Small Town Nightmare

New School

I wake up to the familiar sound of my alarm, increasing with volume as it played through the melody. Without even looking up I am throwing my hand towards my side table, fumbling around as I try to get ahold of my phone. Must. Stop. The. Noise. I am not a morning person by any means, and this morning in particular was a doozy. It's the first day at a new school.

I sat up in bed to look around at the unpacked boxes that are scattered around my new room. I can't help but hate myself in this moment. It has not been a good year for me, and the only reason I am here is to escape him. I wasn't strong enough to leave him and I had become a shell of the person I used to be, a broken shell. I don't even know who I am anymore. The only option left was to actually remove me from his reach. So here I am, away from my family, friends, my home all because I was too scared to leave him.

This town is bigger than my home town, by a lot. To paint a picture for you my last high school had 200 kids, the school I am about to enter has 2500. Not my speed, I don't like people. I take a deep breath as I start to rummage through the boxes labeled clothes; jeans, t-shirt, pullover sweatshirt, and a pair of purple converse. The only thing left of my personality, my god damn converse.

After throwing my hair into a high pony and applying what I thought was a decent amount of makeup I emerged from my room. I don't know my dad's family well, we never really had much to do with them, but my aunt was willing to take me in, and her husband is rich. He isn't home much because of work and from what I can tell she drinks about it.

"Oh hunny, are you not feeling well today?"

I walked into the kitchen to see my aunt sat at her kitchen island staring at me with a perplexed look on her face.

"I feel great, why?" I am so confused at her question.

"Oh.. is that what you're wearing to school then?" The disappointment is garnishing every word coming out of her mouth. They live in a high class neighborhood, the type where plastic surgeons and lawyers live. I am going to stick out.

"Yep, these are my school clothes."

I can hear footsteps behind me, "Ew, why don't you have better clothes." That would be my cousin, it's her first year in high school and I am about to be really embarrassing.

I didn't have time to deal with this, I grabbed an orange off the counter and head out the door. I did have my own car, I worked really hard for it. The only thing my ex let me do without his permission was work, so I worked a lot. I pat my little Honda civic on the hood and climbed into the front seat. I was about to reverse out of the driveway until I see my cousin running out the front door after me, I assumed she was taking the bus, apparently not.

**

Pulling into this high school's parking lot is like pulling into an alternate universe. Seriously, I feel like I just walked into a teen movie. I can hear my cousin giving me a lecture about my outfit choice, apparently I am going to regret it. High heels never appealed to me anyways.

The school was huge, definitely a lot nicer than home town. Must pay better taxes here.

After finding my locker, I abandoned my backpack and took only the school map and my English supplies. Seriously though, the school has a map. Pretty sure I looked like an absolute idiot as I wandered around through hallways before a teacher took pity on me and guided me to my destination, no google maps for this place.

The classroom was set up with tables not desks, about four or five students to a table. Everyone was still picking their seats which is great for me, I can watch to see what group would be the most likely to be nice to me. Bingo. Four girls, dressed similar to me, no high heels. I like them already.