Midtown High

final night in dallas

Soft M83 played in the background of a small cozy room. A cork board covered in pictures and sketches hung on a wall facing a large window where trees swayed in the night breeze as a gentle rain tapped at the glass. A thin laptop charger wound through trail of papers and carelessly tossed aside maroon high top converse leading to tall stacks of textbooks and a neatly made bed. The clock on the nightstand read 11:18 in bright red numbers. A phone lit up next to the clock and began buzzing. A girl with crooked glasses and wavy brown hair tied loosely in a low ponytail shot up in bed from a rather deep slumber, rubbing her eyes while she reached for her phone. 

"Oh, crap," she whispered to herself. Thunder rolled in the distance. She began sifting through the papers and wildly flipping through the textbooks after silencing her phone alarm. "Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap."

"Nope, nope, nope, nope, why do I always do this to myself?" She unzipped a mint backpack and began stuffing it full of calculators, math textbooks, Spanish books and a rather worn out lab journal. She hesitated and pulled the lab journal back out as she blew a stray strand of hair out of her face and tucked it back into the low ponytail. She flipped open her laptop and began to work on some physics practice problems in her lab journal. Pushing her glasses up, she clicked over to Spotify and changed the music to something a little more upbeat, in order to help her stay awake this time.  She yawned and checked her phone. 11:35. 

"Okay Liz. You got 25 minutes then you can go back to bed. You got this. Only 13 problems left and then, sleep."

Elizabeth Spencer sat back on her bed and slid into her covers with pillows behind her to prop her up as she finished her physics homework. After a few quick calculations, Elizabeth tucked her lab journal back into the mint backpack. She glanced at the clock on her nightstand. 11:44.

"Hmm. Not bad, not bad," Elizabeth mentally high-fived herself for finishing so quickly as she reached for the phone once more. She opened Snapchat for the first time in a few hours to a spam of snaps from her best friend Caroline as she picked out her uniform for the next day.

"Dear Lord, Caroline. You don't have to spam me every time I don't answer right away," Elizabeth muttered to herself as she tapped through the snaps full of the latest gossip and funny jokes that Carol thought she'd appreciate. The final snap was a sad one. 

"Just remembered tomorrow is your last full day in Dallas. I'm going to miss you so much. This is literally not happening I REFUSE to let it happen. We will still be besets friends and I am FOR SURE visiting you in NYC."

Elizabeth smiled sadly at the screen and glanced back at the clock. 11:53. She turned back away from the closet and gently laid the blue oxford, navy sweater, and dark green and blue plaid skirt over her desk chair and crawled back into bed. She sighed and leaned back into the pillows, staring at the ceiling covered in accurately placed glow in the dark stars. Her eyes traced over Orion and his famous belt as she thought about how much everything had changed in the last few weeks. 

Her dad informed the family that he had received an exciting offer to move to New York for his job. The whole family was excited, except for Elizabeth. Growing up in the same city for her whole life would make leaving sad, especially considering the fact that she had gone to the same school with the same people for 13 years now. But then she realized, maybe it was time for a change. She had been wrestling with some friendships and the idea that she hadn't met any new people in almost 13 years. She felt like she needed a change of scenery. 

"Let's go."

Her family was shocked beyond words. Only her father was able to answer her odd request.  

"Liz. I was only going to suggest me commuting," her dad said with a shocked expression. "You're top of your class here at Westwood. If you leave, you might lose the chance of valedictorian! We were going to let you live here with the Chan's if you wanted, if commuting got too difficult for me."

"No. If we leave soon, I can start junior year at my new high school and have a shot at being valedictorian there. I can do Westwood online if I have to, I can live stream classes and electronically submit homework. But I want to enroll somewhere in New York, too."

Soon after that, the house was full of moving boxes. Elizabeth walked around the house she had known most of her life. All of the memories came rushing back as she moved from room to room. After returning to her room, Elizabeth pulled out her laptop and googled her new high school. 

Midtown Science High School.

She clicked through the website and looked at how happy the kids there looked. With each article she grew more and more excited to start over and get the chance to study things she had always dreamed of studying. She still had to go to school for a week and a half at Westwood before starting officially at her new high school in New York, because school started much later there. Tomorrow was her last day, and she still had homework. 

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and smiled as she wrapped her blanket closer around her. She reached up and clicked off her lamp right as the little clock on her nightstand flashed 12:00. Rolling over and studying the ceiling once again as rain pattered softly on it, her last thoughts before drifting off into a deeper slumber than before were about Midtown High and New York.