Paired

Back To School

Lyric

The huge building infront of me seems to be glaring down as I walk through towards its front doors. It's crowded here. Like, really crowded. I can feel my skin start to crawl with all the teenage girls around me trying to push their way towards the front doors.

Despite my anxiety, I'm excited to be back here at TEMPP. This has been my home since I was five years old (and I don't just say that because I loathe my parents with a passion and this happens to be the only place where I don't have to see them at all). Unfortunately, this will be my last year here. Senior year. Ugh, it makes me want to throw up just thinking about it.

Eventually, my backpack and I are pushed through the front doors. The familiar scent of hand sanitizer and expensive perfume meets my nose. Ah, finally home. I've only been off on break for three weeks, but it seems like a year. My eyes scan the room for one particular human being who makes all my days worthwhile.

Marilyn's wild, dirty blonde curls stick out from the crowd. Her head turns every which way, probably searching for me too. I push forward through the crowd. Marilyn is pretty tall, thank god. I would have never been able to find her at my 5'2 stance had she not been.

It took forever, but somehow I manage to push through the crowd of joy filled teenage girls. Marilyn's eyes land on me just before I make it to her. She takes one step forward, then embraces me in a hug. We fit together like two puzzle pieces. Her body is warm and welcoming, counteracting my cold skin. She smells like steaming hot chocolate on a frigid morning.

"My daughter! I've missed you," Marilyn sighs in contentment. A laugh escaped my lips. She always called me daughter simply because I told her she sounded like a mom half of the time.

"I'm good now, darling mother," Mare pulls away from the hug. Her eyes are wide, now, like she's remembered something important.

"Well, I'm glad you're feeling good, but we don't have time for this! There's so much to do today!"

With that, she pulls the two of us through the crowd once again. A feeling of contentment fills my body. Home sweet home.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It doesn't take long for us to get our room keys. This year, our room is on the second to top floor in the third complex building. Room 202. Yep, i'm definitely going to forget that by tomorrow.

You see, the TEMPP (The East Massachusettes Paired Program) campus is set up like a diamond or rhombus. At the bottom is the front office building. This is where students go to meet with counselors, get new room keys, switch room mates, etc. I don't usually go to that building unless completely necessary. It's so tall and scary...gives me the shivers. The other three points of the diamond are dorm room complexes. Connecting these points are four lines of classrooms. One for 5-7 year olds, one for 8-10, one for 11-14, and the last for 15-18 year olds. In the middle of the diamond is what we call 'the play center'. That building has a swimming pool, bowling alley, chill room, movie theatre, lunch cafeterias, basically anything you could think of. The rest of the space around the play center is just green fields for recess time. As you can probably imagine, it's a HUGE campus.

Marilyn opens the door slowly for dramatic effect. There's no need for it really. Our dorm looks the same every year. White walls with white furniture. Two beds sit on opposite sides of the room, a white desk at the foot of each. There's a decent sized window on the side of the bed to let in natural light. At the back of the room are two tall white dressers with one closet in between them. On top of the beds are all of the boxes containing our belongings. It's a pretty simple dorm, but I love it.