The Songbird

    Parking in the front of the school was something new as she arrived at the building that was about a ten-minute drive from her house now. Her parent's house wasn’t too far away, but she had no desire to put herself through that amount of pain. She laughed to herself as she walked into the office and looked and saw everyone was the same, even ten plus years later. She waited at the desk as the woman looked her over, “And how can I help you, young lady?” the woman asked in the smartest tone.“I am here for a meeting with Judy Libby.” Larissa countered.“Regarding?” The woman asked.“A helping position for her class,” Larissa said as she looked at the woman who was looking at her again.“Is this a joke?” The woman asked, “Are you skipping your class right now?”&l

 4     She heard the couple fighting in the science office's hallway as she opened the door. “Jeez, Gabe, you are so overreacting. We were not doing anything. He was just helping me with moving some things around in my room.” The woman said as she raised her voice, and then Larissa heard the man she had just met speak, “Ann, come on.”“What?” the woman asked as it seemed like she was trying to think of something. Larissa had no patience for things like this or many people for that matter. She went to the classroom and looked around. It still looked pretty much the same as she went to sit down in her old seat. She was smiling again as she remembered the class and the older woman going after so many of her classmates, but she had a special place for Larissa,

    She was done with the class in an hour. Though she thought it went well, she knew how to make it better. There will be a few things that she could do that would be easy to make the class more fun for the teens there that were probably not all that into the actual class but there for a requirement. Though she was now in search of the older woman to see what else needed to be done for the day, she couldn’t find her. Larissa went into the greenhouse that was in the back of the offices for the science department and saw that Mr. Vincent was in there with a class. He looked over and smiled. “It hasn’t been used that much since you left. That was really the only time I ever saw it in use.”“Maybe I will get some seeds, and we can see it again in its former glory,” Larissa said with a smile as she saw the younger students all look at her like

  She received a phone call about six hours later from the hospital. It seemed a bad accident had happened on the highway, and the casualties were too much for the staff they had. She rolled out of bed, knowing that she had to wake up enough to drive to the hospital herself. After a quick change, she was dressed in her favorite scrubs and had a cup of coffee ready for the trip.The hospital road was completely backed up. She saw it well before she was close to the hospital and then adjusted the way she drove in. She switched directions and went in the back way that most people didn’t know about. She had to park in the last row of the staff parking. There were more cars there than she had ever seen. That was her first clue that this was not going to be good.She went in and saw the overflow from the emergency department in the lobby and on the street in the front of the building. When she got up, and she pulled her hair u

    The two sat mostly in silence as they drank their coffee, and every once in a while, Larissa would glance out of the window toward the school and saw the smoke rising above the trees. She felt the plummet in her chest as she didn’t want to think about it anymore. She looked at him, who was now looking at his cell phone waiting for something to arrive, and somehow Larissa knew it would never come in.“I guess I have my answer,” Gabe said as she looked up to Larissa from staring at his screen.“With? “Larissa asked.“She is definitely cheating on me,” Gabe said. “I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. I was just the latest victim in her long line.”“Maybe something else happened. Like someone she knew was also in the accident. Maybe she has to deal with that.” Larissa countered. Thoug