Two Thousand Miles Away

Book one: High School - Chapter 1

 Ella

I was walking into the school, my schedule clenched in my hands. The first day of school was always the worst. Even though I'd spent the last three years in this school I still had no clue where my classes were.

When I got to the front door I found it locked. People were rushing to class.

I was going to be late.

The friend group I normally hung out with saw me through the glass doors. Then they kept walking.

All of a sudden there was a sound of a loud alarm. It kept getting louder.

***

I gulped in a breath as I woke with a start. My alarm was blaring next to me. I hurried to turn it off so that it wouldn't wake up either of my brothers. It was 6:30 AM.

Everything came to me at once. It was the first day of my senior year. This was my last year of high school. I glanced at the clock.

And if I didn't get up in the next five minutes I was going to be late.

As I rushed through my morning routine I was regretting my schedule. At my school seniors get to choose an amended day. You can either go in three hours late or leave three hours early. I chose to leave early. I figured that I'd like to have a longer afternoon than waste a morning I'd just sleep through.

I may have made the wrong choice.

Right before I left the apartment I glanced out of the window. My family lived right in the center of New York City on the tenth floor of a building.

I hated living in the city. It was now only seven AM but I could hear the traffic from outside. I'd wanted to leave this place since I was nine. My dream school was the University of Colorado in Boulder.

As I looked outside it dawned on me.

In one year this would all be gone. I'd be far away from this place. Almost two thousand miles away.

***

My worries that had infiltrated my dreams were unfounded. I'd taken all my required classes other than one in the years prior so my schedule was filled with fun electives. Almost all of my teachers were amazing.

It was sixth period in my journalism 2 class that we actually had to do something productive.

My teacher called the class to attention. "Unlike all your other teachers, you're actually gonna do something today," he said. His arms held a stack of papers. "We have a year-long project that I want you guys to start. I've done this project for five years. It's the best way to connect with new people before you go to college. This is an online penpal."

The teacher passed out the rubric for the assignment. He explained that we had to go to this teacher-approved website that would connect us with somebody from across the country. We would be able to choose the state and city.

The teachers wouldn't be able to read the conversations but could see how often we talked. If we went more than three weeks without talking then points would be taken off our final grade.

I quickly fell in love with this project. I didn't know that much about living in Colorado. Now I'd be able to connect with somebody from there and get an idea about what it was really like.

The rest of the day I couldn't wait to get home. I wanted to start this project right away.

I was in such a daze that when I walked to my locker after class that I didn't realize who had a locker right next to me until they said something.

"Ella West," a familiar voice called. I sighed and rolled my eyes. The guy who was standing next to me was the captain of the football team. His friends were gathered around him. A girl was clinging onto another guy's arm. Lucila. She used to be my best friend back when we wore sweatpants instead of skirts.

The football players at our school thought they were gods. They would goof off in class, flirt with anything that had boobs, and blow off school.
I wasn't a fan.

"What do you want, Jeff?" I asked, the annoyance in my voice clear.

Jeff stepped forward and touched my hair. I swatted him away. "I want a date," he said. "With you."

I rolled my eyes and slammed my locker shut. "Keep on dreaming."

Behind me, I heard Lucila say, "Why would you ever want to go out with that? She's so...boring."

As I walked away I was fuming. In my school, I was known as - and I quote - "too pretty to be a nerd." I was tall with fawn hair that fell to my shoulders. My eyes were bright blue. I had a cute face.

I hated that guys here just felt like they could rule the world and mess with anyone they wanted just because they could throw a ball. It was stupid.

***

That night I cooked dinner and helped my younger brother, Grayson, get ready for bed. My dad was a single dad who had to work a lot to support us. I was the mom in the family. Mom left us years ago. My brother wasn't even a month old at the time. Mom racked up a ton of credit card debt, then left our family to pick up the pieces.

It was ten thirty before I could finally find some down time. I could finally make my account for the school project.

I walked into my room and found my laptop. My room was pretty simple. There was a queen sized bed with a green and blue comforter. A small desk that I never used. And my favorite window seat. I could sit there for hours imagining a place that wasn't New York.

That's where I sat as the computer loaded and a list of questions appeared. Name: Ella West. Age: 17. State/city lived in: New York, New York. Username:

I stopped to think about this last question. According to the packet you're not supposed to use your own name. An idea came to me. I typed Cinder. Like Cinderella. I chuckled at my own stupid joke.

The last question was what state I wanted a penpal. I wanted to choose Boulder but I just wanted somebody in Colorado. So I put Colorado as my state and my city as any.

Now I just had to wait.