by Dean Murray
Chapter 4
School hadn't gotten any worse after I'd convinced the hottest boy on the planet that I was a complete waste of oxygen, but it hadn't gotten any better either. Mrs. Tiggs, my Spanish teacher, had seemed every bit as mean as my Biology teacher from earlier in the day, and it had been a relief when Britney had finally dropped me off at home.
I watched Britney's little white Saturn disappear down the lane with a complex set of feelings that included a bit of loneliness and more than a little relief. After a minute or two spent staring off into space, I finally decided the discomfort in my stomach was sharp enough to justify the effort of eating.
Given the ridiculous heat, studying was the last thing I wanted to do, but there wasn't really anything else to do so I changed into cooler clothes and made the best of it. Three hours later my brain felt like it was going to run out of my nose, so I wandered upstairs.
It was still too hot for comfort in my room, but unpacking in the heat was better than facing the math problems waiting for me downstairs. We'd partially unpacked things to get my bedspread out, so everything else went pretty quickly. My room wasn't particularly large, but someone had put a long shelf around the top of the room, and the closet had more storage space than my room back home. My meager belongings quickly found new homes.
I looked one last time at the box holding my clothes, and then sighed and shoved it under the bed. My unpacking was all done, which meant I had to go back to my homework. At least now I could listen to my music while I studied.
Fifteen minutes later I was safely ensconced in my room listening to the London Cast version of Les Misérables as I tried to work through my backlog of Algebra assignments. When I finally surfaced from orders of operation as the sun started setting, I was pleasantly surprised things had gone so well. As masochistic as it sounded, I actually enjoyed settling down with a set of academic problems, and working my way through them. Sometimes I entered a Zen-like state where everything else in the world just dropped away. It was nice to know the accident hadn't changed that at least.
My heart stuttered a little, but I wrenched my thoughts away from where they'd been headed, distracting myself by wondering where Mom was. She'd been a little flighty before, but now it wasn't uncommon for her to be gone for twenty-four hours at a stretch. In some ways it was hard not having her around, but in other ways it was a relief. Sometimes she reminded me too much of Dad and Cindi.
A surge of guilt splashed around inside me at the thought, but it was a realization I'd made weeks ago. By now some of the sharper edges to the emotion had worn away. I shrugged, dropping my book and binder on the floor next to my bed. Dwelling on the guilt would just make me think about why I felt guilty in the first place. I'd find myself on the floor with no memory of how I'd gotten there.
By the time I'd brushed my teeth and finished the rest of my nightly ritual, my mind was wholly in the present, and I was starting to get a little depressed. I'd never particularly fit in back home, but there'd been enough other people in various fringe groups that I'd always felt like I had somewhere to go if I ever wanted more friends. I would've had to play a role to a certain extent, which was why I'd never made the effort, but the option had always been there.
It didn't look like that'd be a possibility in Sanctuary. In an entire day I'd had exactly one person try and befriend me. As much as I appreciated the effort, I couldn't shake the feeling Britney was befriending me mostly because she didn't have any other options. With Mom becoming less dependable by the day, I was in for a miserable, lonely two years until I could graduate and escape to a big city. Hopefully there I could safely find a niche among the other quasi-loners who didn't fit in anywhere else.
As I turned my light out and got into bed I realized there'd been one bright spot to the day. Brandon Worthingfield III might not really be interested in me, but he was obviously at the top of the social food chain, and he'd already shown me way more attention than any of the boys back home ever had. Maybe there was some hope after all.
