A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews on the first chapter! I hope you all enjoy this one, too.
Where Courage Ignites
2. New Girl
January 8th, 2018 (Monday)
When mom's voice rang out from the other side of my bedroom door this morning, the reality of my situation sunk in like an anchor dropping on my chest. She pounded on the door and yelled my name until I could finally choke out, "I'm up!"
The hairs on the back of my neck and arms stood at their ends as if my nerves were being shocked into action. I rushed over to the boxes outside my closet and ripped off the transparent packing tape connecting the cardboard flaps. I pulled out clothes by the armful and sprawled them out on the floor. I paced the room and considered each outfit, knowing my appearance would make the crucial first impression. I thought my favorite baseball shirt and denim shorts would be too tomboyish. Any dress or skirt would be too flirty, or even worse, ditzy. After ten minutes of consideration and accepting that nothing I owned could make the perfect statement, I settled on a pair of blue jeans, a silky white blouse, and a dark green cardigan with a butterfly embroidered on the breast pocket.
Mom called up to me, "Come get breakfast!" I followed her orders and plopped into the chair between dad and Isabella. She asked, "How many pancakes would you like?"
"Just one."
"I'll give you extra fruit if that's the case."
"No thanks."
Dad glanced up from his newspaper in its predictable spot on the table and asked, "Are you feeling okay?"
Mom answered for me, "It's just her nerves. That's usual for a first day. She still has to go."
I defensively said, "I wasn't asking to stay home. Dad just asked if I was feeling okay."
Isabella interrupted proclaiming, "Pan-cake!"
Dad reassured me, "It's going to be alright. You'll make plenty of friends. Just be yourself and they'll find you soon enough."
I groaned, "Sure."
…
It was the same route we'd taken the Friday before, where slabs of concrete lined the asphalt roads and a few green trees were placed intermittently along the sidewalk. I leaned my head against the window and peered out at the blur of buildings and barren shrubbery zooming by. A little ache had been persisting since the morning in the pit of my stomach. Just when I thought my nerves had reached a plateau, the building and hoards of students entering sight cut even deeper into my gut, incapacitating me. The painful cramps twisted at my insides and the air caught in my throat at the pain, "Mom," I said breathlessly.
"Yes?" She asked.
"I- I can't. My stomach." I clenched in my seat. "It hurts."
"Gabriella, it's normal to feel nervous. You'll be alright, dear."
"No, mom, I mean it. It really hurts."
"I'm sure it's uncomfortable, but you still have to go to school."
I unlatched my seatbelt and opened the door, taking one last worried glance back at my mom.
"It'll be okay, Gabriella."
I grasped the door and headrest to hoist myself up, my stomach pains forcing me to move slowly. I closed the door and locked eyes with the massive clock overlooking the courtyard. I began my trek up to the front doors, merging with the flow of hundreds of other students entering. The fear that even one of them would notice me made me self-conscious about my gait and posture, and attempting to appear more relaxed just made me tense up worse. I went down the proper hallway to the office mom and I had visited before for my tests and introduced myself to the receptionist. She gave me my schedule and vague, unhelpful instructions on where to find the classrooms before rushing me out the door. Then I was back with the masses again, maneuvering amongst the countless other bodies in the hallways.
My first teacher, a heavyset woman by the name Mrs. Darbus, spent the entirety of homeroom attempting to recruit actors for the school play. After another claustrophobic journey through the hallway, I found my first class. Most of the students were gathered around the desks, but I noticed a few jocks in the far corner of the lab playing a mock game of basketball with a crumpled up piece of paper and a garbage bin. I watched their quick lunges and blocking attempts, anticipating when one would shoot and the others would guard. When one caught me looking, I quickly averted my gaze as if I had been intruding and found a table.
A gangly man covered in an oversized tie-dye lab coat entered the room accompanied by a peppy student assistant trailing closely behind. His buggy brown eyes, magnified by the thick lenses in his circular glasses, peered over the students in front of him. "My name is Mr. Brannigan," his soft voice grasped. "Excuse me, gentlemen!" After four long strides across the room, he was face-to-face with the group of jocks. "There is a time and a place for sports, and that is not in the lab."
"Sorry," one of the jocks murmured while taking the garbage can/hoop off the table. "It won't happen again."
"It better not," he warned before approaching the blackboard at the front of the room. Two of the jocks had taken seats in the back, but the one who had caught me watching them took the last empty seat next to me. "Now that I have your attention, we will be starting the fifth chapter today. Turn your books to page one hundred and thirty-two."
I quietly said, "Excuse me. I don't have a book."
"I don't have anymore books. Look off of your neighbor's."
Situated to my left was a very standoffish girl who didn't flinch to Mr. Brannigan's suggestion. On my right, the jock kindly slid his massive biology textbook atop the table towards me. "Thanks," I said quietly.
"Sure."
As Mr. Brannigan's voice droned on monotonously for the remainder of the class, I peered around the room to observe my classmates, noticing how their heads lied on tables attached to limp bodies dangling from their chairs. It appeared to be quite a difficult feat for many of my peers to keep their eyelids open. Just next to me, the jock's head kept sporadically bobbing as he fell in and out of consciousness. When I realized that the majority of people were either asleep or too occupied by the lecture to notice me, my nerves finally subsided.
