It was a dreadful morning to wake up to. A depressing atmosphere filled the entire home as to be expected after a long night of fighting Things were never as awkward as the morning after a huge fight.
Nathan Patrick Stolz, a pale-faced boy around 15 years old with messy uncombed brown hair and oval-shaped glasses, groaned loudly as he struggled to sit up in his very messy bed. His room was dead-silent due to neither the washer nor the dryer having been turned on as it usually was in the mornings. His room was tiny and messy with clothes spread all over the floor, and the large bookshelf and dresser which held his TV and his two videogame consoles were stockpiled with clutter. The air was musty and thick from both of the windows higher up on the walls having been shut. The boy groggily got himself up, got dressed in his pajamas and opened up his bedroom door to walk the very short distance toward the kitchen. The home he lived in was many things short of an average house for it could only house two or three at most, as it was a sort of cramped little cabin-like home with no hallway with everything being close enough to each other. Up the front doorsteps, one would be right between the bathroom on the right and the kitchen on the left. Aside from the bathroom was the only bedroom, in which the teenager came out of. Directly across from the door of that room, a few feet away, was the kitchen, and to the right was the living room, being the main room of the small house, where the boy's mother had slept. Nate entered the kitchen only to find his mother inside, about to exit as he muttered a "…Hey…" to her. She did not respond.
It was the 16th of June; both Nate and his mother, Michele, had a fight the night before. They had fought before, but this was different. The boy just couldn't believe that the fight was over something as small as him not wanting to do the dishes because he had a headache. To his knowledge, his mother drank alcoholic beverages daily, but nothing more than beer or wine. What was so bad about that fight was that that night, his mother came to the decision to finally put her son into a foster home, which he had considered wanting before, as he wanted no part in living with his crazy mother in the first place.
But this decision had poor timing, because Nate loved the school he went to. He made a few decent friends and all this time, believed he would spend the rest of school at Truckee High School and spend an adequate amount of years living in Lake Tahoe, even though he was a troublemaker sometimes. He'd mess around with the teachers, most of the time with the help of his friends, and just try to have a good time like other teenagers. However, there were times he went too far with things such as stealing food from his Foods and Nutrition class as well as the cafeteria where he volunteered for a short while, getting slightly temperamental with other students and teachers, and even finding himself getting pushed around by the school officer on duty that hung around indoors on campus. But no matter how much trouble he got into, he had friends he thought he would stay with for a longer period of time than other schools in his life, because Nate moved so many times in his life that he lost count long ago, partly due to the fact that his mother could not hold onto a job for very long, or her relationship issues with her past ex-boyfriends whom she and Nate lived with before. All Nate could do was accept the fact that he would have to leave his friends behind yet again and move for what was really the 12th time in his life, to a foster home he was unsure he still wanted to go to or not.
"Maybe it wouldn't be so bad," he thought many times. As long as there would be a fair supply of internet he could use, he thought he would be just fine. After all, Nate's biggest hobby was using the internet which occupied much of his usual free time.
There was only a dead silence as Nate spent the morning stuck up in his room, playing his Pokémon games and petting his two cats Bubba and Missy, as well as his dog Lady, who was a neurotic whiner and anxious black hound most of the time, but she was always a good girl and Nate wished he could have appreciated her more. Nate had loved Pokémon ever since he was 5 years old and could never imagine himself more interested in anything else. He very rarely had money to spend however, almost never getting paid. The only Pokémon games he owned due to dedicated saving and good days throughout his life were Pokémon Emerald, Pokémon Colosseum, and Pokémon Fire Red. It was 2009, the year Platinum version came out, but Nate was stuck in the "3rd Generation", as it is referred to.
Nate's mother finally found a foster home within a week, and Nate didn't know what to think of it. He wanted to know what it was like first of all, and decide for himself whether it was for him or not.
"It's in Sacramento," she said to him one morning. "You'll spend three days there, just to get familiar with it. We can choose another one if you don't like it, okay?"
"Okay, I guess." Nate replied.
"Three days, and if I like it, I can choose to stay," he thought to himself. It only seemed fair. Nate's mother wasn't always so estranged. Most days she would be fair like this and have her mind in balance, like right now. But on other days, well, we already know.
