(August 3, 1992, in Missouri)
It was the first day of my senior year.
It was also the last year until my graduation.
And after that?
Well, I’d figure it out sooner or later.
I walked through the halls of my tiny high school to my first class, biology. Usually, Noelle, Jacob, Donna, Benji, and I would meet up in the cafeteria thirty minutes before class started on the first day of school, but I was running late and when I went to check the cafeteria, they were already gone.
Like any first day of school, the teachers smiled and played nice until the second day, when they somehow turned strict all the way until the end of the school year. I’d always wondered what teachers must think on the last day of school. Maybe it was “Thank God I don’t have to teach these dumb kids anymore.”
I sat in a seat and listened as Hillman introduced the unit that we would be studying, and every minute that passed, my eyelids got heavier until I could hardly keep them open anymore. I had to pinch myself so that I wouldn’t doze off.
“I know school has only just begun, but I’m assigning a project maybe in a week that will allow you to demonstrate your previous knowledge of the basics of a cell structure, just for review. You will be assigned one partner and will present to me individually,” Hillman announced and started to hand out a packet that was as thick as the sandwich that I was going to have for lunch.
The bell’s normally annoying cackle became a sound of sweet bliss as the students rose up from their desks and continued on towards their next class.
When lunch time came, I proceeded to our usual table that stood beside a tree that shed more leaves during the autumn than that dog I found when I was little. It was the only table that was far away from the trashcans that smelled like piss, but close enough to the counter with the bowls of fruit so that we could grab an apple, which was probably the only fresh thing in this cafeteria.
“Yo! My li’l rascals!” Benji jumped out of nowhere and placed his new school bag on the wooden table. It’d been a long time since I’d heard Benji’s loud, annoying voice. I didn’t miss it at all, but at the end of the day, Benji was Benji, and he was family.
“First of all, we’re not your rascals. Don’t ever say that. Second of all, what happened to your hair?” Noelle looked at him in disgust. “You look like you got a haircut from a four-year-old who just learned how to use scissors,” she said and flicked his head.
Noelle was right. Benji’s hair did look like it was cut by a four-year-old but surprisingly, he actually pulled it off.
“Guys, quiet down,” Donna murmured and sat down at the table. She was wearing her usual black hoodie with black shorts, matched with her signature black converse with the words Don’t talk to me written on both sides with a Screw you at the top.
“Migraine?” I asked her. Her long black hair was tied into a messy ponytail and it made her look intensely hungover.
“Yeah. Slept at five a.m. this morning. The neighbor’s dog wouldn’t stop barking.”
“Hey,” Jacob said from behind me and sat down between Noelle and Benji. “I missed you guys.”
“The gang’s together,” Benji said and attempted to hug all of us at once.
He failed.
Donna punched him, Noelle sort of just stood there awkwardly, and I slipped away because the thought of four people crushing against me was suffocating.
“Hey, Demi, what happened in Australia?” Benji said and bit into an apple that he got out of his bag. I would never eat anything that came out of his bag. Once, I found a half-eaten bagel with dried-up yogurt stuck on it.
“It’s not Australia—it’s Austria. It’s in Europe,” I explained again. We had never been good at geography, particularly Benji. Once, that idiot placed China on top of Russia back in middle school.
“Still, pretty awesome,” Donna said with her head down on the table.
“Well, I didn’t do much,” I said. “Raya’s brother just took me to some tourist places for me to check out. Austria’s pretty.”
“European food? Men? View?” Donna lifted her head up from the table. “You went for almost an entire week, and all you have to say is ‘Austria’s pretty’?”
“Yep.”
“Borrrriiinnnggg,” Benji said.
“What about you guys, huh?” I asked them, changing the topic. It was painful thinking about what could have been. Alaric had left a stain on my mind and no matter what I did, I just couldn’t wash that stain off.
“High, super high.” Benji smirked. I rolled my eyes. Of course he had been high.
“I had to work full time at the grill,” Donna complained. “It sucked.”
“Dude, it’s summer. Relax a bit,” Noelle said.
“Well, I had nothing to do at home, so I thought might as well get some extra cash since I’m basically free twenty-four seven,” Donna pointed out.
“Can you guys believe that Donna canceled out on us—specifically on a Dead Beat Vegas concert—just because she had to fill in for an extra shift?” Noelle said.
“Wait, you canceled on a Dead Beat Vegas concert?” I was stunned. Donna loved that band.
“I drastically needed the money,” Donna explained. “You have no idea how badly I wanted to go to that concert.”
“Hey, at least you weren’t forced to babysit two annoying little brothers for two weeks. I couldn’t go anywhere without leaving them unsupervised,” Jacob continued. “Those two little brats are like a destructive tornado that will both mentally and physically destroy you.”
As everyone complained about how boring their summer was, I couldn’t help but think that this would probably be the last time we’d all sit at this lunch table to talk about how summer went. It was sad, relieving, yet freeing, all at the same time.
I guess it was still hard to wrap my head around all of it, especially the fact that we were legally going to be adults who had to get jobs, take responsibility, pay taxes, and all that grownup stuff that everybody dreaded doing.
When people asked me, “How old are you?” I usually wanted to say, “Twelve,” but then I remembered I was actually seventeen. But like Alaric had said, age was just a number that told us biologically how long our bodies had stood up for, not how much our bodies had stood up against.
The rest of the day passed by slowly.
There was one class where the teacher, Mrs. Taylor, asked us why we go to school. Every year, the teachers asked the same thing, and every time, the students answered, “To learn.”
I have never actually given it much thought until today, and that was probably because Mrs. Taylor told us to think hard about it as she droned on with her pointless stories of how her cat had met his “kitty soul mate.”
I knew school was for kids to have a proper education, but like Einstein said, if you judged a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it would live its whole life believing that it was stupid. I was pretty sure most mad geniuses or artists dropped out of school. In fact, most of them probably failed at Shakespeare yet they still achieved awards. It was as if school was a safety net, a road everyone was required to take unless you knew that you had the guts to do something great that fell out of the social norm. But of course, I wasn’t going to say that.
“Demi?” Mrs. Taylor looked at me, bright eyed, waiting for my answer.
“School? Well, of course…to learn,” I said, and simply smiled.
****
I dropped my backpack on the living room floor and began to walk toward the kitchen, where Raya was washing a few apples.
“You’re back from school already?” Raya said and placed the last apple in a plastic basket sitting on the kitchen’s marble counter.
“Yep.”
“You, um, keeping your grades up?” Raya said. I could tell she was trying to be all motherly.
“What? It’s the first day of school, Raya,” I said, grabbing one of the apples before going back to my room.