Wake Up, For Us

~2~

It isn't until the next year, a few months after your sixteenth birthday, that you see it again.

You are in the midst of your exams, the most stressful period of your life so far, as all of your teachers have warned. You are beginning to agree.

Sat in class, you read through your syllabus. Four whole sections were new, alien, completely unheard of. But only for you.

You had studied them last year, apparently, in June. All you remember of June was pain and fear. Pain every morning when you woke up and remembered. Fear was around every corner for who would be waiting.

At first you chuckle, it's typical, you think. Then you frown, you think of the date. The exam was next week. Then, as you think of the volume of work, your mental calculations turn sour. It's impossible, you realise, to learn it all.

You freeze, as the teacher calls your name, asking you what's wrong.

You realise then that your vision is blurred with pooling tears and your cheeks flushed red with anxiety.

"Nothing," you stammer, "I'm fine." you whisper.

You rush to the hallway next break.

Opening your locker of five long years, you search for the long-lost notes. You must have made them, you think, you must have.

You hide your face in the cluttered space when you resign to your fate. You never made them, you sob, you're doomed.

In the corner of your eye you see a crumpled scrap of paper, not one that you put there yourself.

It's easy enough, you reason, to pass messages into lockers.

You unfold it, carefully and frown when you read it.

"Wake up, for us." It reads. You don't think much of it, the lockers all look so similar, it's easy to mistake one for another.

It must be a note for someone else, misplaced. You have bigger problems, like the class you once aced.