It was now 3 weeks after their huge fight, and Nate awoke with curiosity burning inside him. Today was the day he'd check out the foster home he'd probably have to live in. He only kept hoping it was better than living with his mom. Nate packed a few pairs of shirts, underwear, and pants atop his Gameboy Advance with Pokémon Emerald Version inside of it, however the batteries were dying, and he had no new ones. He wished almost above everything that his Gameboy Advance SP didn't have its screen smushed in his pocket on his last birthday at school.
It was a long drive to Sacramento, and Nate was shaking with anticipation. He was imagining how stable he would be with a fair time for everything he wanted to do on the internet, how there would be plenty of things for him to do if he wanted. He could only hope that the foster home provided these things.
He and his mom hardly struck conversation in the car except for the part where Nate attempted to get her to confirm with his mom his 3-day deal, which she did. A couple hours passed before they arrived at a very urbanized, yet slightly underdeveloped sort of area. It almost looked ghetto to Nate, but after that he arrived in what looked like a very beautiful town. The trees and grass in front of each and every home were such a green and appeared so out of touch to him that he was almost convinced their placement had something to do with aliens. Not only that, but there looked to be a peaceful air around this town which he concluded was Elk Grove by the names of all the shops he passed.
Nate's mom spent quite a while searching for the foster home's location, her printed directions not offering her much help. She finally found her way and parked in the driveway of the house that was 4368 Glorieta Court. It was a single story that had a barn-shaped garage in the back, painted yellow and brown like the house itself. The garage door to the home opened, and a big pale and crusty old man came out and greeted Nate's mother.
"Nate, this is Gary, he's one of the foster parents you're going to live with," his mom said.
"Hello Nate, how are you? It's nice to meet you," said Gary in a rumbly sort of grumpy voice as he held out his clammy hand. Nate shook it lightly as he usually did. Gary looked old, was old, and had arms that were thick in bone structure, chub, or both. Most notable of all though was his tone of voice that sounded like he was irritated about something, a tone that could easily instill scorn in the poor sap who lived under his roof, maybe even if he was happy. He was near bald with white hair growing out the back of his head, and there was no part of his skin that looked smooth. It looked like he had scabs and scars everywhere, but then Nate remembered what liver spots were.
"Uhh, good…" replied Nate. Unsure of what to feel, he just waited patiently as his mother and Gary spoke.
"Sorry we took so long getting here, this is a beautiful home you've got!" Nate's mom said, and her usual social blabbering went on like this when she met someone new or ran into someone.
After what felt like a day, Gary invited the two inside not through the front door, but through the garage. A woman old like Gary suddenly emerged from the home's official entry point, yet she had scrunched up black eyes and a tannish skin.
"Hello, nice to meet you," she greeted the three with a Filipino accent and a frail voice.
"Hello, you must be Fe, nice to meet you too! I'm Michele…" Nate's mom blabbed on some more. After more chit-chat, it was finally the moment of discovery.
Fe opened the white door wider.
"You may come in," she said. "But we take our shoes off here, we wear only socks inside, no bare feet."
Nate thought nothing of this and just removed his shoes as he was told, placing them next to the smooth garage steps below the door. Stepping inside, Nate's face twisted up as he smelled the house. It smelled as if there was some kind of 3 month-old casserole that had previously been splattered all over every square inch of the walls. It smelled something you'd expect from an old person's home. The circular glass dining table sat in the very center of everything; the hall, kitchen, front door and living room. It was very clean and white inside, but Nate had a feeling that this smell would haunt him forever. And he was right; the living room looked okay, except for a couple of things: the TV was kind of small and sat on the ground, and by the looks of its exterior being part wooden and having knobs of metal, this TV was ancient. But that wasn't what worried him. In the far corner of the living room was a large vertical shelf that held another ancient artifact: one of those old white computers with its thick and heavy build. As the three adults spoke still in the garage having decided to keep blabbing, Nate wandered the house by himself, wondering why old people loved old technology so much if it wasn't nearly as great as modern technology nowadays, so he believed.
Wanting to be sure of something, he snuck on the old computer, turned it on, and it logged in automatically with no problem. At least it looked like Windows XP if he remembered correctly what it was called, so it wasn't that old according to Nate's preference. Then he felt his heart sink once he looked into the lower right corner of the screen where it would show the status of the internet connection, and the familiar pop-up message he'd encountered while using his old desktop which normally wasn't connected to the internet, read:
Local Area Connection
A network cable is unplugged.
