Dream #3
Had another dream last night...
"Bella, you have to get up honey. You don't want to be late for the first day of your senior year!"
My mom just doesn't get it. She is naturally a pessimist. She loves happiness. She lives for the bright side of everything. She's excited about today. She's been talking about it all summer.
Me? Hell no, I'd rather scrub the bathroom with a toothbrush than go to school today. You see, I am a shadow. I float through school with nobody noticing me. I could probably not even show up and nobody would notice.
I know what you are thinking. That I'm some sort of weirdo who is antisocial. No. I am not, I used to be the most well liked person in class. Growing up in a small town, it is hard to go unnoticed. Everyone knows everybody else. I had a best friend, a group of friends really, that used to go everywhere together.
In middle school, I went through my growing stage before my friends. Suddenly the boys in my class were weird around me. The girls would turn up their noses and talk behind my back. I was cast out of my friend group. It went as far as people I didn't know would glare at me and talk about me. Nasty rumors were spread by people I once called my friends, so I trusted nobody. I became a shadow.
Now, on my first day of my senior year, while everyone else is screeching and posing for candid pictures, I am curled up in the library reading a book. I discovered the library in middle school. I was transfixed by how easy it was to disappear into another world. I spend all of my free time in the library now. The librarian, Mrs. P, is really nice and seems to get what I'm going through, so she lets me hang out.
The warning bell rings, so I go to put my book away when I run straight into a wall. And by wall, I mean Luke Hawthorne, school heartthrob. At 6'2", he is a wall of pure muscle. He is the football captain, but he is heck-a smart. Currently, his hershey eyes are gazing at me with concern, "Sorry Toots, I didn't see you there."
Lets get this out of the way, Toots is my childhood nickname. I was known for always having a tootsie roll in my lunch box when I was little. The only person in this town that still calls me that is my neighbor, Luke. We've been neighbors since I was born, and he is the only kid in town that is nice to me.
To say I was harboring a crush on him would be an understatement.
I have been in love with Luke Hawthorne since third grade, when he bought me a one hundred pack of tootsie rolls for valentines day. Does he know that I like him? No. Am I going to tell him in the near future? No.
"No problem Luke. And don't call me that." I do my best to glare at him, but he can see through my act. He knows I'm not really mad.
"Sorry Toots, no can do. I've called you that since we were eight, and I'm not about to stop now." He gives me one of his lazy half smiles with the dimple and I literally melt right there. But I control myself just barely and instead roll my eyes and make to leave.
"Toots, come on. You know I'm joking. Where are you headed?" He looks at me with such hope I immediately forgive him.
"I have homeroom with Richardson. What about you?" I know going into this that I'm hoping we have the same homeroom, but its unlikely with my last name being Ward and his Hawthorne. It just isn't plausible, but I still have hope.
"Actually, it seems like you are in lucky Toots. You get the honor of walking me to homeroom. I also have Richardson. Something like one of the teachers quite short notice or something so they had to combine."
age 20
