Absolutely horrifying!

I can't move; my legs are just as horrified as I am. I wish I could just turn around and run back to my safe space. My sanctuary, far away from the terrifying swarm of creatures milling about in the school parking lot, filled with foreign purpose.

Do I still have a safe place to run to?

Two days ago, we moved into a tiny pillbox perched on top of a convenience store. I haven't met our direct neighbours yet, but someone on the floor below ours loooooooooves her karaoke game! She has a pretty good voice, but seriously, how many times a day can one person sing Coldplay's Feels Like I'm Falling in Love before they realise that there's no such thing as love?

At least not the romantic kind.

Lust! That's all! The words should be: Feels like I'm falling in lust... and will fall out of it again within a few days.

https://youtu.be/ZOADVqFd5XY

My mom, grandma, little brother and I left our lives in Grey Mount behind and came to Briar Cove, a small coastal town where the weather is always as pleasant as the people. Yup, that is the friggin' phrase on their equally corny website. I did some research before we came.

I don't agree with that pleasantness claim unless it was meant sarcastically, and then I don't want to meet the citizens. We had a wild rainstorm the first night after we moved in, and I've been too blooming tired to explore much since. At least, that was what I told myself and my mom. Truthfully, I was too anxious to leave the apartment. I've created a tiny cave for myself where I can feel marginally safe.

I miss my huge room in my huge house in the huge city that had been my home for almost 17 years. Why is it always the innocent, the victims, the hurt ones that need to pack up their lives and start all over in a quaint town where there is apparently no difference between the people and the weather?

How is that fair?!

I deserve this. I'm not the real victim, after all. I'm not innocent. I drag my guilt around with me like a thick cloak I cannot discard. It weighs me down, killing my joy.

I've only been in town two days, and so far, my community interaction consisted of paying for some snacks at the convenience store - the depressed-looking man working the cash register barely glanced up from his newspaper while scanning my purchases - and seeing a girl with an amazing mass of red curls flying in the breeze on the walkway between our apartment and the beach. 

She was begging a half-dead pug to be a good little alien and make a nice poop for her to collect. I didn't stick around to meet her and accidentally find out why she's into collecting alien poop. I wanted to get to my room with the snacks I bought, and she was too busy giving her dog pooping instructions to notice me.

I call that a perfect interaction.

The day we moved in - before the storm - I was taking some of the stuff from our car. The poor KIA was packed from floor to ceiling with things we couldn't squeeze into the moving van. When I stumbled into the lobby with my big box containing many of my treasures, I ran into a boy with a contagious smile and hair that looked like the big orange cat in his arms slept in it.

When I say 'ran into', I mean it literally... well, sort of... I don't run.

It was epic, like in a classic anime scene, with stuff flying everywhere. Mostly my stuff. The cat also flew, but it was a voluntary action. It leapt from the boy's arms and flew up the stairs near the elevator while the cute guy shouted after it not to harass Seargent Dearing's cockatoo, or they would have cat stew for dinner.

Suddenly, I was being studied by azure eyes, and that smile turned my stomach liquid.

Nope, this is not the start of a sweet romcom where a cute boy meets a frumpy green-eyed girl wearing a stained, wrinkled black t-shirt with a faded Popeye sucking on a can of spinach on the front.

It wasn't romantic to have him grin at the neon green and purple extensions sticking out of my messy dark bob like last year's feathers from a Halloween costume. I did my hair while trapped in our car's backseat, between some boxes and the window, driving miles and miles through a vast ocean of sheer boredom. The three-hour drive took us almost five hours because we didn't want to outrun the slow-moving van.

I didn't do the extensions well...

It was also not romantic when the boy started to gather my comic books strewn over the tile floor and forgot he was helping me gather my stuff because he was enraptured by my vast collection of Dragon Magazines in the mix. It's my secret obsession since none of my ex-friends would be caught dead playing Dungeons and Dragons.

The guy was babbling something about needing to join him, Gan, Tan, Dex, Mol and Ahmi next time they're having a D&D day. I had no idea who he was talking about, and most of what he said seemed to be in code. I just wanted my stuff back in their box, get in the elevator and flee to my cave.