"Well, I'm totally screwed out of my usual entertainment for the rest of my life," he thought.
Having all his hopes for connection to the cyber world washed away, he thought he might as well explore the entire house. Doing just that, he walked down the hall and saw the bathroom at the very end, then seeing two doors on the left that led to bedrooms, and one on the right he guessed was the master bedroom. He looked in the first normal bedroom on his left which was open, while the next one was closed and perhaps locked, he presumed. Nate realized this open one was his room. He saw not one, but two beds in the room; one against the wall with a window overlooking the front, and one sticking out from the wall next to his door. These beds were not normal, as they were tightly covered in a squeaky, papery and strong fabric that he could tell would be a ghastly experience to sleep on any of them.
"Cool, so when will these damn things be removed so I can feel the bed and sleep on it?" Nate wondered aloud to the empty room.
So far, he would have to spend 3 days in the care of old, presumably retired people in a house that smelled like old, presumably retired people, and worst of all, little technology that may supply entertainment to old, presumably retired people, but certainly not to the youth of today. This house was lacking modernization all around.
Nate spent the next 20 minutes sitting in his room. No games to play, nothing to eat until dinner, and not wanting to upset his temporary caretakers by removing the disgustingly papery fabric covering the bed by himself so he could have some comfort. He never forgot his end of the deal though, and plucked up the courage to keep himself together. Nate's mom came in later to say goodbye to him, and she left in her usual social talkative self which took another half hour. Nate walked out of his room and came across the two elderly beings in the dining room.
"Okay, well," Gary began, "First of all, you may help yourself to some food in the kitchen if you want. We eat dinner at 6:30, lunch at 12:30. If you want to use the phone, ask us first. You may only go out of your room at night to use the bathroom. Oh, and Kevin, our other kid, gets home from school at 3:00, but he is at his father's for the night."
"At least I wouldn't be alone in all this," Nate thought.
They gave him the rest of the rundown of the rules. Nate spent the rest of the day until evening watching the Encore channel on TV. At least he saw some action and horror movies he thought he wouldn't regularly live to see as long as he was with his mom, but the very limited number of TV shows that the old couple watched was the only thing that kept Nate entertained, and he did not feel fully satisfied due to the dull atmosphere.
Dinner came at the aforementioned time, and he ate an acceptable meal of salad and spaghetti. After a boring shower, he went into his room. It was 8:00 pm now, bedtime. Gary and Fe slept together every night in the master bedroom across his door. Nate saw that the papery fabric was still there, on both beds. Nate would have knocked on their door to ask them kindly to remove it, but there were plenty of things Nate would have asked already if there wasn't a big thundering old man who would overshadow and look down at him before responding. He didn't want to seem rude on accident, and could not help being easily intimidated by these people. They were old and wrinkled, and Nate thought strongly that it would feel impolite to ask them for anything. Accepting his current situation, he got into bed and groaned as the weird fabric squeaked and made loud noises every time he moved even the slightest. He had had it with this bed. He brought his blanket and pillow with him onto the floor which was a tad better, even though carpeting wasn't something one would usually want to directly sleep on. But Nate still could not sleep, for not only did Gary begin loud fits of coughing that could wake the dead, but the fact that this wasn't his own room and how nothing in that room could even come close to being a bed, ate away at his spirit.
Nate soon got up to use the bathroom, but the moment he walked out into the hallway, he would have been shaken awake if he had been sleepy at all, for from out of the blue came a very loud beeping noise comprised of two notes; one high and one low, sounding exactly like the tune one would hear opening the door to a 7-Eleven, only amped up to 15 times the loudness. Every move he made set off what became relevant as a motion-detecting alarm. It was so loud that the whole house could hear it.
After using the bathroom and setting off the device again by going back into his room, Nate contemplated what Gary had said.
"'Help yourself to something,' he says," Nate said in a mocking voice.
Why, Nate thought. Why would the old man say such a thing, when the very house itself was set up to make him look like a guilty little punk?
