People always say the best time of their lives happened during high school. Normal people go through many firsts in their final years of grade school; first dates, first loves, first heartbreaks. Love is something that cannot be explained through a single definition. We love our family in one way and we also love our friends in a completely different way, but in no lesser amount. Fifteen-year-old girls will continuously confess their love for their boyfriend of a month and a half and then in two years be disgusted by the memory. Usually first loves don’t last forever, unless if you’re really lucky. Many people have to fish for a long time before they find a keeper.
In high school, I wasn’t considered popular, that was actually the last thing I wanted to be considered as. Popular girls are some kind of different species who wake up with flawless hair and always have remarkable talents with liquid eyeliner. They flaunt around with the same group of girls and talk about who made out with who, and that slut who had a nip slip at the party they went to the weekend before, at lunch they cruise around in their cars that daddy happily bought for his little girl and gossip about the chubby girl in Bio and the loud mouth in History. I am the quiet girl in glasses who has no friends in her classes and tries to make herself as transparent as possible.
I’m not saying I don’t have any friends. That’s a pretty cliché sob story. I have a good amount of friends but with my luck, none of them ended up in any of my classes during my whole high school career. The only socializing I got to participate in is during lunch, when all of us would group in the theatre. I wasn’t even in any sort of theatre themed classes, though I would have loved nothing more then to be in a drama class, but the universe decided that I did not need to be with all my friends. It decided a lonely life in photography and French would suit me more.
I am using past tense while talking about the hell most people call high school because I’m walking out of the building that I spent three years of my life, stressing about mostly everything, for the last time.
I dramatically push the front door open and strut out into the hot summer sun immediately wanting to return to the hell that stood behind me, at least it was air-conditioned. I sigh, there is no way I’m reentering into that -reasonably cool- abyss, I straighten my messenger bag and start walking towards my car and going over a couple of those final questions of my exam. I quickly stop overthinking, it’s over, and I’m finally done with high school. If I passed, of course… No stop thinking about it. I have never been the best at school; it is one thing I completely hate about myself. I always just do enough to pass, even though I try so hard.
I shake the anxiety out of my head and dig in my bag for my Doctor Who lanyard. As soon as I turn on my little Caliber I blast the air conditioning.
A quick five-minute drive later, I park outside my house and sit in the front seat for a while and smile. Last time I’m going to be driving myself home from high school. I grab my messenger bag from the passenger seat, lock the doors, unlock my front door, greet my dog as she runs up to me, like everyday. Everyday since I got my car I have been getting home the same way, time to start something new, get rid of the same, continuous cookie cutter life and start something that is entirely different. So, instead of coming home and retreating to my basement bedroom and immersing myself into infinite hours of entertainment, curtsey of Netflix. I start boiling some water for tea and I grab my book from my bag.
As I curl up on my couch with my shitzu, my paperback and my favorite mug. An all too familiar buzz coming from my pocket distracts me from my novel life.
“Damn you technology.” I mutter as I set down my tea and pull out my phone.
“How was your test?” The message from Dani, my best friend since grade four, obviously brings back all the anxiety about possibly failing that stupid test, which my high school diploma depended on.
