The weeks fell away and I immersed myself in work from Professor Evans. I really thought hard about trying to go back in the fall and be a senior. The sooner I could finish high school the sooner I could get out of here.
It's not that I hated being home, but it just seemed like it was time to move on. I was ready for the next big challenge, and honestly I was tired of living in Erik's shadow.
He was done with school and going into the army. My dad was so proud and gushed about him constantly. The perfect son, good grades, good looking and never a shortage of girlfriends. At first dad was not happy about him wanting to go in the army, but Erik wasn't taking no for an answer.
Since Erik was leaving, he was out partying with his friends every night, making the most of his final days. Dad was working all the
Jace sent me a text message a few hours later saying that he was going to pick me up for dinner. I packed a small overnight bag and made my arrangements with Tara. Apparently Tara had a big crush on one of Jace's other friends and wanted him to put in a good word.I got some chores done and talked to dad for a bit, convincing him easily that I was going to Tara's. The minutes seemed to go by incredibly slow, I was starting to get super paranoid.I was probably staring at the wall a good hour, totally lost in my thoughts when I heard Jace pull up.I asked him where we were going to eat and he just smiled and said, "the diner of course!"We settled into a booth a few minutes later, and even though we both always got the same thing we often would sta
A few minutes later I heard Mrs. Wheaton get home. The plan was to not let anybody know I was in the house. I was not allowed to sleep over and Mrs. Wheaton would definitely tell my dad.Jace went out to talk to her for a few minutes, and told her he wasn't feeling well and was going to go to bed early. He came in his room and locked the door. We settled into a movie and for a while I forgot about everything. Just shut it all out of my mind and chose to be blissfully ignorant.How did I even get to this point?A nice, quiet shy girl.Now sitting here waiting to kill somebody.We fell asleep halfway through the movie and slept undisturbed until about 7 am. I heard someone talking out in the hall, but I
It was dark, and quiet. I tried to move my hand but nothing happened.Was I dead?What was happening??I heard voices far off, but I couldn't tell what they were saying. I tried, and tried to open my eyes but nothing was happening. I gave up and fell back asleep.I have no idea what made me think of her, but I saw Noora, my friend from Qatar. She had a giant whiteboard just like I did, and we were laughing and throwing cheese puffs at each other.Did this mean I was going to meet her someday?Noora liked using notecards to write out everything so she could stick them to her board. We called her the card queen. She worked out a lot of things on n
Over the next few months I went through every possible emotion. I was so angry at Jace. My initial reaction of course was to blame him. This should have never happened, there's so many other ways we could have gone about it.When the commotion happened that morning between his parents we should have just ran. I could kill myself forever on the what ifs, and I pretty much was.I went to his grave often, and most of the time I just yelled at him. I told him about all the things we could have done, seen and experienced together. Sometimes I would take a blanket and just lay there for hours, talking to him.Sometimes I would yell at the sky, sometimes I just cried myself to sleep.Jace's plan went right in some fashion at least ... his mom got $250,000 in l
I took Mr. Drew up on his offer of moving me to twelfth grade. Anything I could do to get the hell out of here sooner. I did exactly what mom said and I buried myself in my work.I still had so many unanswered questions surrounding Jace, but mom was the only one who could tell me and that seemed like a dead end.I spent a lot of time talking to the international group of math nerds. I told Noora that I had a dream about her, through the translator of course. She was slowly starting to pick up some English but she still had a long way to go.She laughed and asked what it was about.I said, “we were solving all of the world’s problems of course!”My curiosity got the better of me and I asked
One Saturday morning, I was sound asleep and snuggled warm in my bed. I was awakened to someone jumping on my bed. I opened my eyes ready to slap whoever was there, when I realized it was dad.“Wake up sleepy-head! We're going out today. You're finally going to learn how to drive.”I looked at the clock and immediately grumbled, “I could also learn how to drive at 2 in the afternoon, you do realize?”“Quit your bitchin' and get in the shower! I'm finishing breakfast now. Come on it's been a long time since the two of us spent the day together, it'll be fun!”Yeah, great.I forced myself up and got ready.Dad h
The next months went by like a blur. I didn’t go to prom. First of all there was no one to go with, and secondly, I didn’t want to be the only sixteen year old at the senior prom.I threw myself into my work, Professor Evans was already on me like glue. He could not have been more excited. He introduced me to several other math professors who were just throwing work at me to see if I could do it. I loved the challenges.Professor Evans agreed to be my sponsor, we had filed paperwork to have me emancipated but I still needed to be under some level of supervision. I would be staying on campus, but I would not have a roommate. I was to meet with my sponsor several times a week for check-ins. Really, I’d probably see him every day anyhow.Dad also got me set up with my own checking account
Dad and I decided there was no way he would be driving me across the country to California. So if I was flying, I would have to be travelling light and just get a lot of things once I got there. Dad flew out with me, but only had a carry-on for himself, leaving me to be able to put two suitcases under his ticket. I tried like hell to pare down, but I still had so much I wanted to bring.I had hoped to share my excitement for leaving with mom, but she was MIA, yet again. Erik was now stationed in southern Georgia and rather busy so our main communication was by email. He was so happy I was getting out of white suburbia and forging my own path in life. Constantly hearing him tell me how proud he was, just gave me the confidence I needed and wasn’t getting from mom.We landed in San Francisco and it was nothing like I had ever seen. The people se