I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't even greet him properly.

Yes, he had the smile and the eyes and the sexy athletic body, but there was no romance involved. The word 'lust' was still hanging around, and if my entrails were singing anything, it wasn't Feels like I'm Falling In Love; it was Another One Bites the Dust!

Of course, the boy just had to be a nice guy who became my mother's best friend after running into her, too, though not with as much drama. He was soon lugging boxes upstairs as if the movers weren't paid enough to do the job. Well, his helpfulness had the added benefit of allowing me to lock myself in my room until the property invasion was over.

The tiny apartment came furnished; we only brought the things we absolutely could not live without... except my dad... Apparently, we can live without him for now... and my brother Avery.

When he comes, we'll move into an actual house and have all our furniture around us again because material possessions bring joy and fulfilment... I'm sure that is what most advertisements say.

They're wrong.

Here I am now, standing in Briar High's parking lot, longing for my cramped cave and wishing I didn't avoid Cute Boy so effectively. My mom said his name is Ronan, and his dad owns the building. That is all I know about him. If I'd taken the time to get to know him, he would've at least been someone who's not a stranger... if he even goes here.

I suddenly feel so alone.

Yesterday, I thought being a stranger was awesome. I could be as secluded as I wanted to be and hide from the world as much as I wanted to. Nobody noticed, nobody cared because nobody knew I was there. Now, I'm just feeling lonely and more than a little lost.

All the school buildings playing hide-and-seek among the luscious ivy look the same, and from where I'm standing, they seem to form identical squares filled with gardens overgrown with large-leaf plants.

It's pretty.

I want none of it. I want to go home. I mean home, home, where my dad is, not the home where there's a surf shop, a beauty salon and a convenience store beneath us. Not the home where there's a popular beach within spitting distance with way too many loud, suntanned people running around.

"It's going to be fine, Honey," my mom coaxes from the car, leaning out the window. I can hear in her voice that she is stressed about being late for her first day as the county veterinarian's new partner. I need to get on with it! She's on probation; I don't want her to get fired on her very first day for tardiness.

She didn't ask to be here.

"It's not going to be fine," I whisper.

Being the new kid in school is worse than being forced to watch soap operas with your gran because the internet is down, and you have to listen to her narrate as if you can't witness Stefania Morales's downfall for yourself.

It's even worse than getting a popcorn kernel stuck between your teeth, and you cannot stick something in there to yank it out because you're in a group with posh kids. Digging stuff from your teeth is not done in their superior company. So you just worry your teeth with your tongue and try not to smile too widely because you don't want your new nickname to be Kernel Girl or Teeth Picker. I'm saying there's a reason behind John Melborn being known as Itch and Melody Grim being called TP.

Yeah, John had an itch in an unfortunate place he just had to scratch and Melody once came out of the restroom with toilet paper stuck to the sole of her shoe. Oh, the horror! Yeah, we were that shallow.

We could afford to be.

Being the new kid is worse than that; it's worse than... well, it's just bad.

I watch all the students neatly packed into their school uniforms. Perfect little robots, running around, shouting, talking, laughing... chewing gum. I'm doing none of that. I'm just standing here, holding onto my school bag as if it could somehow protect me, when the robots realise I'm not one of them and turn on me.

Near me, a group of hunky boys and beautiful girls are hanging out next to a van. They joke around and laugh like people do when they know each other well and feel comfortable in their group. They look like something from a movie I'd seen... and lived. Popular kids. Jocks and cheerleaders, no doubt.

Except, I don't think Briar High has cheerleaders. The van doesn't fit the stereotype I'm hypocritically trying to cast them in. I hate it when people stereotype strangers because they're closed-minded, and yet, here I am...

I love the van.

It's pretty retro-looking and has a stunning dragon painted on it; its fiery breath is melting a part of the front, where the van took some damage. I have a thing for dragons, and this one is gorgeous. The artist cleverly used the damage as part of their artwork. I don't think the van belongs to anybody in that preppy, happy crowd. Nor does the tiny pink car with the blond woman smiling on the doors. I think it is the woman who helped us get the apartment, and gave us the keys.

She was much more pleasant than the weather.

