The Rain Told Me To Run

The Choice

7 Months Ago

Do you ever have those days where you wonder 'what the heck am I even doing here?' Well that's how I feel right now. Day 1 back in the hell hole society calls high school. First day of junior year, and I already want to be done with it.

I walk in and immediately begin my search for Trace. Trace has been my best friend since kindergarten, and we've been almost inseparable since then. Trace is a tech nerd, so the first place I look is the computer lab. Sure enough, there he is, typing away on one of the school's crappy computers.

"Hey," I say timidly, not wanting to spook him. He doesn't budge, and keeps on focusing on what he's doing.

"Hey!" I say, a little louder than before. He still remains unfazed as he zones out on the screen.

"HEY!" I almost scream in his ear. He jumps out of his chair with a wild look in his eyes. I'm rolling with laughter.

"That's not funny Linny!" Trace whines, placing a hand on his probably racing heart. "I could've died!"

Once I can breathe again, I ask, "Of what, embarrassment?"

"A heart attack you nincompoop!" He takes a deep breath, then gives me his typical air-stealing bear hug.

"can't.....breathe....." I squeak out, not being able to speak properly due to no air.

"That's the point," he says finally letting me go. I pretend to be off balance and stagger into a seat. "How's my number one pain in the ass?"

"I'm not that annoying!" I gasp and dramatically drape my hand over my head.

"You are, but I still tolerate you," he says, grabbing his bag from the floor. "Get up or we're gonna be late."

At this is make an extra effort in sighing. I hate high school. If I could, I'd skip all this and go straight to college years, but unfortunately, that's not how the world works. So Trace drops me at my first class, and the torture begins

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The lunch bell rings, and I send Trace a text saying to meet at the electives board. I have until the end of the day to choose an elective class, and I want to get something I'd at least not hate.

I get to the board, but notice all the spots are taken except cheer, chess, theater, and Morse Code. I'm not active, so cheer is out of the question. Chess is for geeks, and I don't know a single thing about it. Theater is for those extra special extroverts who enjoy being the center of attention, which is the polar opposite of who I am. So that leaves me with Morse Code. It seems interesting enough, and shouldn't be too hard, so I sign up.

Trace finally meets up with me at the board.

"Sorry, I got caught up running new software in the computer lab and didn't see your message," he explains. "It's for a new game I'm writing."

"No sweat," I reply, "there's hardly anything to choose from as it is. I see you've already signed up for coding."

"Yea," he awkwardly rubs his neck, "I got too nervous that slots would be full in coding so I signed up as soon as I walked in this morning."

I laugh. "Only you, Trace, would be worried that the nerdiest subject at the school, would fill up before you had a chance to sign up."

"It's not that funny," he retorts, "Ok maybe a little, but you can't blame me, coding is my life."

"Whatever. I gotta get to class. My elective starts in 5 minutes."

"What'd you choose?"

"Morse Code"

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"Samuel Morse invented Morse Code in the early 1800's in efforts to create a instant yet distant method of communication...." the teacher began "He and his team used a sequence of dots and dashes to signify different letters and numbers in the English Alphabet. Each letter and number is differentiated by time intervals...."

This class doesn't suck as bad as I thought it would. Sure, if I had more options to choose from, I wouldn't have chosen this, but I didn't expect to find Morse Code in the lest bit interesting.

The teacher hands us a sheet of paper and wants us to memorize them by the end of next week. Easy enough. I already have the habit of tapping my pencil on the desk. Why not put some meaning behind the action.

The teacher shows us an old fashions tappy thingy, I think she said it was a tap and pedel, and then has us tap our names and ages, before the bell rang.

At the end of school, I nearly ran to Trace to tell him what I learned.

"Trace! Trace! TRACE!!" I yelled, slipping and sliding through other students trying to find him.

"What's got you so excited?" He asks, incredulously, "Did a guy ask you out? Do I need to beat someone up? Who is he?"

"What's wrong with you?" I ask, chuckling a bit at his extremism. "I went to my Morse class today, and it's actually really cool and I wanted to show you."

He looks at me with a blank expression. "You.......into a form of coding......?............I've taught you well." He looks at me with a sense of.......pride?.... I don't know but it's weirding me out.

"Knock it off Trace, it's no where near as hard as computer coding. Look!" I showed him my sheet of dots and dashes. He examines them all carefully.

"Looks similar enough to me. The only difference is computer coding is zero's and one's and on electronics. Also it's from this century," he jokes, "I swear sometimes you weren't born in the right era. I shove him playfully.

"You're so mean to me," I poke his arm, "I don't know why I'm still friends with you honestly"

"It's definitely my gorgeously handsome face and the fact that you'd be flunking Algebra 2 and Chemistry without me."

"You're right, and you suck."

"And you love me," he says, wiggling his eyebrows at me. I roll my eyes at him.

"Yea yea whatever."

I get on the bus, leaving Trace to find his, and start doing some of my homework. I began with the most easy to me, Morse Code, and practice tapping letters and numbers, and feeling confident that this class will be an easy A.