The Phoenices Volume 1 - Expired

Chapter 23 - Elizabeth

I climbed into my mom's car, my phone buzzing with the notification of a several long text messages.

"For a written record, here is our plan for tomorrow:" began Jeremy, the plan following in three separate texts directly afterwards, "We will arrive at the school at 3:30, bringing all of our posters with us." I looked at the huge stack of paper resting in my backpack's biggest pocket safely, "We will separate the stacks between us, sticking a poster to every locker, support beam, and door in the school. We are gonna need people to bring in tape, probably several people." he added onto the end of the text like a second thought, "We will start in the front hallway, posting them on the outsides of the doors and the insides, then on each and every support beam through the hallway, along with the glass trophy cases in the hallway." I scrolled down to the next message bubble, "After the main hallway we will disperse through the school, each of us taking an OG member with us so we have some poster bundles. One group will take the gym, the other three will each take one floor, all of us meeting in the CPA to put posters on each side of the rows. Then we split the rest of the posters into three groups, one for each lunch, and then we will all take a small section of each group, tossing them off the catwalk in the middle of each lunch, running away while they're falling so we don't get caught right away. We will throw on the count of three. We are all going to meet outside the door at 3:30, the school is always open in the morning so that's when we begin." He concluded, and this bulky text was followed by several shorter texts, people volunteering to bring in tape. Someone brought up the announcement, asking whether or not we were doing anything special during that.

"We aren't going to do anything during that announcement, we will send out a text later today saying when it will be occurring, try to be out of the classroom when that happens if you're one of the people who still goes to class, if you aren't, stay out of the hallways. We want to stay out of sight of people for tomorrow." Jeremy responded, acting as the leader of the group while Marissa was out of service, coding the announcement. I read over all the messages, deciding that enough people were bringing tape for me to stay out of it. I closed my messages app, shutting off my phone and turning my head to look out the window, the trees blurring by helping me to clear my head. The faded gray-greens flashed by in a calming blur, the occasional flash of sky blue in between the trees, the orange and brown leaves shedding, falling gracefully to the ground and accumulating against buildings, reminding me of drifting snow, skidding across the street in heavy winds. I sighed, the trees slowing to almost a stop as my mom pulled into our driveway. I zipped my backpack as much as I could with the huge amount of paper in it, slinging the ridiculously heavy luggage over my shoulder with a loud grunt, causing my mom to look at me with a confused face. I smiled emotionlessly, nodding at her while I slid my other arm through the remaining strap, my back hunching and knees bending to absorb the extra weight. I struggled up the stairs to my deck, the stairs to my room almost impossible. I slung the bag off my shoulders, it landing with a deafening thud, causing my mom to rush up the stairs to check on me.

"What was that crashing noise?" she peeked her head in my door, I was crouched next to my backpack, messing with the zipper.

"Oh, nothing, my backpack fell and the book hit the ground with all the rest of the rest of the weight on it, and it's hard covered so it was really loud." I lied through my teeth, looking over my shoulder at her, willing her with my mind to go away, and for god's sake please close the door behind her. She looked at me, a small amount of concern flashing through her eyes before she nodded, slowly pulling her head from around the door and hesitantly walking down the hallway, pausing every few steps, based on the sounds of her footsteps. I frustratedly stomped over to the door, loudly shutting it, glaring at it with unnecessary anger. That was happening a lot lately, undeserved anger spewing from my mouth, hatred filling my heart with cold and my eyes with tears. I felt the warm liquid spill over my bottom lashline, my eyebrows still knitted together with anger but my eyes watering with emotion and my cheeks wet with sadness. I reached up to wipe the water off of my face, followed by wiping the wetness off my hand onto my bedspread, sliding off the side of the bed onto the floor to open my laptop, scrolling through youtube. I began to cry once more, my mind flashing through some of my best memories. I thought back to last week, the swim team huddled together and smiling so hard our faces hurts, all of us holding our hands up to rest our fingertips on the base of our SEC trophy as we posed for our pictures. We had been preparing for this for months, and we hadn't lost a single meet this year. Shortly before that was Homecoming, I work silvery strappy heels and a red strapless dress, my hair naturally wavy and my face with minimal makeup. I was greeted by a glamourous Reilly, her face contoured fully, her cheekbones appearing a sharp as a knife, highlight glowing on her nose, winged eyeliner to the gods. She wore thick black heels that looked super uncomfortable, and a tiny blue-black dress. Along with her was Jenny and Julianne, and I ended up spending most of the time with the latter two, for Reilly was forcing her way back into the mosh pit repeatedly, popping out from variously for a few seconds before grabbing someone she knew by the wrists and dragging them back in. The others and I stayed on the other side of the gym, laughing whenever she came over covered in sweat. The night before at the homecoming game, we had to wear the stupid raincoats, all of us drenched anyways by the end of it. The first day of school, all of us dressed up way too much and all of the sophomores were totally judging us. I fell up the steps three times that day. I thought all the way back to marching band camp, the night of the party when we were bouncing the cement floor in the mosh pit during the beat drop of an unrecallable song. I felt tears running down my face, which was heating up from the speed of my heart beats. I climbed back into my bed, closing my laptop with my foot before reaching up to set my alarm for 2:30, as I had to walk to school, I wasn't going to make my mom drive me. I fell asleep as soon as my head made contact with the pillow, the alarm seeming to go off immediately. I climbed out of bed at 2:30, my feet freezing from the cold air. I quietly danced over to the dresser to pull on some warm fuzzy socks, wearing the sweatshirt I wore the day before, I picked up the excessively heavy bag, the floor creaking when I removed it from it, my mouth making involuntary grunting noises as I heaved it over my shoulders. I slowly walked down the stairs, each one creaking as I stepped on it, sliding on a pair of boots as I headed out the door into the frigid morning air to begin my long walk to school. I checked the time on my phone, it reading 2:45 as I readjusted the backpack straps on my shoulder for the 100th time so far in the 10 minute walk. The rest of it seems to take forever, and I only finally got to toss the ridiculous bag onto the floor when I joined the rest of the group, my fingers and toes numb and my eyes watering from the gusts of wind.

"Are we going to do this or not?" I asked, resting my hands on my hips, the breath that was escaping my mouth clouding in front of my eyes, Aidan shaking his head with a small smile, opening the door and gesturing for us all to enter the school. I heaved the backpack back onto my shoulders, entering the door to begin the little excursion that we had been preparing for for days.

A/N: 1519 words according to NaNoWriMo