Perfect

Meeting Jon

"-lookin' right at the other half of me..."

I groaned and threw my pillow at the alarm clock. I had set it to wake me up to the radio, thinking that it would make me happier to wake up to a song I liked, but no, they always had to play  song I had heard a thousand times before.

"-staring back at me..."

I rolled over, on to my stomach and pulled the covers up over my head, trying to block out the sound. Of course, I have sensitive hearing, so that didn't help. At all. That’s also why I can’t sleep at night- the traffic keep me up. That, and the nightmares.

I laid there for fifteen minutes, trying to calm myself while also being bombarded with lyrics to that song. It was just another boring day at school. Nothing’s going to happen. You’ve been fine for three years now. Okay, three days short of three years, but still. It’s not going to come back. They’re not going to come back. It’s over.

I took a deep breath and got out of bed, almost tripping on my backpack that I had left there the night before. It was 6:30, so I had about 45 minutes before I needed to be in school, and I lived five minutes away if I drove.

I walked into my lime green bathroom, resetting my alarm on the way, and did my daily routine, making sure to check that all the gum I had gotten stuck in my hair the previous day was out. After I got out of the shower, I blow-dried my hair and put it up into a messy bun. This was not going to be one of those days where I tried extra hard to look good. Let’s be honest, though, when is it one of those days? With the anniversary of the incident coming up, I was lucky to even get out of bed, let alone out of the house in a decent position.

By the time I got downstairs, it was 7:00, which gave me just enough time to grab a bowl of milk and fruit loops. I was able to stock my cabinets with food because my parents were filthy rich and left me with tons, and I mean tons, of money. Of course, I would rather that they were still alive, but… that’s a topic for another time. The clock turned 7:15 just as I put my bowl in the sink and grabbed my coat, heading for the car.

I was punctual, to say the least, so I guess it’s easy to know my schedule. This is one of my flaws that I see as the biggest problem because, well, you’ll see.

Anyways, my point is that Mrs. Lima, my neighbor found out, and she’s always there to make sure I leave for school on time. I wave at her as I back out of my driveway, smiling at her to reassure her that I’m okay. Mrs. Lima is probably the closest thing I have to family now. She would always babysit me when I was younger, which made it difficult for me to convince her that my parents were simply out of town again, since she knew me almost better than I knew myself. Almost. When the incident happened, it took me days to even be able to move from my spot by their bed. When I finally made my way out the door and to the store (I know, that rhymes), Mrs. Lima said she was about to call the cops, she was so worried. Being fourteen, I wasn’t able to come up with a big, fat lie, but I was able to convince her that my parents had just taken me on a spur-of-the-moment trip to the Bahamas, but something came up, and the only just now sent me home.

I’m not giving Mrs. Lima enough credit; she put up a fight. She wouldn’t believe me until I promised to have my mother call her. That wasn’t possible, in reality, but years of practice of me trying to be my mom (which included trying to sound exactly like her) allowed me to call Mrs. Lima myself.

That’s also how I got the school to believe me. The difficult part was getting all the funds transferred over to me. Trust me, money was not what I wanted to think about, especially not my dead parents’ money, but I had tried everything- stealing, rationing, working, but every time, something (that I could not control) went wrong.