“Mornings or evenings?” He raised his eyebrows at me, a shadow of a smile on his lips. “Are you a morning person, or a night owl?” I said, feeling the need to explain.
“Definitely not a morning person. I don’t function very well before midday.”
He grinned as I sank into my chair, his eyes lingering on me for another moment, before snapping back to attention.
“Well, let’s get straight into things, huh? If you could all turn to page forty-six, one of you can run over what you covered in your last lesson.”
I forced my attention away from the new teacher and focused on my books. I didn’t need a distraction right now, no matter how sexy the distraction was.
The last year had been hard, and the last eight months had been hell. School was something I hated with a passion. It hadn’t always been that way though. Last year it had been a complete and utter different story. That’s how much things had changed.
Last year I had friends, a boyfriend, and a family.
And I wasn’t surrounded by money-obsessed skanks all day.
Prep school was like my worst nightmare come true. When the thought ‘I wish I’d died along with the rest of my family’ crosses your mind on a daily basis, it’s pretty obvious you’re not in a great place emotionally. This place was hell. No, it was worse than hell, and I couldn’t wait to leave. I was counting the days until I graduated.
Next month would mark exactly one year since I lost my family. It did get easier, but it’s not something you get over. The nightmares came most nights, and were almost expected. It was like a constant recount of what I’d lost.
Every dream was the same: Me, in the back with my brother. I was wearing my new jeans. He had spilled soda in my lap and I was yelling at him. Mom was yelling at me to stop yelling, and Dad was trying to calm Mom down. I actually felt the moment the car hit the tree, the impact nearly splitting the car in half. I’d blacked out, and woken up in hospital.
I knew before they’d even told me that my family was gone. I can’t explain it, but there was emptiness inside that hospital room, and I just knew. Maybe it was just anxiety I was feeling, but the dread I felt moments before they told me was inconceivable and unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. Unless you’ve lost someone close to you, understanding the pain of losing someone you love is something you’ll never quite understand. I’d lost grandparents when I was younger, and though that was sad I’d moved on, because that’s what you do. Death had always been something that was scary, but distant. I mean, nobody in my immediate family was going anywhere anytime soon, right?
You always think it will never happen to you. I used to watch the news and see these horrific events and feel bad for the people involved, but never really consider that it was something that could happen to me.
Until it did. Until that was me.
How I survived, I have no idea. My injuries were minor compared to how bad they could have been: three broken ribs and a broken pelvis. I was in the hospital for three weeks, and then in a hotel for another four, with Layna staying with me until I’d recovered enough to move here. I couldn’t go back home; the idea of facing years and years of memories was too much.
It was the psychological trauma that took the longest to get over—that I’m still getting over. The first few weeks after the accident, it didn’t feel real. It was like I was locked in a nightmare, just waiting to wake up. Even at the funeral, I struggled to comprehend that they were gone. I buried three family members in one afternoon, and there was still a part of me expecting Mom to come in and kiss me goodnight. Or for Jordan to call, begging for a lift home. Or to have Dad yell at me for using his car without permission.
The moment I began to accept what had happened was in the fourth week, as we were packing up the house. I’d stumbled across some photos taken during the vacation we took to Hawaii the summer before. We all looked so damn happy, lazing around the pool without a care in the world. Back then, my biggest problem had been deciding which shoes to wear with my new black and red sundress.
I just lost it. I sat on my bedroom floor crying for hours, calling my voicemail over and over just so I could hear their voices once more. Even now, I still have those messages saved.
Sometimes all I needed to hear was my mom saying ‘I love you’ to remember I was lucky enough to have had them at all.
***
After the excitement of first period, the rest of the day paled in comparison. I saw Mr. Reid in the halls a few times. My palms would begin to sweat and my face would heat up, but he never even glanced at me. I was invisible and I liked it that way. I could look at him and fantasize from a distance without looking like a sex-starved maniac—like every other girl in school.