Old Freewrite #1

 Story: Unknown

Possible Introduction

By Mylee Miller

   Are you ready?

    Out of all the questions Westward could be asked, she hated this one the most.

    Gritting her teeth and drumming a broken pencil against an equally broken desk, she tried to focus on the exam sitting blank and lackluster before her. Mathematics. What could be worse than answering a few equations? Being asked if she was prepared to face the nightmare awaiting her.

    Glancing at Mr. Peters, who typed furiously on his keyboard at the front of the dingy classroom, she tapped quietly at the keys of her Nokia 2720. 

    What did she do this time?

    Problem three. Invisible numbers to the third, second, and fourth powers. She scribbled the answers as fast as her unsteady fingers managed their awful scrawl. The numbers came out looking like letters.

    Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.

    Snickers rang out nearby. Flinching, she stared at the test for an agonizing twenty seconds, and then peered at the oblivious teacher as he continued deleting emails. 

    She glanced down.

    You know what.

    Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.

    She frowned, clicking her phone shut as a nearby student glanced her way and Mr. Peters looked up from his ancient console. Despite the absence of a miniature screen glaring into her face, the words of Southland’s last message painted her eyelids with glowing black ink.

    I think she’s going to kill you.

    Chills swept down her spine, gooseflesh rupturing her forearms and shoulders. The little bumps rubbed the sleeves of her flannel button-up, itchy and cold. Keeping her head down and shoulders hunched, she rushed across problems four through twenty. Twenty more minutes. Ten more questions. Five more minutes. Breath of the bell.

    As the lame, tolling bell sounded through the classroom, Westward slid out of her seat and almost ran to hand in the exam. Mr. Peters barely looked up, but several students followed her with their eyes as she sped away. The obvious stares scratched at her back like insects in the old Louisiana heat, questioning and curious. She tried not to swat at them. 

    Halfway down the outside hall of lockers and cracked tiles, of smelly socks and sweaty bodies, she drew in a sharp breath. Leaning against the east exit, his coppery hair swept to the side, slouched Samuel. An easy smile settled on his face as he caught sight of her from a considerable distance down the corridor. Ripped jeans. Beatles tee-shirt. Torn up converse. She froze where she stood, fingering the agitating little cellular device in her hand. 

    Run now, and you might make it to the doors before he can stop you.

    Run now, and you’ll lose everything you worked so hard for.

    Westward muttered under her breath and slowed her pace as she approached the double doors. A funnel of students caught her on all sides. Samuel waved her down no more than twenty feet away. 

    “What’s new, sunshine?” Samuel asked, loping over and swinging an arm through hers. He bowed over her and grinned. “Exams were that bad?”

    “I’m no sunshine compared to your devastating rainbow,” Westward replied, reluctantly slipping her phone into a jean pocket. “Is there a reason you’re halting my progress to freedom? We have other friends. You could always stop them from going home and actually enjoying their lives.”

    Samuel laughed, pulling her towards the doors of the school through a particularly large crowd of students that jabbed, poked, and brushed her. “That wouldn’t be as fun,” Samuel disagreed, pushing open the doors to release a blistering swelter of cold on their faces in the form of harsh Oregon wind and early October frost. “Besides, I wanted to talk to you about something that I didn’t think the others would take seriously.”

    “Sam...”

    She spotted them before he did, as always. The stickered vans and heavy cameras and well-dressed newscasters and curly-haired journalists, all lined up to prepare for their latest interview attempt. Stiffening, she ducked into Samuel’s side and pulled the hoodie of her leather jacket over her head-as if it offered any protection from the afternoon News. Following her gaze, Samuel’s face puckered like a swelling blueberry and he yanked her toward the corner of Leftvale High, pulling them both around the main building and hiding them, temporarily, from what would soon be chasing Westward all the way to... somewhere safer.

    “What is their deal?” Samuel growled, still pulling her toward the other side of the school. “They never leave. It’s like they think they have some sort of claim on our lives, to follow us wherever we go-”

    “As much as I appreciate the implication, it’s not you they’re after,” Westward said, grounding him to a halt by digging her heels into the ground. “They’ll find me eventually. I have to go past them to get home. I have to go past them to get to work. I have to go past them to get to school. They always catch me once or twice. I’m used to it. You shouldn’t-” Samuel’s eyes took on a dark shadow and his arm tightened around hers - “worry. Really. I don’t need it. What’s up? I don’t want to be late getting to my brother. You know how he gets.”

    And he knows how everyone else does.