Chapter 8: Just One More Time

  "Williams...Willaims...Samantha!" someone yelled, and I shot up in my desk, I swear that there might have been a piece of paper stuck to my forehead. I blinked my eyes dazedly, looking around at the blurry field of vision. But as they focused I looked up at a concerned Mr. Dubose. Nope wrong class, I didn't have paper stuck to my face, it was most likely wood dust. 

  "Sorry..." I mumbled, rubbing my eyes with my hands, I had fallen asleep on the warm square table in the middle of Woodshop. Monday was not a good day for me, especially the weekend after the party, that could have practically lasted all on into Sunday by the way Quinn kept dragging me from store to store at the mall, demanding that I get dresses.

  "Are you alright?" he asked, trying not to sound super concerned, but he was one of the teachers that had found out that I didn't have my father around, and my mother, well she was gone. Dusting the sawdust off my jeans, looking around at all the nonchalant eyes that located in on me for falling asleep. I caught Tristan not giving me a glance, headphones plugged into his ears as he drilled away into a piece of wood, a devilish smirk on his face.

  "Yeah, I'm fine...I'll just be getting back to my project," I said getting up and picking up the blueprints for my entertainment center piece.

  Mr. Dubose gave me a wary look, before doing a good thing on his part, and shrugging his shoulders and moving on to his nonchalant way of lounging around the room, casually glancing at peoples projects. So far mine would be one of the bigger ones, being a senior, and having a bit of experience in here, I had a year of this class under my belt. I had taken to it pretty quickly, loving the feel of the machine under my hands, even if my vision was hampered by the annoying goggles. But most of the freshman and sophomores were still trying to decide the differences between two types of wood; I guess I shouldn't be rolling my eyes at them like I was, considering I had done the exact same thing last year.

   Snagging my coffee cup from the table before heading over to the goggle station, I took a swig. I didn't spat out the almost sickly sweet liquid, even if it tasted as if it had lived in a freezer for a week, the tang still helped my vision focus a bit more, the caffeine having an almost instant affect on my sleep deprived body. It was weird how sometimes you just depended on something so much, just to stay alive.

  Well that would be a little too melodramatic, but whatever.

  I strapped on the goggles; they had a knack for making anyone who wore them look like a geek. But as I glanced back at Tristan, it had become a second nature just to glance at him every five minutes despite if I wanted to or not, and I wasn't surprised to see him pulling off the look flawlessly. Gritting my teeth together, I took another drink of coffee, set it down, and started the noisy sawing machine.

  Sawdust was flying, as I carefully cut away on the lines that I had measured over and over again, to have it meet the specifications that I had designed on my blue-print. The middle of October and we were already on our projects, the design process had gone relatively smooth this year.

  The entertainment center would be a dark stained, television stand, and would support all the systems that went along with it. My mind wondered and placed extra shelving, the depths of my imagination picturing picture frames poised in the nooks. Each holding a picture of my family in the future, kids would be running around the television set, splaying into fits of giggles. I hadn't known what had come over me, the thought of motherhood was something I never had considered, I planned on going to College for Graphic Arts and design, which I was a class that I was taking second hour, kids and marriage just seemed like too far into the future to delve into.

  Shaking my head, as my hand slipped on the wood, luckily not damaging the line enough that a sander couldn't easily fix. I glanced between the clock and Tristan's back, his arms moving slightly as he guided the piece of wood through the sander. This was going to be a very long hour.

  The bell rang just as I was done clearing the sawdust off of my wood, with a groan I scurried over to my table, hurrying to stash my project. The room quickly cleared out, almost all of the guys in a hurry to get to lunch. 

  My wood's locker was ajar slightly, so I easily whipped it open and placed my scattered starter pieces into the tight space along with my neatly folded blue print. I would definitely need to borrow Mr. Dubose's backroom for the final stages of this project, doubting the huge living room piece wood fit in the largest locker this school has ever built.

  The room was eerily empty by the time I had gathered my belongings, even Mr. Dubose had disappeared off for the promise of Pasta Day at the lunchroom. Giving a slight smile I stepped out into the busy hallways, making sure to snap the lights off and shut the door before heading to my locker.

  The school was two floors; the second floor just a couple of long hallways, split by a balcony that looked down upon the first floor. It reminded me of a mall; the way the glass would show all the possession people were carrying beneath waist height and how the doors looked like store entrances from the first floor. Having gotten my locker moved because of the faulty lock system, I was now placed in front of the front entrance, it was loudest there, the double stairwell lead both upstairs and downstairs, providing endless traffic. For a small town like this, the population in this school was amazing, all the other smaller towns compiling together into this school system.

