Stargaze

One

I looked up at the gates of St. Arnold's School. They were big, complicated, and black, and they made me feel like I didn't belong there. Granted, I didn't belong there.

"I don't belong here." My mother ignored me.

"What, honey?" She said absently, reapplying her already perfect lipstick.

"I said I don't belong here."

"You've worked so hard to transfer here, darling. Why do you think you don't belong?"

I had worked hard, but not to get here. To get away. From Kyle, specifically.

I shrugged, "I don't know if I want to go to boarding school, and live with a girl I don't know."

My mother snapped her compact mirror shut. "She won't know you either."

"But she'll know other people." I was whining just a little, and I knew it.

"Stop being such a baby," said my stepbrother, Freddy. My mother twisted around in her seat.

"Freddy, do I need to confiscate that?" She asked, gesturing to his handheld gaming device. Freddy rolled his eyes, but stopped talking.

"Remember, honey, go to the office, and your roommate will guide you around the school," Mom reminded me.

"Yeah, I know."

"Okay, then. Go on." Mom said. "Love you," she added.

"Love you too, Mom. See you at Thanksgiving, Fred." Freddy, ignored me, my mom gave me a thin smile, and I got my bags out of my car and walked up to the school, past the gates.

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The buildings were all at least two stories high, and made of brick. They seemed to be arranged in a grid pattern, and Iwas grateful for the easy navigation to building nine, where the main office was located. St. Arnold's looked very different than my old local public school, which had yellowed walls and a confusing layout. I sniffed the air. Even the smell of this school is better.

I look up from my campus map. Building nine is up ahead. I walk in, and a short blonde lady behind a desk stops me.

"Excuse me," she said. "Who are you?"

"Oh! I'm Kalea Greene. Um, I'm new, and I was told to come to the main office."

Blondie furiously types into her computer, then picks up a pen and scribbles something on an orange piece of paper, which she hands to me. I take it. Hall 16, Room 147, it reads.

"Here is your schedule as well," says the secretary, tapping her pen on her desk. "Let me call your roommate."

Five minutes later, a girl with shoulder-length brown hair and thick eyeliner showed up. She was wearing the school's uniform of a blue and white pleated skirt, a white blouse, and a blue blazer with a crest.

She looked at me dubiously. "Are you my new roommate?"

"I'm Kalea," I supplied.

"I'm Rebecca, but you can call me Becca. Or Reb. Don't call me Reb. Come on, let me show you around."

Rebecca turned around and led me towards a large lawn. As we walked across, the smell of freshly mown grass tickled my nose.

"How long have you come here, Rebecca?" I asked.

"Becca," she corrected me. "Since ninth grade. So I know people here. Hey, what's your first class?" She talked a mile a minute.

I attempt to pull my schedule out of my hand, and many of the papers I was carrying fluttered to the ground.

I bent down to pick them up, but a smiling blond boy got there first.

"Thanks," I said.

"No problem," he replied, and walked off.

"That was Adrian," Becca told me. "Off limits, but damn, I wish he wasn't."

"Why is he off limits?"

Becca pointed to a girl with dark hair running her hand up Adrian's arm. "That's Sally Osborne. Their relationship status: 'It's Complicated' to the max."

We reach the end of the lawn and the babble of voices calms as we walk away. Soon we reach another brick building with a brass sign, which reads "Hall 16". Becca takes me inside, and we walk up a flight of stairs, then down a hallway until we reach room 147. The door has a dry-erase board on it. "Becca!" Is written in curly script. Becca erases her name, then writes, "Becca and Kalea!"

"Come on in," she smiled.