"Honey?" my mom prompts when I struggle to tear my eyes away from the group of friends warmly teasing each other, having fun just being with each other in the parking lot. The sight leaves a gnawing ache just below my ribs.

I had friends once.

I look down and inspect my second-hand uniform. The skirt of my blue tartan pinafore is too long, and the navy school sweater's left sleeve is frayed a bit at the edge. One of my white socks is sneaking down my ankle, trying to hide under my foot. I should've gone with the black tights.

Anxiety sneaks up on me while I admire a beautiful boy with multi-shaded brown and blond hair, laughing as a petite, pretty girl with dark hair tries to scalp him... or permanently attach herself to his head... It's hard to tell. The scene at the van distracted me enough to let my guard down. I don't notice, until it is too late, that Anxiety brought its friend, Panic, along. Together, they gang up on my lungs.

A Skyrim giant is sitting on my breastbone.

I try to take a deep breath, but the giant is stretching himself out, comfortably at home with his feet between my kidneys and his long fingers circling my throat, slowly strangling me. I need to move, I need to do something or the creatures scurrying around, finding their tribes and hurrying to their classes will notice me. I don't want to be noticed.

Being noticed sucks.

"Erin, do you need me to go in with you?" my mother asks, and her concern and compassion are gradually turning into impatience and anxiety of her own. I shouldn't be doing this to her, but I cannot help it.

My legs won't move!

Well, they won't move forward, but they're perfectly happy to turn me around so I can see my mother. She smiles gently, trying to be encouraging, but her smile isn't reaching her eyes. I know she's worried I might change my mind or, worse... have a panic attack right here in the parking lot. Oddly, her anxiety eases my own somewhat.

"No, Mom," I say, swallowing loudly. "I'm good; I just need a minute."

What I need is homeschooling.

I manage to turn back to my target, the administration building. My eyes move over the large red brick building, the only one a little different from the others. It is facing this way, with a covered path leading from the parking lot to double doors under a cream gable bearing the school's coat of arms and a date I cannot make out from here.

The school is pretty old.

That is the building where I have to go to get myself turned into one of the pleasant kids chasing each other through the flowerbeds to get scolded by older, pleasant kids with an air of authority about them.

To me, the building doesn't look like a portal to Pleasantville. It is ominous, and I can only imagine the monsters hiding inside. I've dealt with too many headmasters, disciplinary heads and mean teachers in my short life. I know what they're like.

"I didn't do anything wrong; I'm just new," I remind myself and force my breathing away from hyperventilation into calm mode. Well, it's closer to suffocate mode now, but it will have to do.

Holding onto my bag tightly enough to turn my knuckles white, I once again turn to look at my mother and wave at her with my free hand, hoping she won't notice how much my fingers are trembling.

I nearly solve my growing need to visit the restrooms when the bell suddenly rings, a piercing alarm screaming through my head. It sucks up all the pupils still hanging around in the parking lot, dragging them through gardens and along walkways to the buildings until I'm quite alone.

Do not have a panic attack, Erin.

"Breathe," I tell myself. "It's just a new school with new kids... and probably new bullies. That's all, no biggie."

Finally getting life flowing in my stiff legs, my one foot steps forward, and then the other, until I'm steadily crossing the parking lot. I'm walking like a person who is not falling apart on the inside. I'm so proud of myself.

My tred growing stronger with each step, I march over grass and paving stones to go fight the dragon... again.

"How dare she?!" a passing girl snaps at her friend, and just like that, the covered walkway fades into nothing. The colours of the gardens melt into each other, forming the soft lilac walls of my old bedroom.

I hear Carli snarling those same words as she slams her English textbook down on my bed, making my heart plummet, knowing we are going to have the same ridiculous conversation again. She angrily brushes her blond hair away from her face and glares at me as if I'm the cause of her current offence.

I no longer see the red brick walls, the creepers or the gable above the doors of the Administration building. Even though I'm close enough, I still cannot read the date because my eyes are not focusing anymore. The date the building was built has lost the tiny bit of importance it held for me.

I am back in my pretty bedroom, glancing up at my friend's angry eyes, seeing the spiteful slant of her lips. Did I know it was spiteful back then? It seemed so normal. The spite was completely lost on me.

