Living To The Limit

Chapter 3

"Is there anything else you'll need today, Audrey?" Ms. Karen said with a smile. I shook my head and took the envelope from her.

"Oh, there is one thing. My shower has no curtain." I said to her. 

"Okay. We'll get right on that." Ms. Karen said. Finally, I turned away from her desk and walked out of the room. I checked the clock above the fifth floor window; it read 7:30 PM. 

I had just finished the one of the things on my to-do list for the day: pick up my schedule and ID card from the Student Concerns office. Mr. Gates let me have my first day off, just like Alex said earlier.

I gulped. In a few minutes I'd have to go to that room he told me to. I still couldn't imagine what he wanted me there for. I pressed the button for the sixth floor and the elevator came down quickly.

Once I was on the floor, I hurried  into my room. I didn't need to mistakenly hear anyone else sing beautifully for the day. I flopped down on my bed and stared up at the plain ceiling, tired as ever.

Even though I had the day off, I did a lot. After Alex walked be back to my room, he told me he had physical education class next, which took place right outside my window, on the grass field. I sat and watched him and some other boys do jumping jacks and push-ups. It started drizzling a little out there, so it was funny watching them complain to their PE teacher about the rain. The teacher kept shaking his head and telling them to do more. Every now and then, Alex would glance up at me from down there, and I got my funny cold feeling.

After that period, I didn't see Alex again, which I kind of didn't mind. I walked through the halls of the building, familiarizing myself with the floors and which floors had offices. I walked past room 415, the room Alex told me about, many times. I looked at the door, but I wanted to look through it, to gaze inside and see what Alex wanted me to see. Was it his room? If it was, why did he want me to go there?

I tried my best to ignore all these questions during the day. At lunch time I picked up a slice of pizza in the cafeteria and looked for Alex a little. When I didn't see him, I went back up to my room and ate the pizza in silence. As soon as I was done, there was an announcement made saying that all people that needed to go to room 507 to pick something up had to report there immediately. I remembered that was the room from the poster on the cafeteria's door, so I went there. Unfortunately, there were about fifteen other kids there that stayed in the office for about thirty minutes at a time. I just finished with Ms. Karen, one of the people that helped with student concerns, and now...I'm here.

I opened the envelope Ms. Karen gave me. There was a folded up piece of paper and a tiny plastic ID card. The card said: GATES ORG. AUDREY LEWIS,16, STATUS: STABLE. 

Next to that was an old picture of me, when I was about eleven. There were about four other girls in the picture with me, but for the ID card they zoomed in on my face. My hair was much shorter and my lips were a little pouted. 

The picture was disgusting.

I unfolded the paper. It was a list of the classes I'd be starting tomorrow.

Room/Class/Teacher

Caf/Breakfast

511/Art/Ms. Mahone

Field/Track/Coach Arnolds

Caf/Lunch

522/Counseling/Ms. Williams

205/French/Ms. Dupont

Caf/Dinner

210/Advisory/Mr. Joseph