Life by Chance

Back to Life as She Knows It. Not.

Tana stood in front of her mirror, staring at the long, white scar that ran from her bellybutton to the top of her rib cage. It's a good thing that she's still not allowed to participate in gym because she doesn't want to explain how she got it. She already relives the events in her sleep. She doesn't want to recall them in the waking hours of her life. She quickly pulls on her white button up and the school issued blazer that makes up the standard apparel of the Lincoln Academy dress code.

Satisfied with her appearance, Tana ran down the hall and out the front door. She had finally won back the ability to walk to school after convincing her parents that it would be better for her to resume her normal routine. Her parents agreed to this suggestion on the one condition that she would only walk to and from school with no detours. If she wanted to go anywhere else, she had to have at least one trusted friend or adult with her or wait for one of them to get off from work and take her. These conditions weren't too different from the previous set from before the accident, so she agreed on the spot.

Lincoln Academy was only a ten minute walk from Tana's house, so got their early, as usual. There were no cars in the student parking lot and teachers were still pulling in to their designated spots. As to keep up with her old routine, Tana entered the main building and headed towards the library. Starting her day in the quiet expanse of the library always made the day less stressful. Just the fact that there were worlds and universes that Tana could escape to that she could hold in her hands helped her feel relaxed. She picked up an old favorite, Heidi, and disappeared into the Swiss Alps.

After half a hour had passed, Tana could hear her peers out in the hallway. She always took this as her cew to return to reality. Again, the importance of a routine was ringing in her head, reminding her this is the life she knows, the life wants to have. With one final glance at the worn cover, she replaces the book on the shelf and enters the steady flow of students in the hall.

It takes Tana a second to hear the commotion coming from the main entrance. Many students around her also begin to notice and decide to head towards the action. Tanas curiosity get the best of her, and she follows the crowd. There were so many people that Tana had to shove and elbow people to ge to the front to see what's happening. She immediately wished she hadn't.

Standing in the middle of a large ring of students stood two boys, each staring the other down. One was Lincoln Academy's star point guard and resident playboy, Zane Walker. He wasn't the one that Tana was worried about.

He stood a good eight inches taller than Zane and weighed about twenty pounds more. He had enough muscle on him to suggest he went to the gym a lot. Just barely visible below the cuffs of his uniform were a set of tattoos that Tana knew went up to his shoulders. The tattoo on his neck was much more visible, a pair of crossed daggers. His electric-blue eyes showed his annoyance of being confronted by this random kid, but Tana knew how gentle those eyes could be.

He wasn't a part of the life she wanted, the life she had before she lived through a nightmare. He was the part of the nightmare that saved her life. She owed him for that, but she didn't want a part of what happened around her. He and the rest of it should've stayed in her nightmares. Yet here he was, defying that simple request. He might as well have been a thirty foot tall neon sign as to what she feared. Tana wasn't getting back the life she knew.