He would give almost anything to be able to go back to his school. Maybe he could if he chose to not go to any more foster homes. It was only 2 and a half more days, he could bear it; but that time took forever to pass. Nate much preferred his home in Lake Tahoe compared to this retirement home. At least he met Kevin, and Kevin seemed alright. He was thirteen with short blonde hair and spoke in a sort of way that you could tell he had special needs. He and Nate played a couple games of Monopoly, but that was the only game to play, ever, at the time. The afternoon of the final day took forever to arrive, and Nate spent it all watching the front yard for any sign of his mom showing up. At last she did, and when Nate had the chance to go out in front, he bolted. His mom, the only chance of bringing him back to his real home was there at last.
"So, what did you think, Nate?" Fe asked him in her frail voice and foreign accent. Nate faked his words as best as he could, hiding his sheer disappointment.
"It was nice, kind of a quiet atmosphere," he replied.
"No trouble at all, Michele," Gary had said before she rambled on.
"Well that's good. You know, I've been meaning to ask what's in that barn house of yours in the blah blah blah blah blah….."
Nate finally had his things packed and shoved in the car, sat in the front seat, so eager to get back home, back to his own bed, back to his games, to his pets, where he belonged. After all that rambling, his mom finally said her goodbyes, and got in the car.
"I don't think that it is right for me, it wasn't that good at all," Nate explained as his mom pulled out and got onto the main road as Nate tried his best to hold back what tone and words he had really wanted to express, as he expected the words of an understanding mother who would respect his opinions on something such as a permanent living situation such as this one. But the words his mother spoke instead sunk his heart all the way into his stomach.
"Nope, you're staying there."
Nate could not believe it. Why? Why why why why why? Why on EARTH? Just… WHY? That was all Nate could ask himself. He had no freedom over this decision, he wasn't 18, hell he wasn't even 16 yet.
"But… why? We had a deal! You said if I didn't like it, I could choose to not stay there!" Nate began to argue.
"Nope, you're staying there, end of story. I think you know why I don't want you living back with me!" Nate's mother argued back. They left the town of Elk Grove and got on the freeway, headed to where Nate previously thought he would be free. He continued to argue, but there was never a possibility of winning an argument against his own mother. Nothing he could do or say could change the way things were going to go. This was it, this was going to be the end of him. He didn't know how long he'd stay there. All Nate knew was that he was screwed big time.
Nate could only do a few things to savor what inner happiness he had left; he had to enjoy the time he had in Lake Tahoe he had remaining. After all, he'd have to return in August right before the school year began, so he had a month and a half to enjoy the time he had. And so he did. Shortly after returning to his home, his mother decided to move yet again to a duplex up the hill a few more streets away. He moved into the bottom level of the duplex, and above him was a family of three who seemed nice. There was one night he was invited over to see their son who was also his age but didn't know very well, but they had a fun time playing Halo 3 in multiplayer. Other than that, Nate spent all his remaining days in his mom's new place. He played on his computer, played all the games, sucked up all the internet time every chance he had, spent more time with his cats and his dog and watched TV at the latest hours of the night. This was in fact the worst summer vacation ever with what felt like a life sentence hanging over his head. He'd have wanted to go to summer school even more now at Truckee. This was a situation he had never foreseen.
As the 16th of August arrived, the day prior to his permanent stay in Elk Grove, Nate believed he at least spent all the time he could with all he would have to leave behind. That night, Nate, enjoying what he thought to be his last true bed, slept surprisingly sound.
It was morning time, and Nate had his belongings packed. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad, he thought. He imagined making new friends at his new school, fitting in, finding someone who shared his interests, and maybe even falling in love with another person. But that was a week away, and though he didn't show or feel it, deep down he had some feeling of excitement at something as new as this, as the case with previous moves, but he could never forget his old friends. He was going to be in his Junior year in a different high school after spending 2 years at Truckee with his two best friends Jayme Frankenberger and David Haskell. At least he felt familiar enough with high school, expecting to fit in much easier. Pondering all these things, he got into the car. He had asked his mom to at least let him bring his mattress to use instead of those dastardly beds at Gary and Fe's and she obliged, but not when he asked to also take his desktop computer and monitor, even though it had so many downloaded games he could play. As Nate stepped in the car, he took one last breath of Tahoe air and shut the car door.
Nate was silent the entire car ride there, for he was too occupied with all the thoughts running through his head. This was the beginning of a wasted life he knew he was having, an unknown but long period of time, knowing that every second passed would be extremely dull and contaminated with the smell of the elderly. What little cheeriness the thought of a new school life contained was easily clouded by his so-called life sentence.
