An Echo in the Wind

Chapter 2

Monday comes too soon as I turn off my blaring alarm clock. My nerves are at an all time high. I've never been the new kid before, having lived in the same place my entire life. I know what it's like in movies: either everyone wants to be their friend, or they become some loser that's the target of some popular blonde bimbo. 

I'm not sure I like either option. I was never a loser back home, but I was never popular either. I was just there. I had one close friend, but I mostly just stayed out of everyone's way. 

I hope I make friends here. I want to fit in, I want to be liked. It's probably superficial to think like that, but is it so wrong to just want some sense of normality after so much bad f-ing luck?

It's warm in California, with minimal cold weather, so I dress in a graphic tee and light denim ripped jeans paired with my combat boots. I tie my soft brown curls into a half up, half down style quickly and grab a piece of toast from the kitchen. 

High School starts at 7:30 here, and we have half our classes first semester and the other half second semester, which is different from Florida where we had all of our classes all year long. 

We moved to a moderately small town, and the elementary, middle, and high school are all next to each other, but have their own parking lots. I don't know when the middle school starts, but I know the elementary school starts at 9, so I'm guessing it's sometime in between that. 

The school isn't far from here, but it's almost 7 so I really need to get going. I go up the stairs to my moms room quietly to give her a kiss goodbye, even if she's still sleeping. 

I creak open the door slowly; the lights are off but I can still see the room with the natural light from the window. 

My mom is lying on top of her covers, asleep. But then my eyes shift to her arm that's hanging off the bed and I see an empty bottle of vodka in it. My heart sinks to the floor and my mouth falls open slightly. 

"So much for progress," I mutter. My lower lip trembles and I know I'm going to be in a bad mood for the rest of the day. 

I clench my jaw. I'm not going to cry. I shouldn't have expected anything to be different here. She's still the same person. Nothing has changed and nothing ever will. 

I sigh and go back upstairs. Obviously, she isn't going to be taking care of Austin this morning. I don't have time to stay and get him on the bus, but I can at least make sure he's up. 

I shake him awake and he groans, trying to push me away. "Come on little dude. Time to get up. I need to leave and you need to start getting ready for school."

He sits up, rubbing his eyes, "Can I wear my Harry Potter glasses to school?"

I bite my lip. I don't want him to get made fun of on day one, "How about you can bring them in your backpack?"

He seems satisfied with that answer and starts getting dressed. It's 7:20 by the time I get him downstairs and stick a bowl of cereal in front of him. I guess I'm not going to make it to class on time. 

"I need to go to school, but the bus will pick you up at the corner, okay? See the time? You need to make sure you leave the house and walk to the bus stop by 8:25. You can watch some tv before school but make sure you pay attention to the time. You can not miss the bus."

He nods and looks at the time, "It is seven two one."

"Mhm, that's what time it is right now. When it says eight two five, you leave the house and go to the corner, understand?"

"Yes." He says. 

I grab my new keys and race off to the school, I'm five minutes late, even with speeding the whole way there. I swing into a spot and frantically go up and down the empty halls, looking for my first period classroom. 

Great. I'm already late and now I can't even find my stupid class. 

I'm 13 minutes late to class by the time I find it, and I know I'll be called out as I open the door, my backpack still on my shoulder since I didn't have time to play around with my locker this morning. 

The teacher stops what he was saying to look up at me, as does the entire class of judgy little eyes. I look away from them, my face flushing from embarrassment. 

"Ah, here's our new student. I see that they didn't teach punctuality in your last school, but at Ridgeway, you get detention if you're late to class."

"Sorry, I got lost," I mutter, only a half lie.

He sighs, "Very well, you've still earned yourself a detention after school today in my classroom Miss Frost. Take a seat right there next to Sophie."

I deflate and roll my eyes as I plop down next to the girl named Sophie in the back of the classroom. She has a round face and silky black hair. Her face is filled of gentle features and soft freckles. I'd say she was probably mixed asian-white if I had to guess. She's really pretty. 

She smiles and whispers, "Don't mind him. He's like that to everyone. He's a cranky old bastard because his wife won't give him any."

I cover my mouth to keep myself from laughing loudly. I smile at her, I decide right then that I like her. 

"I'm Echo," I whisper.

"Sophie. You should sit with me and my friend at lunch. Any victim of Mr. Bern's is an ally of ours."

Yep, I definitely like her. I nod, "Sure, thanks."

She glances at my backpack, "I don't know about your last school, but we have these things called lockers here."

I chuckle, "I was a bit rushed this morning and didn't want to deal with a locker that probably wouldn't have opened."

We both keep talking under our breaths the entire period, Mr. Bern too engulfed in his back to school lesson to notice. It's not like we missed anything important. 

My next two classes were pretty much the same, boring first day of school procedures that took up the entire hour and a half long class period. Sophie gave me her number so I could text her if I couldn't find her at lunch. 

I walk into the cafeteria and search for her face. I'm about to shoot her a text when I see her hand shoot up and wave at me from a circular table. I walk over and sit next to her. There's another girl sitting there too. 

She smiles widely at me, her orange curls bouncing as she does, "I'm Carly. I heard we were getting a new student this year, Sophie told me you're super cool."

I laugh, "I'm Echo."

"That is such a cool name." She whines, "I'm so jealous."

"So, are you like...popular?" I ask cautiously. They probably are, and when they find out I'm not, they'll ditch me for their other friends.

Carly scoffs, "God no. It's just us here for each other. Why would you think that? Do you want to hang out with them instead? OMG, were you popular back home?" She asks sadly and deflates. 

"Oh no," I say hurriedly, "I just assumed you two were because you're both really pretty and at my old school, the prettiest girls were the popular ones."

Carly exchanges a glance with Sophie, "Okay, I like her."

We all laugh and eventually get to talking about our classes. Carly huffs, "I can't believe he gave you detention on the first day! And you're new! It's not your fault for being late, Mr. Bern is such a sour puss because-"

"Because his wife won't sleep with him? Yeah, I've heard," I say, laughing. 

After we finish eating lunch, they show me where my locker is and help me open it. Like expected, it takes five minutes for all three of us to figure out how to get it open. I unload my books and binders, only taking out my science notebook for my next class. 

But when I turn around, closing my locker, I slam into a rock hard chest and red liquid spills over me. 

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QOTD: Have you ever gotten detention? What was it like?

>> I never have, so I'm honestly curious