I struggle to move for a good five minutes as the Principal's words sink in. A familiar discomfort tightens across my chest. I sling my bag over my shoulder and prepare to leave.
I have never looked at what I go through as something that needs healing. It is what it is. The tide that floods have to ebb away. More often than not, it is a choice I make.
I check the schedule to see that I have a Literature class in the first period with some Mr. Harriet. I tighten the backpack's strap over my shoulder and set out to navigate the halls for the correct classroom after a pitstop at my locker with the throbbing in my chest getting more painful with each passing second.
As I stand near my allotted locker trying to get it to open up, I feel a wave sweep past me. For the first time since thirty minutes of being here, I raise my head to look around. Maybe it is the group of three emos, the three cheer girls, and some guys that look like they emerged straight out of a steroid overdose, high fiving each other on a joke cracked.
Everyone eyeing me and trying not to make it obvious.
One cheer girl turns and gives me a wave. I immediately turn away.
Whatever this wave is, whatever it is made of, built from, I am not a part of this. The wave breaks into a shower of foam at my feet.
At one point, I contemplate going back home and telling everyone they refused admission to me because I was being an arrogant little prick. But there is no way Dad will go through the trouble of finding me another school. In that way, I don't finish school, I don't have a plan, and I sure as heck don't have any of his money. So I choose to concentrate on the better facts.
Fewer people. Less damns to give. Cooler jocks.
"Hey! Hello! New kid!" A voice calls out from behind. I turn back to see a short skinny kid running up to me, flailing his arms awkwardly.
"Harvey, you are a runner now!" One of the jocks punches him on the side. "Yes, yes, Steve. I learn." He gushes and jogs up to me, a skip in his step now.
"Hello, new kid. I'm Harvey. I'm the president of the Student's Council. They told me a new kid's joining, and I thought you may need some help with the classes." He snatches the schedule out of my loose clutch unrequested.
"Ooh. Mr. Harriet at first. Don't ever look at your watch in his class, and trust me, you'll be tempted to, more than once. Go back. It's the first one to the left. And if you need help, I'm always at the office for some reason."
He hands it back to me with a wide grin and turns around to walk away, but stops. "I didn't catch your name."
I was folding the schedule and tucking it in my back pocket. I look up with all the arrogance I can conjure up and say, "Brooklyn Baxter."
"Nice to meet you, Brooklyn." And with that, he leaves.
When I finally find the homeroom it takes me by surprise that the classroom has exactly twelve chairs. Twelve.
"Excuse me, kid?" A gruff voice clambers for attention. The bell rings, and the students shuffle into their respective seats.
"Excuse me, daydreamer? We don't have all day." The teacher with greying hair stands up, adjusting his glasses over his nose. "Who are you?"
"I am new here," I retort, abruptly all too aware of my existence.
"That's right, take a seat." I look around the classroom and choose a desk closest to the farthest corner.
Turns out Harvey knew his shit. It takes an awful amount of effort to not let my eyes wander off, even though a fraction of an error, to my Timex.
How can someone make something as liberating as Literature feel so caged?
So when the bell rings, I tear myself off of that chair and get out before the last remnants of my brain cells simultaneously disintegrate, all the while an unknown silent fear consuming me. In about two seconds, I realize that Mondays will be the worst days of the week for me.
The final bell for the second period goes off. Behavioral Modification. My uninterested feet drag themselves at the slowest possible pace towards the Student Communion Hall.
Whoever designed the Hall must have been very optimistic about the school's future. It is huge. The set-up of this class however is unlike any other. About twenty chairs in a circle eliminate my option of sitting at the back and shutting everything out. Eighteen of those chairs appear to be taken, which means besides me, there will be another person joining today. By the looks of it, the class has already started.
I knock on the glass door and the teacher, a rather young brown woman, in her casual jeans and flannel, pleasantly gestures for me to come in.
"Everyone!" she exclaims and all eighteen pairs of eyes in the hall turn to me. Things lurch inside my stomach. "Joining us today on his first day is Brooklyn Baxter! Hi, Brooklyn." Why do you know my name?
The class, probably bored out of their minds, says in unison, "Hi, Brooklyn." I instantly feel more out of place. I reply with a nod.
"Parcel for Miss Jane!" a gruff voice shouts unappealingly into the hall, leaving a painful echo. Miss Jane's attention leaves me. "Hello! You must be Anastasia." She walks past the chairs to greet the kid. "Yeah, but it's Ah-nuh-stasia." A shy quiet voice almost squeaks out. A girl in a wheelchair.
Almost immediately a discussion breaks out in the hall. Kids turn to the ones next to them and whisper. The girl, evidently uncomfortable, puts on her brave face and thanks to the janitor who wheeled her in. Miss Jane shakes hands with her.
"Class, this is Ah-nuh-stasia!" She mimics her, smiling like she came up with the greatest jest in human history. "Brooklyn and Anastasia will be joining us from today!"
Before Miss Jane can offer to, the girl starts wheeling herself in, leaving her a little puzzled. As we all settle down, I see one chair pulled from the circle and moved to a lone corner in the large hall.
"So Brooklyn, tell us a little about yourself. What brings you here?"
I sigh. "My dad brings me here."
"And why does your father think you need this?"
"Anger management issues."
"Tell us, Brooklyn." She crosses her legs over her knee.
Oh hell. "I have been rusticated from quite a few schools now -"
"How many?" She interrupts.
"Six."
"That's a lot."
I know, bitch. "Yeah."
"What did you do?" a boy asks. A sharp desire to kick something rises in me.
"Broke a lot of bones. But my Dad made sure they were very well looked after. He is rich." Silence falls over the entire hall once again broken only by a little giggle from the new girl.
"And Anastasia, what about you?" Miss Jane quickly moves on to the new girl.
"What about me, ma'am?" she says, a mischievous smile making its way through her face. She looks over at me once.
"Tell us a little about you."
"Well, my name is Ana. Ana from Anastasia. Anastasia Collins. I am from Minnesota, but we moved to New York because my father still thinks physiotherapy can help me walk again." She pats on one thigh.
"And what do you think?" Miss Jane asks, the air suddenly a little thicker and warmer around the room.
The girl smiles. "I think I owe my father a little bit of hope."