  I struggled, trying to find my locker again in this mess of people, the number on the silver plaque on the top of it was fading, the indentations staring to mold back into the original surface. With a twist of the lock and a yank of the opening mechanism, the door swung open. This was a definite better locker than the last one, not even making me have to punch in the code half the time; but no one else knew that so I wouldn't have to worry about people trying to steal my stuff. A couple pictures of me and Quinn were connected to the metal door via magnet, our smiling faces and tanned skin showing a show of last summer. Above that was a solitary picture of me and my mother, when I was five, her smiling face always looking down at me with warmth in her eyes. Not daring to look at that one too long, I quickly shoved my books in the bottom space of the locker. They crunched loudly on the scattered papers that had been lost in the rummage at the bottom, probably old tests and forgotten finished homework assignments.

  I felt something on my shoulder, as if someone lightly tapped me with their hand. Whipping around, I glimpsed a flash of white as a piece of paper fell off my shoulder, floating to the floor. It fell at my feet; a neatly scrawled print clearly and boldly stated my name. Looking around, I found the bottom section of the hallway mostly empty, everyone on the top side for the lunchroom. Glancing up at the endless river of the people, I knew I would never be able to find the owner of the note.

  Picking it up, I regarded it curiously, the script was not the hand writing of anyone I knew, I even knew Tristan's well, him writing papers next to me for the past month and a half in English. The bell trilled, signaling the start of classes and 'A' lunch, so I quickly stuffed it into my pocket, reserved for later.

  I reached down for my Physics book; the homework should have been neatly pressed between the pages of Chapter twelve. With a groan I realized I left it laying on my desk, probably scattered with the rest of the last minute homework I raced to finish last night. A glance at my watch proved that I would have enough time to rush home during lunch to grab the much needed homework and be back before I would be late to class.

  I snatched my keys off the top shelf and slammed the door shut, just casually walking out the front door. There were no security cameras in the front entrance, the school wasn't really worried about vandalism the student body was relatively well behaved, but I couldn't help as if I was committing a crime, walking out in the middle of the day, earlier than even when I usually left.

  "It's is just a drive home," I assured myself under my breath, walking across the parking lot towards the little black car that was waiting in the now cooling air. Now, the weather in the region would be predictably cold, as the weather quickly plunged into winter months before its time, a cycle that seemed to repeat itself every year. Quinn always picked the perfect weekend to send her parents away on vacation and have that party.

 Taking a gulp of cold air, in nervousness at the filled but yet empty parking lot, I pulled open the door to my car. Time was ticking away fast, so I quickly turned the key. The usual flare of life, even an acknowledgment of it being turned on, was absent as the car stayed silent. Blinking in confusion, I tried turning it on again, this time only getting the sound of the key clicking echoing in my ears.

  "Great!" I yelled, banging my hand against the steering wheel, getting a yip of the horn blaring out into the silent school yard. My car had finally died, passed on to the world of heaven, or wherever dead cars went.

  My first thought was of my grade in Chemistry, biting my lip in effort to help with the decision of whether or not I really needed that grade. A reminder of that last test grade told me that I did really need that assignment turned in on time.

  Swearing loudly I scrambled out of the car, slamming the useless door against the frame. I whipped my cell phone out, sure that I needed a tow truck to tow this away, and at least to the house so I could try and fix the parts that were a trouble. I was met with a blank black screen, as I then realized what the buzzing of it in my pocket over the past hour meant that it had died. This day was just getting better and better.

  I had twenty minutes, and a long walk to my house and back, so I got started walking away from the school just like the first day of school after summer vacation. This time, I sure hoped that I wouldn't run into any fighting werewolves and ruin my life all over again.

  My feet trudged against the sidewalk, trying to walk with pulpous but inside I knew it was useless, I would never make it back to class without being ten minutes late and starving from the loss of lunch.

  Pretty soon sounds of giggles and sepals of laughter caught my attention and I realized I had already made it to the clearing of a park.  Kids were running around wildly, the vast lands of the park live in this deserted section of town; everyone else was inside working or learning at school. The whole setting looked tempting, the time on my clock had been a fast ticking time bomb threatening to mark me late, but what if I didn't come back for the day? Would they just assume I was sick and went home? The creak of swings in the distant resolved the matter, and I stepped into the soft grass, walking into off the sidewalk and away from the road home.

