Goodbye » n.h.

Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Desirah's POV

I sat on the plane and stared out the window. My face was sticky with old tears, and I rubbed them away. I tried not to think about Niall or any of the other boys as the plane took off. The pain would be all over soon.

Once we were allowed to use our electronics again, I put my earbuds in and listened to some music. I had the sudden urge to listen to One Direction. At Niall's solo in "Best Song Ever", I almost burst into tears.

It wasn't fair! None of it was! The famous Niall in the songs and interviews seemed to differ greatly from the Niall I had fallen in love with. My celebrity crush on his famous side had faded away as I fell faster for his real self. What made him so irresistible? I wished that he was right next to me so I could kiss every inch of his face and apologize, but I couldn't do that. That would be giving in to temptation.

As soon as I got back home to South Dakota, I was going to return to MQAAFGG. They had a couple of college-prep courses there for students who hadn't gotten into college right away. Since I was just a downright failure and Isabelle was right about me, it seemed that I was going to be stuck there forever.

I was also going to call my parents, whom I hadn't spoken to in ages. I was going to tell them that they were right. They were right about their daughter being just a daydreamer who never thought about her future for a second. They were right about their daughter floating on earth for the rest of her life, paying for being way in over her head as a child. There was nothing I could do about it now, because it was all my fault.

I buried my face in my hands and cried softly. I had mixed emotions. On one hand, I didn't want anyone to bother me so that I could be alone. But on the other hand, I wished that I had someone to hold me and tell me that everything was going to be okay, although it clearly wasn't.

*~*~*~*

My baggage seemed to get heavier with every step I took. I got on a bus and rode the two hours it took to get to MQAAFGG. When I arrived, I looked around. I almost collapsed to my knees to kiss the ground. I hadn't realized how homesick I was for this horrible place until now.

I rolled my suitcase behind me as I entered the entrance hall of the tall building. There were pink drapes covering the mahogany walls as if to say, "Yeah, we're girls and we're proud of it!" Pictures of young Madame Quinn were hung in every other large wall panel. None of them were very good.

I knocked on the door to the front office. I was told to come in, and I obliged. I shut the door behind me and turned around. Madame Quinn gestured for me to sit down in one of the wooden chairs in front of her desk. I sat in the one farthest away from her.

The office was just like the entrance hall, only it had a couple of windows and a desk inside. Madame Quinn had aged greatly since the photos on the walls. Her face was incredibly wrinkly, like a prune, and she acted like one, too. Her gray hair was always tied into a bun on the back of her head, and her triangular glasses were placed on the edge of her nose just so. Her lips were much thinner than mine, like she wanted them to disappear. And she had a giant, black wart by her nose. It was the most noticeable thing on her face! But if I told her that, I would be kicked out and never welcomed here again.

"What is your name?" she asked me in her reedy voice.

"Desirah Thompson," I replied tiredly. "I'm eighteen-years old, and I want to enroll in some college-prep courses. I was a student here--"

"Silence!" Madame Quinn suddenly snapped, and I jumped. "You will answer in complete sentences. You will sit up straight. You will put more life into your voice. You will not answer more than you need to. You will not speak unless spoken to, and you will refer to me as 'ma'am'."