"She was just talking to him," I sighed, exasperation starting to coil languidly in my stomach. "It's not like they were making out or anything. Besides, you broke up with him." It was about the tenth time I told her the same thing that day. I don't know why I bothered wasting my breath. Carli never listens to anyone.

Earlier, during science class, she spotted the school's biggest outcast talking to her ex-boyfriend, Haywood, and it drove her out of her mind.

Yes, it's an unfortunate name. I don't think the guy's parents liked him much.

Entering the Administration building, I scan the hallway, looking for somekind of reception office, when a young woman hurries from an open door, almost colliding with me. I was too busy seeing Carli huffing, getting ready for more griping about a guy she claimed she didn't love, talking to a lowly girl like that. Apparently, there was a list of approved candidates for conversations with Haywood.

I have no idea what I just told the teacher, clutching files to her chest, but she is talking to me, and she is smiling. I probably said the right words.

"Ms. Watson isn't here right now, but I'm sure..."

"We're supposed to be studying, Carli," I mumbled, trying to shift into a more comfortable position on my purple beanbag. In the physical world, I'm trying to focus on what the teacher is saying, following her down the hallway, but in the past, flooding my brain, I'm trying to focus on the textbook in my hands, hoping Carli would get the hint. I was so sick of her whining.

"We should teach her a lesson," she said, running her fingers through her silky hair and making her charm bracelet jingle. I ignored her and kept on reading about prepositions, interjections, and conjunctions.

"Are you even listening?" Carli asks in a voice a few octaves deeper than the general screech she always used when she was annoyed.

I snap my eyes to where her face should be, and they encounter greying hair neatly styled in a side part. Grey eyes filled with a mixture of amusement, concern, and annoyance blink at me.

I've never seen an expression conveying all those emotions quite as well as my mother's, but I think she might have met her match in this man.

I'm no longer in the hallway! I'm seated in an over-stuffed leather chair on one side of a large desk, and on the other side, I don't find Carli glaring at me, angry because she's not the centre of my universe. I find a man sitting there, wearing a perplexed grin.

How did I even get here?

As always, when my mind had gone off on its own journey, I'm filled with dread about what I might have said or done in the minutes I'd been functioning on auto-pilot. Did I stop at the pedestrian crossings? Did I put on my underwear? Was I polite to the friendly teacher who brought me to this office?

Did I greet Mr. Townhouse when she introduced us? I vaguely remember being introduced, but at the time, Carli was screeching at me about a slut, thinking she could just swoop in and pick at her cast-offs.

I sit up straighter, trying to act as though I've been paying rapt attention and not reliving the day I started to regret being alive. I even try to smile, hoping I don't look like the bride of Chucky.

"Yes, Mr..." I thank the creators of desk nameplates everywhere. I think they deserve a special place in heaven and a mention in every autobiography of anybody who has ever sat at a desk and almost called their new high school principal Mr. Townhouse but was saved from accidentally committing social suicide by the wood-mounted nameplate neatly announcing his name as Principal: "Townsend."

I look up from the desk to see Mr Townsend cocking an eyebrow. I don't think he understands the beautiful moment I just had with his pretty nameplate. He joins his hands on the surface of the desk, going into formal-mode, and I know I'm about to be cut down to size and told that I'm a disgrace and that if I had any sense, I wouldn't sit and daydream when my elders are speaking to me.

I've heard the speech before, and I swear, I try to be present. I try to listen; I just... don't.

"I understand that you had some..." he pauses, looking for the right words somewhere in the garden outside the window beside his desk. He turns those all-seeing eyes back to my face when he finds them. I could call his eyes piercing, but that might imply that they are fierce-looking. Principal Townsend's eyes are surprisingly gentle, but they look right into my head, reading my every thought.

Of course, I'm now thinking about the cute boy with the wide grin, talking about Dungeons and Dragons with the sunlight streaming into the foyer, creating a halo in his wild brown hair.

"... problems at your previous school?"

Sh#t! Is he asking a question or stating a fact? I didn't listen! Dammit, Erin! Snap out of it! Don't mess up your first day at a new school. The first day of your new life!

