In Orbit
The first day of school always came too fast, and left you reeling, trying to catch yourself before landing on your face. I hated this time of year. My mom still went above and beyond to buy me new threads, and occasionally, some new art supplies. I hadn’t touched a canvas in ages, though. Maybe that’s why she’d been so pushy lately. Just the other day, she brought it up again.
“Kira, did you ever confirm if you were going?” she asked, concern carefully woven into her tone.
I sighed, rolling my eyes. “I already told you, I’m not going,” I said, grabbing the letter off my dresser. She’d been hounding me all summer about this art program.
“Why not? They wouldn’t have reached out if they didn’t think your submission was good.”
I ran my fingers over the envelope, and of course, I got a paper cut. “I’ll think about it,” I shouted from the doorway of my room. It must have been good enough of an answer, because she hadn’t hassled me about it since.
The heaviness is there again, though; this was junior year after all. Not quite grown enough to be an adult, but also not quite a little kid either. I stared at myself in the mirror as I changed out my nose ring. The blue dye in my hair, now faded, left an ombré effect trailing down the ends. My stomach squeezed itself into knots. I hated going back to school. Yet another year of navigating the rumor mills, figuring out who was sleeping with whose boyfriend, and every so often, someone being outed in the most humiliating way possible.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. I grabbed my backpack from my cluttered floor and briskly walked down the hallway and out the door. The others were already gathered at the bus stop, some chatting excitedly, others half-asleep with earbuds in. As I reached the bus stop out of breath from running, the bus had just turned onto the street. The smell of exhaust filled my nostrils as the bus came to a loud and squeaky stop.
“Good morning, welcome back to another year. Everyone go ahead and find a seat” The bus driver said voice flat as if he’d been rehearsing it all summer.
I made a beeline to the back of the bus. It was quiet and I could be alone with my thoughts. Everyone else filled in the front and middle with each stop, the volume rising like static in my ears. I suddenly regretted not taking the car my uncle tried giving me. At least then I could have avoided this mess and listened to slipknot in peace. The bus gradually slowed as it turned into the school parking lot. Though the early morning air was crisp, I knew in a matter of hours though we would be sweltering in a classroom together that smelled of plastic, pencil shavings, and BO. I inhaled deeply as I exited the bus, walking past the other students who were already busy chatting about their summer vacations, and trying to ask their friends whose class they were in this year.
As I entered the building the familiar sound of squeaking shoes against the floor filled my ears, and the overstimulating lights overhead. I looked at my schedule again, home room was upstairs. I pushed through the hall like it was a battlefield of perfume and posturing, weaving between clusters of kids who treated the first-day hallway like a red carpet. By the time I made it to the third floor, I was huffing. Have they not heard of elevators? I found Room 303 a little way down the hall, but the panic set in, I didn’t have a locker yet. I scanned frantically until I spotted one near the classroom and sprinted over. How did these locks work again? I fumbled with the numbers and started unpacking my bag, trying not to panic.
That’s when I saw her.
Leslie
We had been friends at one point in our lives, hard telling now. We first met in dance class, when we were twelve. I was still rather shy at the time, but not Leslie. She was definitely the ringleader of the group; I remember her pink leotard and white tights, her dirty blonde hair in a singular braid with a sparkly bow at the end. She made her way over to me as if we had already been friends. “Do you like one direction?” She asked.
I looked around a moment, wondering if she was talking to me. “I guess they’re alright” She gasped in horror, as if I had committed a crime. “Just alright!?”
She rolled her eyes dramatically and flopped onto the floor beside me, digging in her dance bag. “Okay, but have you seen Harry? Like really seen him?”
I shrugged, trying not to smile. “I mean... he’s cute, I guess.”
She held up her phone like it was sacred. “He’s more than cute. He’s like, mysterious and I bet he’s soft and funny. And his voice? Ugh. I’d let him ruin my life.”
I snorted. “I think I want to be him.”
Leslie looked at me, like really looked, and for a second, she didn’t say anything.
Then she grinned, eyes sparkling. “Me too.”
Her laugh snapped me back to now.
There she was, across the hallway, different.
Her hair was longer. Her makeup sharp. Still surrounded by people, still laughing like nothing had changed. But I remembered. I remembered that moment. That grin. That softness. Her eyes met mine just for a moment. Then went back to laughing with her friends, laughing as if it never happened, as if we never happened. They disappeared down the hall, talking loudly together as they headed to their class. The hallways began to quiet as the remainder of the feet running through the hall in an effort to get to class before the bell rang. I just stood there a moment, my heart yearning for lost connections and old friends. As I shut my locker door and clicked my lock into place the bell rang loudly echoing throughout the hall. I wasn’t even going to try to make it, so I walked into class slowly, I was late for the first day.
