Safe & Sound

Chapter 4

The rest of the day until right now was pretty uneventful. After lunch, I went to gym, then art (right now), where we have a free period to doodle. I draw a black room with a single chair and a light. People seem to like it. When I go to hand it in to my teacher- Mrs. G- it slips out of my hand. A girl picks it up, and stares at it for a while.

"This is yours?" She asks me.

I just nod.

"Wow. Your a great artist!" She says. "I'm Sandy."

"Mack" I say quietly.

Sandy hands back the paper. "See you later." She says, walking away.

She seemed nice. I watch her walk back to her spot. The popular table, I assume. But, she turns to sit by herself in the corner.

This is my only chance to make a friend. Come on. You can do this. Go up and sit with her. Come on.

I grab my rope and start tying knots, when I see someone come behind me. Owen.

"I thought you were going with my advice and stop tying knots." He says. "It's really going to mess up your hands."

I just nod, and look down. "Sorry."

"Not for me. Anyway, what were you Anxious about?" He asks.

How does he know that I was Anxious about something?

"Nothing." I say quietly.

Owen sits down at a desk beside me and starts drawing. "Must have been something."

"Umm....." I start. I'm not very good at talking to people. "I.... uh....I" I start to tie knots in my rope. "I need friends." The words fall out of my mouth.

What was that! He's going to think that I'm some attention craving girl! You've made yourself look stupid! Calm down.

"You wanna make friends? Here's some advice." Owen looks up from his drawing. "Don't get mixed in with the wrong group." He looks back at his group of friends. Popular people. "It's just downhill from there." He says half to himself.

I'm confused. Owen doesn't like being popular? Being popular- especially for someone like him and I- is a blessing. "Why?" I ask.

"You act like someone you not." He sighs. "Someone you don't want to be. They turn you into someone who people are afraid of. It sucks."

I nod and look down. Maybe being popular isn't all that great. "Why do you stay?" I ask, nodding my head towards his 'friends'.

"You can't really leave. They won't allow it." Owen says. "It's terrible. Being trapped as someone else."

I try to imagine what that would be like. I thought Owen was one of those lucky few people who has no Anxiety anymore, and their life has gone back to normal. But I guess being like this is worse. You can't ever escape it. Maybe there are some things worse then Anxiety...

"That won't be much of a worry for me. There's no chance that i'll ever be popular." I say.

Owen looks shocked.

"What?" I ask.

"That's the first actual sentience you've ever said. I thought you didn't know much English, so you couldn't speak fluently." He says. "I know that's pretty mean of me."

"That's okay." I say.

"So why don't you speak?" He asks, resuming drawing.

I think for a bit. Why don't I speak much? "I don't know." I admit. "Too scared I guess."

I continue adding stuff to my drawing until I think it's fully finished. After I talked to Sandy, I noticed some flaws in my drawing. Owen went back to sit with his 'friends' since they were calling him to come.

"Hey, Mack." I hear someone call from behind me.

I turn around to see Sandy calling me.

"Come and sit with me?" She asks, pointing to a chair beside her.

I nod and sit beside her. I notice for the first time something strange about Sandy. Her face.

It's not a normal face. The skin beside her left eye is pulled down to her mouth, causing her left eye to be a lot lower then her right. Her mouth is slightly slanted, and her nose is too, causing her face to look slightly shifted. Like someone smudged it to the side. When she has her hair down, and covering the left side of her face you can barely notice. But when she has her hair up in a ponytail, like it is now, it's super visible.

"Franceschetti–Klein syndrome" She says, noticing the surprised look on my face. "I was born with it."

I instantly feel bad for looking so scared. "I'm sorry." I say quietly.

"It's okay. I get used to it after a while." She says. But there is no self-pity in her voice, she says it like it's a cold fact.

Sandy and I talk for a while until the bell rings. Class is over. By far the best class yet. Then I realize that this is the last class of today. Finally. The day has gone by so incredibly slowly. I'm so glad it's over.

Sandy and I walk down to the locker room, then back up to the library. My mom told me that I have to stay at school for an hour before I can get picked up, since her work ends later then school. Sandy walks home from school, so she can leave anytime she wants. We find a table, then I start reading my books while Sandy listens to a podcast on her phone.

Sandy peers over at my book. Have you seen the Stranger Things yet?" She asks me.

"No, I've heard that it's good though."

And just like that, Sandy has planned a solution. Everyday I will meet her in the library in one of the small seminar rooms. We watch on episode, until we've finished both seasons. As Sandy plans this out, I feel like I finally have an actual friend. Someone I can talk to. Someone that will listen.

Our plan starts tomorrow, so today, we just decide to talk. I ask her some questions about her, and she asks questions about me. I still haven't told her about the Anxiety though. I'll tell her when she need to know.

My mom calls me little less then an hour later, and I leave the school and jump in her car.

She looks at me, then at the driving wheel. Last thing she heard about school was me calling her in the middle of the day begging for her to drive me home.

"So... how was school?" Mom asks me, looking down at the driving wheel.

"Good." I think for a moment. "School was great."

Mom looks at me beaming from ear to ear. "I'm real glad sweetie."

I smile and look out the window. School is great.