The Waiting Room

Chapter 16- Solemn Words and Shocking News

After I woke, I tried my best to concentrate on getting back to school but I couldn’t. The name ‘James’ and the boy in that room had triggered something that I couldn’t rememeber. This was bugging me.

The walk to school was boring. Cars passed by, children passed by, dogs passed by, and even those little ants passed by. I never really thought of my walk to school to be this boring but maybe since I was stuck in a bed for three weeks and my myterious dream last night had made everything else seem dull. I heard the bustling of highschoolers, and I knew I was nearby. I saw a flank of juniors in my class stroll by me when I was on the grounds. They glanced up at me, but then did a double take. I heard multiple gasps erupt from the group, and soon from the whole courtyard.

It was the most akward walk I ever endured to get into the building. Heck, to get into homeroom. Even when the bell rang and everybody had sat down, there were a million eyes on me. The teacher looked at me in shock for a minute and then cleared his throat,

“Phaedra, welcome back,” he spoke rushingly. I muttered under my breath about how I can ‘feel the welcome’ before resting back in my chair. A female voice beside me woke me up from being zoned out.

“Phae, what happened?”

The nickname opened something inside of me, and it was impossible to close. Phae, we need to keep moving. The voice echoed through my ears. It was a male’s voice, but as hard as I could, I couldn’t identify. But Phae, it’s only me playing. It spoke again. This voice intrigued me and yet scared me. It felt like I should have remebered the voice but I couldn’t. Why did I not know who it was?

“Phaedra!” the girl next to me whisper-yelled to me. I looked over and I spotted Peyton. I smiled lightly, the thoughts were still troubling me.

“Hey Peyton!” I said as cheerful as I could. She looked at me with her big doe eyes,

 “Oh, I missed you so much!” the line had been repeated so many times to me that all I could do was smile and nod,

“I missed you too.” I said akwardly. She was my best friend, but it seemed we were distant. Why didn’t I miss her? I felt like I was missing someone, it just wasn’t her. Peyton and I talked for the rest of the day, she told me how worried she was, and how terrible she felt.

            Remembering the detention Mr. Gremelis had given us, I had asked her how it went. Of course, being her, she probably had a multitude of detentions with him. Although, her reaction had been instantaneous. She described it being  “godaweful and miserable without you.” Although, the day was also plenty stressful, questions and rumors were circuling around, and pairs of eyes were always glued to me.

            As the bell rang to indicate our last class had finished, Peyton grabbed my arm. “Okay, so there’s this party tonight, and well since you came back, we were wondering if you wanted to go?” she asked cheerfully. I opened my mouth to tell her that I really couldn’t, I had had a terrible night, but her face forced me not to,

“Of course I’ll come.” I pulled my mucles in my mouth roughly at my lips to force them to smile. She immediately smiled back. I gathered all of my books and headed out. I let out a sigh of relief when I left the darn school. At the stop sign, I swung my bag around, and rumadged through my bag to find my agenda and pencil. I quickly jotted down the adress, zipped the bag back up, and swung back over my back.

            I found you, Phaedra, a voice whispered through my skull. I shivered unvolunatry. I looked behind myself. Suddenly the man from my nightmare popped up behin me in the middle of the sidewalk. I had stopped at a crosswalk. Like anyone, I freaked out on the prospect of someone stalking me. The person titled its head softly to the right.  Where are you really? Do you actually think this is real? Do you actually think you made it out? Anxiety bubbled in my throat, and I frantically looked around. “Where are you? Where did I make it outof?” I screamed to no one, frightened. The voice in my head wasn’t my own. It was deep voice. A male’s voice. The male behind me.