The First Drop Of Rain

Chapter Thirty Seven

As always, the first day of school left me feeling nervous to the point of nausea, and barely able to sleep the night before. Somehow I always managed to pull it together and be able to function through the day. I stared up at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, the events of a couple weeks ago still rang in my mind. After Edward had left me alone, I had plugged my phone in and instantly received over twenty texts from Gaia. At first my heart stopped at thinking she knew everything, or worse, was hurt. Thankfully Paul followed the rules and didn't breathe a supernatural word to Gi. She had gushed over the date, and then also prodded me for details about mine. I forked over as much as I could before I had to start lying, I didn't know how to explain Edward showing up, so as far as she knew I caught a ride home with Charlie. I knew I could get away with it, because Charlie Swan wasn't ever one to really question us. He assumed the best of us, and assumed we were self-sufficient enough to not get into too much trouble on our own.

Now I stood in my living room, a to-go cup of coffee gripped tight in both my hands, and my keys dangling from my pinkie. It was August twenty fifth, which meant there was only three weeks until I could take my drivers test. The freedom that September would bring was so deeply relieving to me, the fifteenth would mark my sixteenth birthday, and that meant only one thing. I was another year closer to putting Forks in my rear view for college.

I began running through my mental checklist, my book bag hanging heavy on my shoulders, loaded with items that once in my locker, wouldn't leave until the final day of school again. I tapped the toe of my new shoes as I thought, which were extra high converse hightops, I stared at the white laces that started just a few inches south of the hem of my shorts.

Once the checklist was done in my head, I threw one more glance to the reflection in the back of the curio cabinet that sat in the dining room that only gathered dust. I stared at the reflection, still taking in the drastic change I had undergone after my last Edward encounter. In addition to the shoulder length hair, which now had gained about an inch since the impulsive cut that left it dusting the tops of my shoulders when straight, I had a neon green streak peaking through the dense layers. I had been talked down from the raccoon style I had seen on Avril, I was particularly glad Gi had gotten me from that ledge. I took another glance, adjusting my black flannel over the black tank top one more time before heading out the door to see Gaia pulling up at exactly 7:15 like she said she would.

"Are you ready?" She asked as I threw my bag in her backseat and then crawled in the front.

"Uhh... yes?" I looked at myself, questioning my fashion choice suddenly.

"Not for school, I like your outfit, I meant for seeing E for the first time since last year. It's been three months." She refused to say Edward's name sheerly on principal, Gaia was truly a better friend than I could ever be.

"Oh, that..." I scrambled mentally to find a sufficient enough response to her question. "I mean, as ready as I'll ever be? As long as we aren't lab partners or something I can't see it being a problem." Gi nodded as she pulled from my driveway, immediately launching into the game plan for yearbook and newspaper this year. Once we pulled up to the school, reality began setting in full force, and I had to push the panic down.

I walked through the front doors of the admin building, ready to pick up my schedule for the year as well as my new school provided chromebook. Gaia and I had shown up early so we could snag the good chromebooks that didn't have broken or stuck keys. We also needed to head off all the traffic to the yearbook room, between her and I we could curb all the questions about scheduling. There was always at least one photographer that wanted to make it clear that they couldn't take photos for the football games because they were on the cheer team, or because they had a prior engagement on Friday nights. There was also always one senior who wanted to make it clear only they got to make the senior pages, even though they knew that it was run by the juniors. It was annoying but we learned quickly how to deal with it last year.