Background Character

Chapter 27

I blink and find myself in a bedroom. It takes a few moments for me to discern whether or not this room is familiar to me. I've only been in Jake's bedroom, if you can even call it that. No, this bedroom is far too familiar.

It's my bedroom. I'm in my own bed, waking up on...yes, my phone says the very same thing, Prom. Today is Prom.

Before my Mom can knock on my door, her misguided way of getting my out of bed, I'm up. I dress with a swiftness I had no idea I possessed in the morning. I'm not the narrator, I'm just boring old Sebastian. I never thought I'd be so happy to see that stupid cross my mother hung across from my bed. It was our compromise to my insistence that I didn't need to attend church anymore.

She seems bewildered by my sudden change in attitude, barely managing a, "Good morning" as I rush past her and down the stairs. I grab a granola bar and jump into my car, the pur of the engine is music to my ears. I have missed hearing it roar to life every morning, it's a comforting sound and it helps me wake up a little further.

I want to get to school as early as I can. B and I had promised yesterday to meet in front of the newsroom today, to show that I'm me again. I wasn't quite so sure I would wake up, or if I'd disappear in a puff of smoke as soon as midnight hit.

My fingers drum against the steering wheel as I anxiously wait at the stoplight. Part of me is going to miss just blinking and finding myself somewhere else. It's certainly a lot more fun than waiting being stuck in traffic, even if I couldn't control where I went and when I went there.

"Come on!" I scream as some asshole in a Beemer cuts me off. "Seriously, learn to freaking drive!"

Sorry, I'm just really anxious to get to school.

Eventually I pull up to the school and find no one else in the parking lot, except for a scattering of teachers and janitors. I turn right into a spot just a few feet from the front door, a first for me. I usually wake up late and have to walk half a mile just to get to the school building, not including the walk to my locker and then my first class.

No one but me is inside, the teachers are probably huddled in the teacher's lounge over the barely warm coffee machine while the morning janitors are just finishing the last of their duties. I revel in the silence, in being alone for the first time in a long while. No longer am I plagued by Jake pining over Olivia and Hannah silently brooding over her long kept secret.

I'm actually free.

It takes a while to find the newsroom, it's located in the basement of the school. Some of the smaller clubs have rooms down here so it gets very little foot traffic, especially because no one needs to walk through it to get to their class. The newsroom is at the very end of the hallway, the furthest from the only staircase.

The lights flicker as I pass, feeling very unsafe as I walk alone down the dimly lit hallway. I understand it not being quite as nice as the upstairs, but do we really have to play into the creepy basement rope. Really? Why can't it at least be decently lit?

The newsroom itself is locked, so I decide to take a seat outside it. No one comes down the hallway for the next twenty minutes, so I play on my phone to pass the time. Nothing much is happening on social media at this time of the morning, except some "Just woke up" tweets and a few coffee snapchats on people's stories.

Eventually a few people begin to file through, most stopping at one of the rooms before me. Someone comes and unlocks the door to the newsroom and spares me a strange look before continuing into the room. I sit there waiting for another twenty minutes, staying beyond even the Editor-in-Chief, the boy who originally unlocked the door. The bell signalling five minutes to first period faintly rings, barely a whisper through the near-silent hallway.