that I'd never heard of before. Mr. Squeaky Voice grabbed the paper from my hands and scanned over it with the girl with crooked glasses.

"Okay, so get this," Squeaky announced, brushing back some of his brown hair from out of his eyes. "You've got history with me and Liz, and art with her too." He looked over his paper again before correcting himself. "Whoops, actually we don't have history together. You're stuck with me in science."

"Um, who's L-" I stammered, getting cut off by Crooked Glasses Girl.

"I'm Liz by the way, or Elizabeth. Just not Beth, it sounds dumb." She interjected, making a face at me. I smiled sympathetically, remembering all the shitty nicknames I'd been given over the years.

"Who's Squeaky over there?" I teased, pointing over to him.

That's when Liz smiled for real and she laughed for the first time. Something in that moment told me this wouldn't be the last time either. "Th-that's Aiden." She sputtered through her laughter. Aiden stared at me with confusion while Liz grew quiet again.

"I'm Camille." I replied. "Nice to meet you guys."

It wasn't until art class that I saw Liz again, a couple hours after our first meeting. She was early, sitting alone at a desk near the large window that looked out at the woods. She gazed out through the glass lazily, leaning her cheek against her hand. So I strode over to where she sat, and plopped down in the chair to the left of hers, watching as she jumped slightly in her seat.

"Geez, you scared me." Liz breathed, turning back to look out at the trees.

"Anything interesting?" I hummed, watching as a circle of fog on the glass grew and shrank in time with her breathing.

She sighed. "I know it's not very cold outside right now, but it will be soon. I'm really going to miss the green."

Finally, I began to look past the window and stare at the moving leaves that swayed in the breeze just outside. I'd never noticed before now how the sunlight made the leaves seem almost reflective and bits of light peeked out through the branches. It was almost hypnotic.

The teacher, an older woman who seemed on the brink of retirement, stood at the front of the classroom, introduced herself, and informed us that we needed to get into groups and sketch a random item from around the classroom. So Liz and I stood up to find something more interesting than a pencil or pen to use. I looked over at her, realizing for the first time how much shorter than me she was. In general, I was strangely taller than a lot of the girls my age were, including Ally, but for some reason I didn't think there'd be that much of a difference. Then I saw that she wasn't standing up straight, and kept staring at the floor, making her seem more vertically challenged.

She picked up a stapler off of the teacher's desk, settling down near the window with her drawing notebook nestled in her lap and the stapler sitting on the floor. I sat down across from her with my own drawing pad.

"I wouldn't normally mooch off of your idea, but I couldn't seem to find anything more interesting. I hope you don't mind."

"It's fine. I don't think she'll care if we draw the same thing anyway." She murmured, already engrossed in her sketch. I nodded, beginning my own.

If only I'd known that this would be my last normal moment of my life, maybe I would've savored it more.