Lauren Sanders is struggling to rebuild her life with her aunt and cousin after her family's tragic death. But what no one knows is the truth about two things: how her parents really died and her battle with schizophrenia.
One day, Lauren stumbles...
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As I entered the classroom, I hummed softly to myself and bit my bottom lip. Today's the most awaited presentation day for our project in EWS and it all suddenly began to sink in, just now, making me more nervous than I had never actually felt before.
It would actually be a first for me to admit that I'm nervous. It was unfamiliar to me to have the complete opposite of excitement, even though I had previously attended spoken poetry nights at random coffee shops around town before and my excitement would always surge the way it used to, until today.
My feet began to bounce up and down when the bell rang, and as I sat down, I did my best to shake off the anxiety that was steadily eating away at me. As Ms. Romeo and Lauren enter the room, looking a bit more pale than usual, the students automatically gathered back to their seats.
I watch as Lauren takes her seat, ignoring the set of eyes that has its usual distress of trailing her. Ms. Romeo nonchalantly makes her way around the classroom as I turn my focus back to the front, waiting for the commotion to settle down before she speaks.
"Before we begin, I will be discussing the rubrics of how you will be graded based on your presentation," she says as she starts walking in between the aisles, "Although a partner is required for this project, you will all be graded individually. And I seriously hope that everyone has participated; if not, you will fail my class."
When I turn to look back at Lauren, she has her head down and her hands covering her ears. The sight of her causes me to worry, leaving me bewildered the longer I stare at her.
Ms. Romeo walks back in front of the whiteboard and starts writing the set of rubrics, "Creativity, originality, structure, sentences and paragraphs, and grammar and spelling are the five categories, each receiving a grade of 10 for a total of 50 points."
Ms. Romeo lifts her wrist to check the time, "I'll give you five minutes to yourselves to prepare before we begin. When you hear your name called, please let me know who your partner is and which of you will be presenting first, and to save some time, please proceed to the front immediately."
I got out of my chair to approach Lauren, but she got up right away and walked over to Ms. Romeo at the front, causing me to fall back down on my chair. The kids surrounding me began conversing in low whispers; some of them were nervous, while others appeared unconcerned.
Lauren continues to disregard my gaze as she makes her way back to her seat as I watch her chest heave. When the five minutes were over, Ms. Romeo started calling names. When I focused all of my attention on Lauren's condition, I just noticed that my nervousness completely washed away only to be replaced by a greater concern for her.
When Ms. Romeo mentions Lauren's name, she immediately gets my attention. I had forgotten that a few students had already finished performing. As I see Lauren get up right away, and I did too.
Ms. Romeo looks at me then looks at Lauren, "Which one of you will be performing first?"
Lauren and I looked at each other, and for a brief second, I thought she appeared more at ease than before. I instantly stepped up to the front instead, holding onto the paper with the letter I wrote in my hand. It didn't appear as if she wanted to take the bait of performing first, so, I swallowed my nervousness and went for it.