Life at Elk Grove, or at least the only life he could ever experience, that being strictly inside and briefly outdoors per day at the household as well as at school which had not turned out to be a good place at all was undoubtedly the worst living situation Nate had ever found himself in. Nate attended Elk Grove High School, a public high school right on the main road. He expected to at least encounter some friendly folk, but Nate found that half of the school was obnoxious, immature and dressed rather grotesquely. Nate was not comfortable being around this sort of environment, as not even Truckee had people this foul. Sure at Truckee there were all the "cholos" whom appeared to have adopted the gangster culture, but it was pure at this school. What made his time at school there the worst though, was that not even his fellow classmates in his homeroom treated him kindly enough, and surprisingly, not even his teachers either. One boy with short black hair and a sort of acne-scarred face he felt he was most comfortable around, Bear, was not like the others. Nate had a feeling he could get along with him at least, as well as another who sat behind him, with curly black hair and glasses like his own, Edward, who seemed to be smarter than anyone else in the room. Everyone just called him Ed.
Nate took an Art class for his first period in another room across the school, but spent the rest of his periods in his homeroom such as Math and English, and went outside to lunch. He spent the rest of school taking Government class which he hated with all his heart, and finally at the end of the school day with all homeroom students gathered together, taking some sort of Social Skills class. But regardless of the two people he felt most comfortable with yet barely knew, he hated Elk Grove High School. He hated Elk Grove. He hated the foster home he lived in. He wanted to go back home. He knew he didn't belong, but there was nothing he could do.
Over the course of a month, Nate had learned the purpose of the barn-like building in the back; it housed Gary's old mom who stayed in bed all the time. She was monitored by camera with the small display monitor sitting above the computer desk. Occasionally she made noises, which sometimes signaled for one of the oldies to attend to her needs. But after she passed away one night, Nate had a TV previously stationed in her room moved into his, and attached to it was an old antenna system. Nate never used something like this before, but Gary showed him how to configure it. Nate quickly got the hang of turning the antennas the right way, but there were not many channels Nate could find interesting. Most of them were sports, little kid cartoons and channels that didn't work. Over time, Nate discovered the times where the right shows would be on as well as discovering Saturday morning cartoons when they came on, but these little improvements meant almost nothing to him for both Nate's school and "home" could never be seen by him as whole as life got while living in Lake Tahoe.
Nate's birthday came on the 14th of October. It wasn't too bad as he got a decent-sized cake, a new pair of slip-on shoes and a box of items one of his sisters sent him, containing impulsive toys such as a plastic bendable reverse-ringed mini football, a container of a non-toxic goo-like substance that read "Dino Putty" and containing a tiny plastic Triceratops skeleton stuck inside, some thin glow sticks with a variety of colors, and much more. It was nearly two months since he'd been there, he was grateful to at least have some things to play and fidget with.
Elk Grove High School had a punishment system in place called Saturday School, and it was exactly what it sounded like. If you didn't obey some rules or got into ANY kind of trouble, your Saturday morning will be spent with 4 hours of catching up on homework inside the cafeteria building. If you had no more homework, they made up work for you to last for the entire session. Nate of course earned a couple days of Saturday School and did not like it at all. Feeling that it was all pointless on his first day there, Nate folded his arms and rested his head in his arms. What Nate didn't know was that the main monitor for the session would not tolerate such an act. Nate was surprised but did not jump as the monitor, a strong-looking brown-haired man with a gym teacher stature, slammed his hands down in front of him on the desk, causing all eyes in the room to look to Nate.
"What do you want? What more could you do to me?" thought Nate as he almost couldn't be bothered to look up to the man's face.
"We have more make-up work for you if you'd like," he stated in a stern voice. Nate just shook his head and said "That's okay."
Bryce, another jerk in his homeroom class, muttered insults to him as they sat across to each other. Nate almost slammed him over the head with the heavy textbook, but controlled himself. He knew he'd have regretted NOT performing that when he sat back down before letting Bryce get away with more put-downs.
