Sometimes I wished that I was Peter Pan running, flying, and having fun in Neverland. I've always thought that it would be fun to waste fairy dust with Tinker bell, roll in the mud with the lost boys, and create trouble with Captain Hook. Ahh, Neverland, my childhood's fantasy that became my teenage years’ best escape plan.

            However, like every wish I ever made, it never came true. I was not Peter Pan and I was not in Neverland. Instead, I was just a stupid seventeen years old girl trying to survive her last year in high school.

            Yes, high school...the land of the drama queens and egocentric football players. Speaking of egocentrics, as I turned my eyes towards the vending machine that boy appears from nowhere and just winked at me. Seriously dude, you're not even that good looking. Yes, you have almost every girl in the school drooling over you. Yes, you banged most of them and disregarded them like trash but they seem to not be able to get enough of you. But, I still stay firmly behind my observation; you are not that good looking.

            His blond hair was in desperate need of a haircut; his green eyes that shimmered with a mischievous glint in them no matter the circumstance resembled the ones of a vicious cat. His jaw was too sharp for my taste but according to some of the girls, models would kill for it. His overly white teeth that he enjoyed showing constantly were slightly crooked. His skin was tanned but not from the natural sunlight. Long blonde hair concealed his athletically muscular feet and abs. I knew this because he had a fetish to jog around town every day in his shorts only. I tried to get the image out of mind but it’s futile when he does it even on school ground. I could come up with an entire list of everything that is wrong with his body but it wouldn’t change a thing about his womanizing ways. 

            It’s not like anyone cares about my opinions anyway. Apparently, I was not smart enough for my opinions to be put into considerations. I was just the kid with the highest GPA in the school. Yep, I was the dumbest of them all.

            "He's so hot. If God makes him fall for me, even for one night, I will never miss church ever again for the rest of my life," sighed the redhead next to me.

            I rolled my eyes at her. Roxie has been my best friends since forever. I thought we shared everything but apparently not our taste in guys. How could anyone fall for this jerk? He was clearly the devil in disguise. The boy changed girls faster than he changed his cars. For a normal person that would be a pretty long time but not for Ken McCall. The boy had a different car for everyday of the week. Rich, lazy bastard.

            "Seriously, Nicole I'm starting to worry about you." Roxie tore me out of my thoughts.

            "Why?" I replied confused.

            "You've never find any guy attractive. At first, I thought you were simply gay but then, you don't find any girls attractive either."

            "Okayyyy. How is that a bad thing? Every single guy I’ve seen walking these halls is either a disgusting pig or taken."

            “Have you tried outside of school?” She continued. I needed to come up with an excuse because she was not going to stop anytime soon. That girl was always trying to set me up with any guy that her eyes fell on.

            “Pedophiles,” I stated simply.

            "Or you're simply asexual which I think..." She got to be kidding me. I swear that girl was getting crazier by the second.

            "Hold it, hold it. We are not having this conversation inside the school's cafeteria." I interrupted her when my eyes fell on this guy sitting on the table next to us. He was trying to act like he couldn't hear us but I could see the amuse smile on his lips. Ughh, eavesdropping on girls. That's just creepy even for hormonal high school boys.

            Thankfully the bell rang before Roxie could say anything else. We headed to our next class, pre-calculus. Before you can start with your insults, I would like to remind you that everything about life is math. So get over it and embrace your love for math just like I did.

            Roxie and I settled in our seats and started with our work. I finished mine before the teacher was even done teaching. Math class was a breeze to me. No kidding, I don't see why everyone hates it so much. It's just like solving puzzles, who doesn't like doing that? Wait...Now that I'm thinking about it maybe I'm the only one who feels that way. I don't care anyway because math rocks.

            "Do you want to go to a party tonight?" Roxie asked dragging me out of my thoughts.

            "Yes, of course." I whispered.

            "Seriously?" She exclaimed.

