one summer

before you start your day.

panic switch.

"i'm waiting and fading and floating away."

******

My alarm went off, signifying it was time for me to get out of bed. Reluctantly, I got out of bed, turning it off. I scooped my clothes into my arms, along with the towel sitting on my dresser, and headed to take a shower.

A feeling of dread overwhelmed me as flipped on the bathroom light. It was the first day back to school. My summer was over. The summer in which I wanted to change myself so desperately was over. It felt so short; like it was over within a week. It felt more like a short break away from school rather than a long period away.

There were so many things that I wanted to do. I wanted to go to a lot more concerts, go out with my friends more, spend long nights places. That wasn't going to happen for now. Now, I was going to get ready for a long day at school. Plus, with no breaks anytime soon it was going to seem even longer.

However, there were good things about being back at school. I was going to see friends I hadn't seen in a good few months. I was going to see some of my favorite people once again. Some cases in which I hadn't contacted at all during the summer.

As I stepped out of the shower, I felt a pang of sadness. I'd see Alex and Misa, but I wouldn't see April. She wouldn't get to experience what a first day as an incoming freshman was like at RTHS. Instead, she was going to be doing that in a few days at some high school in Lincoln, Nebraska. She wasn't going to be seeing me in the hallways, or at lunch. She wasn't going to see me until she came back for a visit.

Hopefully that wasn't going to be too far away. Her birthday was only in a couple of weeks, so I'd see her soon. I didn't know how long she was going to stay, however. I was excited to see her again nonetheless.

As I got dressed, I frowned at myself in the mirror. I wasn't going to look as good as I thought I was going to. I didn't sleep at all the night before the last day of the summer. So I was only running on eight or so hours of sleep in the past forty-eight hours. It was going to be okay though. I wasn't too concerned on what people thought of me. There was always just that nagging part of me that told me I had to look good for everyone.

I shoved whatever I needed into my book bag, making sure I had my iPod. Although it was old, it could still play music. Which, was going to be something I needed on the first day. Especially since I knew I wasn't going to be in a great mood for at least half of it at all.

Glancing at my clock, it was only about six forty-four. I still had about forty-five minutes till I had to be ready to walk out the door. Since Seth could drive us to school now, we had about an extra fifteen minutes of time to get ready in the mornings. Which, was a good chunk of time for me in the mornings.

My mom came out of her room with a wide smile, "You look so grown up, August."

"Thanks," I gave her a half-smile, "I'm really not looking forward to today."

"Why not?" she frowned, "It's the first day of your sophomore year! Be excited!"

I gave her a look, "You really think I'm excited to be back in place with a bunch of retards?"

"Oh they're not retards," she rolled her eyes, "You just need to adjust that attitude a little bit."

"Well a select few actually are," I mumbled.

"What?" she gave me a stern look.

"Nothing," I muttered.

"Is your brother up?" she looked over my shoulder towards the direction of my brother's room.

"Probably not," I answered, picking dog hair off my shirt.

"Wake him up please," she ordered.

I sighed, backtracking to my brother's room. I pounded on his door, "Time to get up, buddy. First day of school motherfucker."

He swung open the door, his eyes glossed over from exhaustion, "I was up till three. Give me a break."

"Hey it's six-fifty," I shrugged, "Mom wanted you up, not me."

He sighed dramatically, "Ugh, give me ten more minutes of beauty rest? Maybe fifteen?"

"Fifteen's pushing it," I smirked, "But you have a deal with about twelve minutes."

"Twelve?" he scoffed.

"All or nothing bud," I stuck out my hand.

"Fine," he reluctantly shook my hand, then closed his door.

I laughed to myself, then went to just sit on the couch and chill out for a few minutes. I was probably going to just sit there and reflect on how shittily I spent my last day of summer. Or how shitty my summer was in general.

My summer wasn't terrible or anything. Just April moving, along with some other minor things made my summer just suck. Meeting Luke, getting close to Misa again, as well as just becoming slightly happier were all pluses. I guess my summer was half bad-half good. It could've been a lot worse.

I had spent the last day of summer doing absolutely nothing. I didn't go anywhere, I didn't see Misa or anyone. I just literally sat there, ate food, watched some Netflix, and messaged Luke. It wasn't anything spectacular. I mean, I didn't want it to be some extraordinary day. I just wanted it to be slightly less monotone than my other summer days.

I realized that it was now two minutes past seven. I had somehow wasted twelve minutes thinking about my summer. Well, also probably Luke.

Strolling over to Seth's room, I knocked on the door again. He opened it, "Give me twenty minutes."

"Mom will probably wanna take pictures of us too," I warned.

"That's really fucking stupid," he muttered.

"Well look nice, princess," I winked.

It did only take him about twenty minutes to get ready. My mom took pictures of us, and we got into the car. On the way there, Seth and I blasted party songs because we wanted to get in a lot better mood to deal with the idiots we were going to deal with later.

We parked, gave one another a look. It was a look of understanding. A look of uncertainty. We weren't sure how this day was going to play out. We weren't sure of who we were still friends with, and who we weren't. We weren't sure if we'd have good teachers, or the bad ones. We weren't even sure of the first thing we were going to say to our friends was.

As I walked into the doors, a feeling of unease grew inside my mind. I didn't do what I had planned on doing for so long.

I guess Luke was never going to know. Well, that must really suck.