I'm back | ✓

02 | last first day !

𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚎'𝚜 𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠
𝚏𝚛𝚒𝚍𝚊𝚢, 𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝚜𝚒𝚡𝚝𝚑, 𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢-𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢

Beep! Beep! Beep!

My eyes felt as if they weighed a hundred pounds each, and I barely do more than squint them at the sound of the familiar, vapid beeping; subconsciously, I reached over beside me and tried to hit the alarm clock. But to my jet-lagged surprise, my arm swung down and thumped against the side of my bed.

Huh?

Opening my eyes I saw the acquainted creme walls, ones I'd seemed to slowly drift away and forget over the last two years. Yet today, they seemed to hug me like an old friend: squeezing and compressing my sudden nerves.

I opened my mouth to say something when the alarm clock cut me off, beeping again. With a groan, I reached over to the opposite side of the bed and snoozed the sound. I sighed, "I forgot I was back here." I murmured to no one in particular.

I heard a scoff, "Calm down, don't get too excited." I heard Aiden mumble as he tiredly trudged past my open door.

I let a small chuckle escape my lips, I'd forgotten what it was like here. "Aiden," I called, further ignoring my brother's tired nonsense, "why is this alarm clock set? It's spring break, right?" I was starting to question myself. I had been away from the states for so long, could I have been messing up the dates?

Aiden popped his head in, looking suddenly very awake as if he was holding in a- 

He burst out laughing, "Not yet, sis. It's Friday, meaning one more day." He continued his laughing fit, taking wheezing breaths in and out sporadically. "You know what that means? You have to come to school with me today."

I sat there in shock, my eyes widened. I could feel my face starting to heat up with nerves, internally groaning, I wished that the day could just be over already. "I'm already registered?"

He nodded amidst the laughter causing me to scowl at him, and with startling preciseness, I launched my pillow at his face, "Out!" I scolded. He squeaked in response, practically diving for the door and scrambling away down the hall.

Dreading the cold, I decided to rip off the bandaid and threw the comforter off of my legs. As I stood up, the cold wood chilled the flats of my feet. I hopped from one foot to the other trying to shake off the chill before I started to make my bed, silent worries flooded my brain as I got into the well-mannered rhythm of fluffing my pillows and folding my blankets.

As sudden as this was, I was less nervous than I thought I would be. Back when I attended this school my biggest problems were what I was going to wear, or what to pack for lunch. Those seemed so... trivial now. 

After I placed the last throw pillow on my bed, I headed into my bathroom. Washing my face always calms me down, I thought. It stemmed from memories of my mother wiping the dirt from my face with a wet rag, or cleaning a cut with peroxide. She always used to say, "Before you can take care of anything else, you must first take care of yourself." 

Staring up at myself in the mirror, my golden-brown hair lay limp at my shoulders, my skin was paler than it had been in years, and the shine had yet to return to my normally icy blue eyes. I no longer looked like me, had yet to heal from the shell I had become in the past few months since her passing. 

I sighed, twisting the knob, causing the water to start to flow. As I dipped my hands under the stream it was ice cold, and I relished in the bite as I washed my face.