I mentally kicked myself for telling my mom about the new twist my dreams had taken. As long as the dreams made me happy, she was okay with me having them, but if they started making me sad, she’d bring up the topic of taking me to a sleep clinic to try to put a stop to them.
When my dad was alive, he had broached the subject of taking me to a clinic many times, but mom always intervened on my behalf. Of course if my mom knew how often I dreamed about him, she probably would have felt differently. As far as she knew, I only dreamt about him occasionally. My dad had serious issues when he found out that the boy in my dreams was aging with me. He was okay with it when I was young, but he didn’t like the idea of me dreaming about some teenage boy.
“Mom, I’m fine,” I said. “Don’t worry about me.”
“It’s my job to worry about you. I don’t like the idea of you getting so upset while you are sleeping,” she glared at me. “And even though you try to cover it, I know that it’s following you throughout your day. You’re just getting over your dad; I hate to see you upset all over again.”
“Mom, trust me, I’m fine. Come on, we need to get a move on or I’m going to be late for the first day of school.”
By the look on her face, I knew the subject wasn’t closed. Next time, I would have to do a better job at covering up the signs of my dreams.
We arrived at my new school with ten minutes to spare. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?”
“No, I’ll be fine. I have my schedule, and I’ve studied the school map enough that I shouldn’t get lost.” At least that’s what I was hoping anyway.
“Try to make friends honey, okay?”
“Mom, you know I’m not good at that. People just don’t like me.”
“That’s not true. People are just put off by the way you study them. Sometimes you look like your searching for something in them.”
She was right of course; I was always sizing everyone up, searching for the same kind of connection with others that I shared with the unknown boy in my dreams.
“Look mom, I’ll try, okay? It’s just hard for me to meet new people.”
“I know honey. I just want you to be happy.”
“I’ll try,” I said again, getting out of the car.
I closed the car door behind me and looked at my new school. I couldn’t help feeling a little awed at the beauty of the campus. The brochures didn’t lie, it was a beautiful school. The building itself was two sprawling stories that was as big as the mall back home. The most appealing feature of the building was the wide staircase leading up to the large imposing front doors that were made from honey colored oak. Windows that sparkled in the bright sunlight lined the exterior of the building and were placed every six feet or so. Each window was adorned with a different brick inlay pattern over it. Ivy ran up the sides of the structure in abundance and made the school look more like an Ivy League college than a private high school.
It was definitely more prestigious looking than my previous high school. I couldn’t help feeling intimidated just looking at it; I now knew why the tuition was so high. The grounds themselves probably cost more to maintain than my old school spent for all their teachers salaries put together. I had once gone golfing with my dad and even that grass couldn’t compare to what surrounded this school. The grass was plentiful and was only broken up by the big oak trees that provided shade over the many picnic tables that littered the grounds. Beautiful flowers flanked the sidewalk leading up to the building, and ran along the border of the building. The overall affect was quite pretty, and I couldn’t help being impressed.
Glancing at my wrist watch, I saw that I still had eight minutes until the bell rang. I looked around for a place to sit while I waited. All the picnic tables were occupied by students catching up on what they had done during spring break. By the sounds of it, most had enjoyed a killer party at some guy’s house. Others had obviously spent their time partying at the beach during spring break, since many of the girls were showing off their new tan lines.
I mentally shook my head as I settled under one of the big oak trees. It didn’t matter if they were smarter, teenagers are the same everywhere. I didn’t know why I felt so out of touch with other kids my age. Maybe my mom was right, maybe I should try to make more of an effort to get to know people better. Maybe the connection I had been searching for all these years just didn’t exist.
I studied a group of guys messing around with a Frisbee. They all looked so carefree and happy. Had I ever been that carefree? I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t thinking about him with some part of my brain. Could someone be carefree when they were always consumed with a hunger for something else?
A shadow fell across me. Looking up in surprise, I saw a very pretty girl looking down at me with interest.
“Aren’t you afraid that you’re going to get a grass stain on your skirt?”
“Excuse me?” I asked surprised. I wasn’t used to someone talking to me; most times people treated me like a leaper.
“Aren’t you afraid you’re going to get a grass stain on your skirt?” the girl repeated.
“No, if I do, I’m sure it will wash.”
The girl’s face widened into a big smile. I felt my mouth spread into a matching smile.
“I knew you were my kind of girl when I saw you plop down without a care of your clothes. I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone sit on the grass since I started here six months ago.” She said, still smiling.
She held out her hand. “I’m Sam.”
“I’m Krista,” I said, reaching out to shake her hand. I gasped in surprise when I felt a small shock like one of those hand buzzers you might get from a joke store, except, Sam was holding nothing. It filled me with a warm feeling like I had been dunked in a steaming bathtub. It gave me a feeling of odd completeness.
“Did you feel that?” I asked in a shocked voice. “What was that?”