            "Yeah, we will take my dad's car, drive to a dark alley to buy some drug, twerk all night, and wake up in the arms of Hugh Jackman in his mansion on Jupiter." I rumbled on carelessly.

            "Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Craig." She retorted then turned away from me.

            Oh, crap. Roxie only used my last name when she meant business.

            "Come on, you know I don't do the all high school party scene." I poked her, hoping to lighten the mood but she stayed stiff as a pole. "Roxie, please. You knew I was going to say no. I don't see why you're even mad at me."

            "Because I thought you would want to do something fun for our last year in high school." She finally answered. "Come on, I'm tired of being left alone."

            "But you're not alone. I've always been there for you. Thanks for forgetting that."

            "Nicole, you know that's not what I meant. I love your company but a little mingling won't hurt us."

            "It would hurt me. I hate being around all those fake girls and sex-addict boys."

            "They are not all like that but you'll never find out who's different if you don't mingle."

            "Ms. Craig, it seems like Ms. Angus and you are already experts on logarithms since you won't stop talking. Why don't you come to the board and solve this for us?" Roxie and I jumped at the sound of Mr. David's booming voice. Every pair of eyes in the classroom was focus on us. Mr. David was standing in front of the classroom with his hands white with chalk dust. He was raising an eyebrow in our direction with his right arm extended as a sign to invite us to join him on the board.

            I rose out of my chair slowly with cheeks red and burning as lava. I had no idea what the teacher was talking about but thankfully I had went ahead and read the entire chapter the previous night. As soon as I reached the board, I remembered what to do. I hastily solve the equation not wanting to be watched by everyone in the classroom any longer. It was a basic one so I barely spent a couple of seconds on it. As soon as I was done, I quickly moved back to my seat. Mr. David went back to his teaching and totally forgot about Roxie and me. We were his favorite students thus, most of the time he just ignored our babblings.

For some unknown reason it seemed like everybody was taking a special attention to me on this very ordinary day. Before I had even start to relax in my chair, a voice came out of the class’s speaker.

“Hi, Mr. David. Do you have a Nicole Craig in your class right now?”

“Yes, she’s here,” replied Mr. David without stopping his scribbling on the board.

“Can you send her in the office? Ms. Miles would like to have a talk with her.”

“Of course.”

As I rose once again in my seat, I heard some snickers behind me.

“ohhhh, the good girl finally did something bad.” Somebody at the back of the class chanted.

“What happened? Did you accidently break one of the principal’s pencil?” Ken shouted as I open the door to get out. As I walked towards the office, I could hear the annoying laughter of the students echo in the empty hall.

Seriously? That wasn’t funny in the slightest. A freaking monkey can do better than that. Kids these days never know what is good. What did I expect? Most of them think rap music is God’s given gift to humanity. I wonder if the ones who think that have ever listened to Bon Jovi or Queen. Probably not, because once you go Queen you can’t ever go back…certainly not to Rap. I realized that my taste in music may be a bit antic but my mom’s radio destroyed me for other genre of music. Well, what do I know anyway? Roxie thinks I went from childhood straight into adulthood. Apparently, my “weird” taste in music and my insanely mature behavior is proof that I skipped the most fun part of life…being a careless teenager.

If you ask me, I think being a teenager sucks. It’s the most confusing stage of life. You are expected to act like a young adult but still considered a child. You have a bunch of energy and time but have no money so you spend most of your time bored out of your mind. You are so focus on fitting in that any little things that others do not approve of is a blow to your extremely fragile self-esteem. All of them think they are original when all they do is copy celebrities or each other. Pardon me if my brain wanted to skip all that drama.

Ouch! I was so lost into my own thoughts that I did not see the wall that was right in front of me. I just walked into it and that shit hurt.