I don't think he asked me if I had problems. He's probably also not asking what kind of problems I had. He's the principal. Of course, he would know what happened at Fortuna High. All of it.

My fingers have gone numb. They are white worms leeching the last sparks of life from my hands. I cannot bend them. They are too stiff. They're sausages, not worms, and I'm starting to sweat, my throat closing up around a fat ball of anxiety.

So much for a completely fresh start! I catch my breath, bracing myself for the berating I know is going to start now or-

"Erin, I want you to know that we don't tolerate bullying here," he says, and though it is the most soothing, berating tone I've ever heard, I still hang my head, trying to hide my guilt and growing panic.

Here we go.

"However," he continues, and that was not the word I expected. It doesn't crash into my skull like a verbal two-by-four knocking me off my mental seat. That word makes me brave enough to peek up at the man, calmly lifting a pen from the huge desk calendar under his hands and playing it between his fingers with surprising skill.

I'm sure he sits at that mahogany desk every day and practices just to impress new students, trembling in this chair across from him. I wonder what he does when the kid sitting here is in trouble. Does he spin that basketball ball I see on one of many bookcases on the tip of his finger?

"Feel free to come see me if you have problems with any other students."

Huh?!

I slowly nod my head, sure I've zoned out again and missed the part where he talks about expulsion and non-conformance.

"Or you could speak to one of our prefects if you'll find that more comfortable," he smiles.

Seriously! He smiles at me?!

Sharks smile at their prey just before they eat them, don't they? I'm sure they do that in every fish animation I've ever seen. Is Mr. Townsend a shark?

"Our head boy, Declan, is quite brilliant at sorting out issues between students."

Oh, I can only imagine. The last head boy I knew loved sorting out issues... for a price... and it didn't have to be a transaction involving goods. He was a born politician, corrupt to the core... and a pervert.

"Blanche, the head girl, has a more no-nonsense approach if you need someone a bit harsher or would rather speak to another girl."

I don't know how to respond to that rather kind offer, so I just whisper, "Thank you, sir."

Principal Townsend isn't scolding me. It also seems like he's not going to go into the terrible details that brought me here at all. Those details are hanging around like an ignored cliff racer straight from Morrowind, ready to attack when I can least defend myself against it.

I try to calm my racing heart, but the thing seems to be travelling into my throat, getting stuck between my larynx and trachea. So, what do I do now? What is the protocol normal citizens of Pleasantville follow? Am I dismissed? Should I get up and leave? The principal is just smiling at me, and I wish he would give me some kind of clue.

Is he waiting for me to leave his office?

I'm about to stand and leave, not having a cooking clue where I'm supposed to go from here when a sudden knock on the door makes me freeze in my seat. Friend or foe? Yes, that is how my mind works now. I'm never sure anymore.

My hands have come back to life in all their sweaty glory and are shaking in my lap, where I'm clutching them together.

"Come in," Principal Townsend cheerily tells the person on the other side of the door. Clearly, it is a friend to him. That doesn't hold any meaning to me at all. Friends of principals and teachers are generally not friends to the general student body. I swallow nervously, turning my head to look at the door when it opens.

Feels Like I'm Falling in Love is being sung in the passionate voice of my downstairs neighbour, throbbing through every vein in my body. I've completely lost my mind because the other L-word refuses to fall into place as instructed. What was that word? Longing? Life? Lovely?

A tall, broad-shouldered boy fills the open doorway, the electrical light from the hallway bathing his dark auburn hair in gold highlights. He looks like he'd hurriedly smoothed his cheeky hair and tucked his shirt in before knocking. His smile is like warm syrup dripping over the pancakes my mom made me for breakfast, but I was too nervous to eat.

I can hear a choir singing in harmony to the blood roaring in my veins. The boy flashes his clear blue eyes from me to the man behind the desk... Principal Outhouse... or somebody... I cannot remember. All I can see is this boy smiling at me while I shout at my heart to get back into the lead box I've shut it in.

This is not a love story. I am Erin Young, and I'm not here to fall in love. I am here, hunting for a new beginning.

I'm hunting a new life.

***