The 15th of October came on a dry Thursday. His homeroom teacher, Mrs. Graham, a middle-aged woman with gray hair who serves in the military, announced to the class at the end of the day that they were having a field trip on the Monday after next. Nate sighed heavily, much relieved to leave on a school day to go somewhere. Aside from being called names like "swine-flu kid" (due to a slight cold he had for a while) or general insults from a few of the kids such as Chris, a curly brown-haired boy, Anthony, a dark-gray haired boy with what looked to be a face with a natural snooty evil-grin-with-braces look upon his face, and Cassie, Chris' girlfriend who was a redhead with hair dyed black, but not as black as the heart she seemed to have.
Nate gained a tiny glimmer of excitement to hear what Mrs. Graham was going to tell the class where they will go.
"We will go on a nature walk through the Regional Park right next to our school," she announced. "We'll explore the park and observe nature up close with the binoculars we'll rent. For lunch, I will purchase you all something from the food stand, but it has to be under $7 per person."
She handed everyone empty permission slips, requesting that the whole class get theirs signed. Nate was glad to go out on a field trip soon, as they were always one of those lucky breaks one would get in school, though as a child, one must have at least once taken them for granted.
Later that day at lunch time, Nate tried the computers as he normally would every other day in his homeroom. Amir, a Caucasian Iranian boy who was into films like Terminator, Hellraiser and the like, and was apparently a fan of the late Michael Jackson because he wore a tribute shirt frequently after the star passed away during the summer. Amir was one of the 2 mellow and overall decent students in the classroom, the other being Ed. Nate was good at computer stuff, but Amir figured out how to access YouTube despite the school's internet blocked which annoyed Nate at near-impossible levels. All he could really use was his email, no music to search and listen to, no videos to watch. Nate asked Amir how he got on YouTube numerous times, but Amir did not want to answer, perhaps afraid the secret would spread and that his exploit would be fixed. Obviously this was against the school internet rules, but Ms. Land, the teacher's aide for Mrs. Graham, paid everything no mind as she sat at her computer during the lunch hour with only the two boys in the room she supervised.
But Ms. Land wasn't all that great either for the next day, a Friday, Nate, Bear and Edward were having a goofy time in homeroom during 4th period. Bear and Ed were joking about something, and when Nate started repeating what they were going on about, Ms. Land cut in and asked Nate to go over to the front office.
"How come?" asked Nate.
"Just go to the front office," she replied. This became a cycle that repeated three more times.
"I'm not going to the office unless you tell me what I did wrong." Nate heard a couple of the kids in the classroom go "Ooohhh!" in a quiet manner. And at that moment, Nate saw a devilish grin form on Ms. Land's old face that showed she was proud of herself to have the opportunity to do what she just did; call one of the campus security guards and have them escort him to the office. Nate finally went to the front office but only when the security guard came. Upon arrival, he entered the office of one of the very many vice principals, Randy Stark, who looked like the main villain in the movie Hellraiser Nate watched during his 3-day orientation back at the foster home. Nate explained his issue with Ms. Land, but got a referral for Saturday School anyway. In the time he had been there, that would have been his 3rd Saturday School session he received. Sick of everything, Nate planned to skip out on it entirely.
Sure enough, Gary was steamed when he tried to get Nate up and Nate refused to leave his bed. After a long while of yammering to Nate, Gary shut the door rather firmly. Nate was content with himself after ending up not going to Saturday School, though the day was pretty moody, for the grumpy old man was disappointed in him, though Nate couldn't care less.
The coming Monday at breakfast with Gary, Fe and Kevin, Nate got his permission slip filled out. He handed it to Gary that very Thursday, yet because this was a foster home, Gary and Fe spent the weekend contacting the local Regional Center, the business that watched over foster homes across the country, about the matter of the field trip. Because of this, Nate learned that a matter as simple as a permission slip signing would have to go through many people such as social workers and parents, just to have an short off-campus trip for a few hours on one day.`
"Some system," Nate thought.
At breakfast, Nate was eating his cereal, thinking about the field trip. Sure it sounded a little boring to him, a nature walk, but it was a hell of a lot better than staying at school.
"Hey Nate," Gary began in his raspy rumbly deep voice. "We found some place up the street that will be hiring students soon, maybe it will be a nice way to earn allowance for two more years. What do you think?"