“Seriously, dude you could have warned me?” I rebuked the wall while rubbing my sore forehead. I stood there having a staring contest with it until my respectful manners started to kick in. My conscious started to run on the different punishments reserved in hell for people that make others wait forever for them to show up. I turned around and knocked on the door with the framed words:

Sierra Miles

School Counselor

            “Come in!” responded an overly excited voice. I haven’t even stepped inside and I can already tell that she’s faking her concern for the students. I quickly scanned the hall before going in. Don’t ask me what I was looking for because I don’t know. I simply watched way too many Arnold Schwarzenegger movies so I always feel like I’m being followed by a predator.

As I started to go in, I saw a shadow moved behind the wall across from me. I took a step back while squinting my eyes trying to get a better look.

“Hey, Jake get moving. We’re going to be late.” A voice shouted at the end of the hallway. The shadow figure turned quickly towards the chubby boy with pants way too small for him but not before I catched the amused smile on his lips. It was the creepy guy from the cafeteria. That’s the second time I caught him eavesdropping on me in one day.

Danm! He saw me talking to the wall. Can this day get any more embarrassing?

“Are you going to get in or would you like us to have this little chat outside so you can keep gawking at the boy?” I practically jumped out of my skin. I totally forgot that I was standing in the doorway of someone’s office. My cheeks were fuming for the second time in less than one hour. I awkwardly took the seat that the blonde lady sitting across from me was pointing at with a clearly annoyed look plastered on her face.

If she didn’t want to talk to me then why did she requested me to come to her office? I was perfectly happy listening to Mr. David teaching about the wonders of math for ninety minutes. Oh, yeah, she needed to show that she was actually helping the students in order to keep her pay checks coming.

“Hello, Nicole. How are you doing this morning?” She asked emotionlessly while jotting something on a paper as if following a low-budget movie script.

“I’m fine.” I yawned showing her that I didn’t want to be here as much as she didn’t want me here.

“You’re enjoying your senior year so far?” She prolonged the attempt at small talk.

“Yep.” This woman seriously needs to cut to the chase.

“Have you finished your college and financial aid applications yet?” She finally let out.

Oh, crap. How can I forget about that? I blame Netflix and Wattpad for being too distracting.

 “Not yet.” I fidgeted.

Ms. Miles took off her glasses while clicking her tongue. She pivoted her chair around to take out a stack of paper from her neatly organized files cabinet. She dropped the load in front of my face.

“This is the application for John Hopkins University. I think it might be a right choice for you.” She said referring to the load of paper.

“Isn’t the application online like every other college applications?” I murmured with my eyes glued to all the work I will have to do.

“I was doing you a favor by printing it out for you.” She rolled her eyes. “Since you kids can’t seem to get enough of computers you can just go do it online.”

“Ok, will do.” I replied hurrying on my feet to get out of this uncomfortable office. It was not small but I still felt like the walls were closing on me. The loud green paint was just screaming at my stomach to throw out my breakfast. The bacon scented candle was not making it better either. I get it that bacon is good but who wants to smell like it all year long?

“Do not procrastinate this time, Nicole. Not everybody gets the chance you are being giving.” She lectured me.

“I know. Thanks and bye.” I waved at her as I rushed out of the room before I really suffocated.

For once, she was right. I needed to get on this if I wanted to open my own publishing house someday. I was not about to stay in Spokane my entire life. It was great and I had many amazing memories here but disaster also stroked me here. I knew this was my last year here. I wanted to feel the sun on my skin, the warm sand under my feet. Maybe I’ll move to Florida after College.

I’ve had already mapped out the major milestones of my life. I was going to an Ivy League university to major in English Literature with a minor in creative writing. I was going to become a writer just like my mother but instead of turning out as an underpaid, overworked English teacher, I was going to use my degree to become a novelist. I was going to spend the first five years after college establishing myself in the literature world. I wanted to have at least one New York Times bestselling novel before I open my publishing house. I wanted to have had secured my place as a serious publisher by the time I reached thirty years old. It seemed far fetch but that was my one and only dream and nothing was going to get between me and my goals.