Boarding School 101

Chapter 1 - rosebud024

Sang

Knowing one's self is generally thought of as being inherent. For a while, I thought so too. But who was I really? Who was Sang Sorenson? Who was the family that sent her away on a whim? Why had this happened to me?

So many questions ran through my head as I watched the scenery pass by while the bus drove through the countryside of South Carolina.

Two hours ago, my father dropped me off at a bus station in downtown Charleston without even so much as a goodbye. He had always been a detached man—a man I could never seek comfort from—but until that moment, I never thought of him as cold. It was a moment where I wished that I could read minds. Why didn't he care? Why couldn't he love me? Was I not able to be loved? My mother and sister always made it a point to show me just how much they didn't love me. My sister either glared at me or ignored me; my mother punished me, but my father—for the most part— kept me guessing.

It wasn't until my father pulled away from the curb that I broke down—a backpack, a small, ratty suitcase and a single bus ticket in my possession. I could tell that I was making others in the hub nervous with my cries, but I was so broken in that moment. A seventeen-year-old girl who was unwanted by her family. So unwanted that they couldn't even wait another year before getting rid of me.

I was jolted out of my thoughts as the bus jerked forward, coming to a stop. I noticed we were at a rest stop-slash-gas station-slash-bus stop. It seemed that we'd made it to Nowheresville, South Carolina. My new home.

Well, not quite, I supposed. I still had to get a taxi to take me to my actual new home—Miss Buble's Boarding School for Gifted Children. Bubble? Bublé? Bubbawubble? It didn't matter. Whoever Miss Buble was, she probably wouldn't care enough about me to learn my name.

Yes, boarding school. My father received a letter stating that Miss Buble's had heard about his remarkable daughter, and would be most honored to take her in on a full scholarship. I called bogus. I was 99.9% sure it was a school for troubled teens and that my mother was involved somehow. My father threatened my sister and me with boarding school once, but that was when I was fifteen. I was nearly eighteen now. I figured it wasn't actually going to come to anything. I'd been wrong. And not only had I been wrong, my sister hadn't even had to go. Just me.

I exited the bus and spotted a payphone nearby. The cab company whose number my dad had written down for me said that they'd be here within twenty minutes when I called. I hung up and sat on the lonely bench a few feet away. Releasing a heavy sigh, I plopped my head into my hands, gearing up for what was to come for me.

Soon enough, the taxi pulled up to the curb, and I hurriedly loaded myself and my belongings into the backseat. As the driver pulled away from the curb, I told her where I needed to go. She was a chatty ol' thing. She talked about how there were only two cab drivers in the entire town, because it was so tiny. She told me how lovely the school I was going to was, and that just by having the school, the town's population was doubled! She informed me that there was a decent shopping district only fifty minutes away. I didn't respond to anything she said, but I thought that was okay. She finished one tidbit and was on to the next. She told me more of what she knew about my new school and that I was going to love Mrs. Rose, the headmistress. What about Miss Buble? From what I'd learned, this school was only about ten years old. Why would someone step down that quickly? Or maybe she'd died?

"We're here!" The Chatty Kathy announced. She was sweet, really. I looked out of the window to see a large, old style building. It screamed money, not what I expected of a school for troubled teens. I was starting to second guess my assumptions.