"That'll be it for today," Mr. Brannigan said, slamming his book shut to emit a loud bang that jolted everyone awake, and stirred the bundle of nerves in my gut awake. "Homework for tonight is page one hundred and fifty, all problems." The jock snatched the book back to circle the number at the bottom of the page.
"Did you still need to see it?" He asked, nudging the opened textbook back towards me. My eyes latched onto the collar of his white T-shirt that lied beneath a thick red and white varsity jacket. When I finally looked him in the eyes I noticed they were mainly blue, but a hint of yellow was visible just around his pupils, much like the feathers on my blue bird teacup. And they were just as beautiful. "No?" He asked suddenly.
"What?" I felt a heat rise to my cheeks.
"Did you still need to see the book?"
"No," I dismissed him and he stood to leave, his blue jeans slightly worn in the knees with small splotches of mud around the ankles. I slowly gathered my belongings and gently pulled my backpack strap around my shoulder to lift the heavy load. The distance between the stranger and I was steadily growing when I realized that I would indeed need to borrow his textbook to complete the homework.
Just as I left my spot in pursuit of the guy, a voice yelled out from across the room. I turned around to Mr. Brannigan staring at me expectantly. He said, "I believe the Science department has run out of Biology textbooks. You'll have to take scans of someone else's. Did you set something up with your table partner?"
"Well, I..." I glanced behind me, but no one else remained in the classroom with us. "No."
"You need to keep up with this," he urged. "We typically don't let sophomores into senior biology, but we made an exception due to your test scores. This is a tough course. You in particular need to prove that you belong here. It's going to be an impossible situation for you if you fall behind. Do you think you can handle this course?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
I forced the word out against my constricting throat, "Yes."
"Alright, show me that. Make sure you have your homework completed by class time tomorrow."
I nodded and forced my tense muscles to remove myself from the room. Once immersed in the overcrowded hallway, disorientation and confusion overcame me. I didn't know where I was and I had no idea where I was supposed to go. I stuck my clammy hand into my jean pocket and retrieved my schedule. I opened the folded sheet of paper and began scanning for the correct period and room number when a sudden hit to my body buckled my knees and left me face down on the ground. I scrambled to get my feet back underneath me and fled into the nearest restroom.
I flung myself into the first stall. I dropped my backpack onto the ground and leaned my hot body against the cool metal door. My breathing became increasingly erratic as my lungs resisted all my efforts to let in a deep breath. A tingling sensation overcame my head and hands as the likelihood of passing out exacerbated my panic.
"Are you okay?" A voice spoke and I let in a short gasp in surprise. Although my arms still appeared pinkish underneath the thin layer of sweat glazing my body, my breathing normalized from the startle.
"I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, thank you."
When I heard the door close behind her, I leaned my back against the stall wall and massaged my damp neck with my steady hands, kneading my fingernails into the flesh. It was all I could do to keep myself from screaming out in frustration. Why can't I handle this? Why is the simplest thing so impossible to me? It's just high school, right? I'm afraid to talk, I'm afraid to move, I'm afraid to even breathe wrong. Nothing could please the scrutinizing voices in my head.
I winced when the tardy bell reminded me that I belonged somewhere else.
…
"Hiya, sweetie!" Dad yelled from somewhere in the house, his hands full of unpacked artifacts or picture frames, I imagined.
"Hi." I dropped my three-ton heavy backpack onto the tile floor of the foyer.
"How was your first day?" He yelled back.
I sighed and carried my fatigued body up the stairs one step at a time.
"Gabriella?" My mother appeared at the bottom of the stairs, sporting a drooping ponytail and button-up flannel shirt, the usual unpacking attire.
"What, mom?" I whined, annoyed.
"Your father asked how your day was," she said sternly, a closed fist nudged into her hip.
"Can we talk about it later? I'm exhausted." It wasn't a lie to get out of talking to them about it, although I also didn't want to talk to them. I felt all my energy dissipate after that taxing episode in the restroom. The pain in my gut had retired, but a fog of fatigue clouded my mind. I was yawning through the rest of my classes, unable to focus on anything the teachers were saying. The only thing that kept me from passing out on the bus ride home was how loud the other students were.
"You do look tired," she noticed. She crossed her arms over her chest and squinted her brown eyes in consideration before agreeing, "Get some rest and we'll talk later."
"Thanks." I went to my room, fell onto my bed, and shut my eyes, naively assuming that sleep would easily come to me. I tossed and turned, entangling myself in the sheets for hours. I tried to imagine that the ceiling fan blowing air onto me was a cool breeze wafting over my body as I stood at the end of the dock in Minnesota. My toes curled over the edge of the last board, the wooden fibers rough against my smooth, young skin. I gazed out across the surface of the lake - so still that the night sky reflected in it perfectly like a mirror. It was indecipherable where the lake ended and the actual night sky began. For all I knew, I was standing on a wooden dock suspended in the middle of space as countless stars float all around me. Just when I thought I'd finally slip into a sweet slumber, I remembered that I'd have to do this all over again tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that.
A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Do you think Gabriella experienced a normal amount of anxiety for her first day? Did today's events confirm her belief that this school would break her? I'd love to know your thoughts.