  Mother's were scattered on benches that helped overlook the play sets, sandboxes and swing sets that infested the place. All of it was spread out among a vast area, filled with tall trees that provided shade for a whole family to picnic under.

  To my utter disappointment all the swings were taken by either kids who were old enough to be in school at the moment and little toddlers, their parents closely behind them pushing them up to a safe height. But I looked back towards the play sets, the newer, brighter one teeming with squirming kids, all trying to reach the top, with the promise of being able to go down the swirled blue slide. But the one behind it, the one that was more hidden from the view of parents was abandoned, its rusted surface not nearly as appealing as the newer one. I smiled easily and walked down the hill towards it, memories were practically oozing off of its presence.

  My parents, when I was younger, always took me down here, even on school days, making sure I had enough family time to spare. Mental pictures of extravagant picnics and playing hide-n-go seek in the trees and playgrounds flashed constantly across my vision. The smell was exactly as I remembered it, the sweet crunch of already fallen leaves under my feet that made it almost impossible to sneak behind a person, the gentle breeze that always travelled through trees before reaching us, making it take on an oaky scent.

  A couple mom's looked at me strangely, their conversation halted as I walked through the gravel of the new playground. I shrugged; let them think I was a nanny babysitting a kid, so they would leave me to my hauntingly sweet memories.

  It seemed to quiet down the closer I got to the rusted out playground, its yellow tube faded to almost white, and the blue slide peeling from all the days in the sun and weathering. But despite the rough surface, placing my hands on the ladder to the bridge that dangled above me took me back to when it was new and my parents were there to catch me if I dare fell.

  I climbed up the ladder absentmindedly, and balanced my way across the now shaky bridge to the yellow tube. It was big enough to still fit me; as much as I had grown, I crawled in it, and nestled myself into a loose ball, in its center.

  The experience took me back exactly to a memory. I was running from my parents counting behind the giant oak tree, thinking I would be smart enough to outrun them by going up into the slide instead of behind a tree. The bars of the ladder were smooth and crisp, and I giggled softly as I pulled myself all the way up to the top. For a five year old, it looked extremely tall, the grass and gravel a mile away, and the wind strong enough to blow me off.

  I would drop onto all fours and make my way to the yellow tube which was bright as the light shone against its reflective surface. Crawling in the giant tunnel I sat cross legged in the middle, the look of the branches at eye level enough to make my own eyes grow to the size of saucers. In the distance there was a call of "Here I come," and I would squeal, shutting my eyes tight.

  Holding my breath I would hear them come closer and closer, calling out in friendly monster voices, "Where is she? Where is my Sammy?" crossing my fingers that they wouldn't be able to find me and I'd win for once. But then the voices would cut off and I would open my eyes, only to a second later have each parent appear on either side of the tunnel screaming "Found You!"

  I would fall into a fit of giggles as they would crawl in halfway, each of them kissing my cheek at the same time.

  Opening my eyes now, I would give anything to have them find me now. Find me with tears streaming down my face, and tell me everything is alright, and mom would be back from her vacation in heaven, and dad wouldn't have to work as hard. Have them tell me again both how much I meant to them and how much they loved me. I would give anything.                       

  It had been forever and a day since I'd last cried over my mother's death, which had been edging on five years now. Her passing had not been sudden, and I couldn't count how many times I had regretted pushing her away from me in those last months that she had. Cancer was a curse, and I had watched it take my mother's life slowly away from me. Instead of growing up and dealing with watching the life in my mother's eyes slowly fade away, I had not talked to her, visited her in the hospital, hoping that having not to see it would make it all go away. It didn't, it only made that small amount of time that we would have had left together go by even faster.

  Now tears were streaming down my cheeks as I sat in the yellow tube in the rusted out play-set. The same one that had held so many fond memories of my family was now holding all the bad, all the regrets and all the tears.

  I laid down in the tube and cried, not even daring to look at the clock, I wasn't going back to school now, it was pointless, I wouldn't be able to even get back on time, rather get myself composed once again.

  Eventually tears melded into a tiredness that seeped through my whole body, so tired that my thoughts blended with my imagination. I could almost hear my mother telling me she loved me in my ear, her melodic voice like honey to my ears.

  "Tell me again that you love me, mom," I whispered as I fell into a deep sleep, "Tell me just one more time,"