The Way This Feels

Chapter 1: Headlights

There's a lot of things that I hate, the end of the school year being one of them, I call it "End of year bullshit," and it gets worse every year.

This year I am a Junior. Well I was a Junior, now I guess I will be a Senior. I never could decide if that last bell on the last day of school indicates your metamorphosis into the next grade, or if that transition occurs over the course of the whole summer. So, I guess I am somewhere in between being a Junior and a Senior, some kind of horrible label-less teenage soup.

Anyway, end of year bullshit. It's very "party time!" mixed with an unhealthy dose of stress about finals. Like today, in Mr. King's bio class, we all got candy mints (as a treat!) while we sweated over our long-awaited exam that we took surrounded in yolk-yellow streamers from the dollar store. The juxtaposed emotions made my head swim.

I live in a town called Grand Station, Indiana. It's a small town, which, to those who don't live in a small town, might seem idyllic, romantic even, but that was just the 80s. In the current era, with the invention of social media, and child murderers, it's not as fun. In fact, living in a small town in the Instagram era, is basically hell on earth. If you thought you had no privacy in suburbia or wherever you live, try living in a town where everyone knows everyone else anyway, and they all also post everything they do on the internet. Everyone is on display all the time, online and in real life, everyone's private lives are everyone else's soap operas, it becomes this disgustingly intertwined cesspool of narcissism and obsessive dependency.

But I'm not here to dissect the social media case study that my town is, I'm only here to talk about myself. Ironic, isn't it?

On the last day of school, after the minty bio exam with the yellow streamers, there's a party to attend. It's Maria's graduation party. Seems harmless enough. Maria is the only one of my friends graduating this year, well, she's friends with Spring, who's friends with Violet, who I've known since geometry class of sophomore year, which in high school terms is like knowing someone since kindergarten. I don't have a lot of friends, just friends of friends. So, Maria, Spring, Violet... it's all turning into a knotted up social spiderweb.

Violet appears just then, sitting herself across from me at a picnic table. "I got you a Dr. Pepper." she says. Violet is mousy, dainty with pale skin and thick dark hair that she keeps in a long braid. She has big brown eyes that look even bigger behind large framed glasses. Everyone likes Violet. She's not uber-popular, like a cheerleader or someone, but she has plenty of friends. She's a social butterfly, or maybe chameleon. She's my party partner, that means we don't do much together other than party hop, which I guess is a big responsibility. We take care of each other.

"Why?" I ask her, picking up the can, wet from soaking in ice.

"The caffeine content, baby!" She grins. "Gotta keep you awake for when the real party starts."

I put my elbows on the wooden table and slouch dramatically. "I hope to be in bed by then." I groan.

"Drink up!" She says cheerily, ignoring me. I open it. Of course, I do want to stay with her for the actual party, why else would I be here? I'm just choosing to be apathetic on this my final day as a junior. A senior feels like something bigger than me, as most things do. Another title I won't be able to fill the right way.

Over Violet's shoulder I watch a group of guys get out of a car and wander over to the party. I mostly watch them because I'm waiting for Echo to get here, but I know how he likes to be late for things. The tallest one shakes Maria's mom's hand, smiling a broad sparkling grin. I know him, everyone in town knows him, in fact, people all over the country know this guy; he's our local celebrity. Micah Simon-Anders, a tall, charismatic, guy in my grade who got famous simply off of shirtless selfies and well-chosen hashtags on Instagram. He irritates the hell out of me. There are two other guys with him, both a good 4 or 5 inches shorter at least, the first one is a skinny angular guy with dark vacant eyes named Eduardo, and a pale pudgy guy with a ragged lime green beanie named Dex. Dex and Eduardo are bad guys, it's no secret. I wonder why Micah's hanging out with them. It irritates me.