Nate nearly choked on the milk in his bowl. Two more years of this place?! He'd only been there two months, and things were not getting better! Nate thought he'd at least have a joyful time on the field trip, but now he had the thought of being forced to live two more years in the dreaded home until he was 18 looming over him, and that feeling hung like the life sentence he saw coming, over his head for the remainder of the morning. He couldn't take it anymore already, he had enough as it was; the loud beeping alarms in the house at night that made him look and feel like an escaping prisoner just for going out of the hall, the intimidation he experienced when he feared of being too impolite towards a fat old man who was short-tempered at times, the dull, non-modern feel of the house he lived in, the deprivation of technological entertainment… Sure there was a TV, but that's all he had, a crappy antenna TV from the 90s or something.
Nate arrived to his homeroom first thing, handed in his signed permission slip to Mrs. Graham, and stayed put until she gathered every student out of the classroom and onto a long yellow bus parked on one side of the school. Nate could hear Anthony mutter something about him to Cassie and Chris, it couldn't be good, but punching their lights out, no matter how good it would feel to a very willing Nate, wouldn't do it. Not yet, at least.
The bus only drove about half a mile down the street, meaning that the park wasn't that far away. When the students got off, they overlooked an enormous enclosure, about the same size as the perimeter of their own school. None of them were surprised, except for Nate, who was an outsider to this county. It had very detailed stone décor all around, and a large and flat concrete circle in the very center, where stone benches lined the edge. There were concrete pathways connecting to and from the gigantic circle, one of them led into the thick green forest. Too green, Nate believed. In fact, every single form of vegetation in Elk Grove seemed too green and too perfect to be real. Nate almost couldn't believe the fact that the grass and trees in that town were real.
Nate realized that he and the rest of the class were already standing at the entrance to the forest, and before he knew it, was shoved a pair of binoculars that a big bearded man passed out to everyone. Nate, as usual, was so caught up in his silly thoughts that he didn't even see his teacher pay the man who was sitting at the large souvenir stand which held an enormous supply of binoculars.
Nate's whole class advanced into the thick of the large green trees he didn't know the names to. It was cloudy and cold outside, the usual weather for an autumn morning. It cleared up little by little later on, as the class walked half a mile through the dense trees, arriving at what looked like where they just came from, the same circular stone platform, except there was a wooden sign right in front of the party that read You are now entering Elkwood Park – West Front.
"I'm tired," said one of the students. "Is it lunch time yet?"
"Yep," replied Mrs. Graham. "I'll be buying your lunches at the stands, but nothing over $10, got it?"
Everyone agreed, and the whole class got food. Nate got some chili cheese fries and thanked Mrs. Graham rather hesitantly. He hadn't felt grateful for anything lately, and he didn't expect himself saying those two words again after everything that's happened to him recently.
It was noon, and Nate had his much-needed lunch, but it wasn't all that filling. The entire class headed back into the thick woods, the whole class feeling fat and happy, following along the trail as Mrs. Graham pointed out more things they had already seen on the trail. Nate however, no matter how hard he tried to think of something different, was still weighed down by his life sentence. Two more years of his life, wasted on a foster home, against his will… He had pleaded and pleaded for the social workers to take him away from it, but they didn't listen, they never did. He knew nobody cares about minors.
Suddenly, Nate nearly bumped into one of the students who stood still in their tracks, and noticed that everyone was either slowing down or stopping, looking at something. Nate walked around the small crowd and saw that everyone's attention was fixed on one particular tree on the side. This one was different, as it was as large as the other thick trees, yet it had a large gap in its trunk, pierced through and through and tall enough for a person of Nate's size to walk through. Nate saw some of his classmates walk through it, some claiming they didn't see that tree when they were walking along the trail beforehand. Feeling his own feet carry him as they did along the entire trail, Nate walked toward the holed tree. It was covered in greenish-blue moss and looked much stronger and healthier than the other trees, despite its enormous hole. Nate stood in front of it, touching the spiky top of one of its openings without a single thought on the tree, for Nate had no interest of nature. What was on his mind most of all was how he wanted to get away, how sick he was of being there. He missed his bed, he missed his pets, his old school, his old life, his games, his Pokémon…
Nate took a deep breath. He walked slowly through the tree's hole, exhaling as he passed through the middle, and felt on his neck what he thought was the sun having just come out of the clouds beating down on him a little right as he exited the tree's interior. A sudden silence surrounded him, but he was too down to notice it.
"But what's done is done, and I just have to accept it," he muttered.
Sighing once more as he accepted his reality, Nate turned around to face the group, but everyone was gone.