Chapter 1.
Stearing out into the night I look up to the stars. Why am I hear, what is there other than this? My mind flutters with these questions every night. Everyone else I know is normal, regular, myself not so much.
Two years ago.
I was 18 when I joined a new high school. That wasn't the worst part; joining a new high school and being from another country set me apart from others right away. The whole environment had changed with a blink of an eye. My father had a new position at work and within mothers my father and I had moved from the English countryside to a very suburban part of the Chicago land area. I was instructed to pack as little as possible, and knew that I could only bring necessities at the time and that my other things would be shipped later. How do you choose what is more important to you? Every childhood possession now had a rank and only the best made the cut. The picture of my mother was the first thing I picked up. She had only been gone a year and it still seemed like only yesterday that I had my last goodbyes. No other object seemed to matter anymore as the last embrace and the last kiss that I had received from her.
Out of my haze of memories I found myself wandering through the mass of hallways that was now my school. In England it was many different, small school, small classrooms, and small community. This school was a mass that I knew instantly that I was going to be swallowed. Finding my way to a classroom of eyes watching my every move was not something I was looking forward to.
Stopping by a classroom and poking my head around the corner a teacher stud there waiting and preparing for his class to start. "Excuse me; I'm looking for classroom 4b." I tried to stutter out. I was not used to conversing with the Americans yet. The teacher looked up at me with a knowing smile and pointed to the desks that sat in front on him. "You must be Emma, and yes you are in the right place". With a realization that I was indeed already in the right place my heart stilled a little. Taking my seat, the closest to the window on the left it gave me a sense that I was not boxed in, maybe even a way of escape.
The bell rang, with the sound my body again tensed watching through my blond hair concealing my face as much as possible I watched students walk in. it seemed like just out of a American high school movie at the society did indeed exist. The jocks, geeks, nerds, skaters, the invisibles and the essential popular girls.
Eye contact did and would not happen. This school was not going to drag me into one of those categories. Getting out my notebook and pencil waiting what topic we would start with I heard my name being called. "Emma is new here, Emma please stand up and tell us a little about you." The horror, why would you do this to me, seeing the smile that I got when I first met my teacher I thought he would at least give me a break, let me hide, do the homework and go home. I found myself rising off of my chair and brushing my hair away from my face. "I'm Emma, I just moved here" was all that came out. I could see their eyes on me, my body feeling hot and cold at the same time. Many of them almost in shock from what they didn't expect, my accent. I knew this was going to happen at some point. When were the questions going to start, when were the annoying cockney mocking going to start? "So are you from London or something? I heard English people are all part of the royal family" and so it began. I just smirked a little and retook my seat trying to drown out the inane and opened my book.
With the other students finally quieting down the teacher finally started class. Thankfully it was English and that was my favorite subject.
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