The sound of the alarm cut through the silence in my room, and my eyes fluttered open. I was momentarily blinded by the bright sunlight beating down on me from my window. I had left my curtains open, the night before. I grabbed my pillow and put it over my face, unwilling to get up. It wouldn’t be a good day. It would be a very bad day, in fact. I could feel it in every bone in my body. Something terrible would happen on this unhappy Monday.
          Of course, I had this melodramatic feeling every day.
          I reached over and slapped the snooze button. I didn’t close my eyes again, but I didn’t get out of bed. I just angrily looked up at the poster of puns that someone had plastered on my
ceiling. Mornings were my personal hell. School was my personal hell. Everything that went on before noon was my personal hell, but refusing to get out of bed before the other residents of this
house regained consciousness was a safety hazard.
          The alarm went off again, and I sat up. I unplugged it and threw it across the room, and then got out of bed. Before I could take more than a step, I tripped over something I couldn’t see
and landed face-first onto the hardwood floor. Pain shot through my nose and I rolled over onto my back. A couple of drops of blood trickled out of my left nostril and slid down the side of my
face. I grabbed a tissue to stop the bleeding, and then let my head drop back onto the floor. I was simply not meant to go anywhere, today.
          I heard activity downstairs and looked at the door. No one was coming in, but I had left it unlocked. I immediately scrambled to my feet and bolted it shut. I walked over to my closet and pulled out a pair of jeans and a sweater. I changed quickly and threw the pajamas on the chair in front of my desk, and then gathered the papers and books that I had fallen asleep working on and
stuffed them into my bag. I shouldered it and left the room.
          I walked down the hall and took the wooden stairs down to our overcrowded kitchen. No one was there, but the mess was so massive that it filled the room. Abandoned bottles and cans
were tossed haphazardly around, and cigarette butts littered the tiled floor. A deck of cards had fallen off the table and was scattered all around. Glass from broken bottles lay on the marble
counter tops, and every surface was sticky with some kind of spilled liquid. It appeared that someone had gotten into an altercation involving a lamp, which had fallen into pieces on the floor. Two balls from a pool table we didn’t even have were sitting inside a baseball cap in the
sink. There was no explanation anywhere for this, so I left it alone.
          I wasn’t fazed. I had seen worse.
          I opened the refrigerator with more force than necessary, and a bottle of orange juice flew out of it and hit me in the face. Someone had left the top open, and it soaked my shirt. I wrung the liquid out of the fabric and looked for something to dab it with. I went through two cabinets before I finally found a roll of paper towels hidden behind unused cleaning supplies. I did my best to get it all out, and then tossed the wad of napkins at the open trashcan. It didn’t land anywhere near it, but I didn’t bother picking it up. It did a good job covering the bag of powder on the floor.
          I stuffed an apple into my mouth and went through the door to the living room. Inside were only two people; My mother was passed out on her stomach on the Persian rug she had bought with my father, and her latest concubine was sprawled across a leather armchair a few
feet away from her. He was snoring loudly with his mouth wide open, but she was very still. I couldn’t hear her breathing, and her fiery red curls covered her pale face.
          I knelt, dropping my bag next to me. I moved her hair and stuck two fingers on her neck. I felt around for the right spot, and then waited. I counted heart beats for thirty seconds, and then
took to my feet, again. I stepped over her and walked out of the door without looking back, not bothering to lock it behind me. I took off down the sidewalk and joined the throng of people walking down the street.
          The teenagers around me didn’t see me at all. Everyone was engrossed in their own lives. They were all laughing and shoving each other. One boy had his arm around a girl almost a foot taller than him. Two boys were attempting to get between them and pull them apart, but they held on tightly. Finally, the boy was yanked just hard enough to drop his arm and trip over his own feet. The girl attempted to catch him, but she couldn’t. He fell onto two girls walking in front of them. All of them tumbled to the ground.
          “You’re an ass,” the tall girl said.
          “Sorry, Madame Maxime.”
          The girl rolled her eyes and laughed. I found them all fascinating. The way they dealt with each other was somehow animalistic and human all at once. They worked together and
against each other. They entertained each other through insults and manipulative games. They were an exclusive, elusive group that didn’t spare a thought to outsiders.
          And I was an outsider. I never had the urge to change that. All I ever did was attempt to analyze their behavior when I had nothing better to do than listen quietly from my corner when I had no choice but to be around them.
          It wasn’t that I was a pariah. They didn’t avoid or mistreat me. I was simply a docile shade of gray that had very little effect on their lives. They never noticed that I was even there. I was invisible. Even teachers rarely called on me in classes. I never once raised my hand. I bothered no one, and no one bothered me.
          I made it to the corner of the sidewalk just as the bus stopped in front of it. I waited until everyone else had boarded, and then sat in the very first seat to avoid the fray. The kids started
yelling at each other and the noise steadily increased. I covered my ears with headphones to drown it out.
          Simon, the same driver who had taken me to school every day since I was just shy of fourteen years old, pulled out to head to the school. I turned to look out of the window and watched the frustration on other drivers’ faces due to Simon’s turtle-like driving. He always
drove exactly the speed limit—not a mile over or lower. He stopped at every single yellow light and spent far too much time at every stop sign. No amount of honking or yelling could get him to change his driving. Simon was ancient.
          We finally pulled into the school parking lot, and everyone got up. I waited until they had all climbed down before descending the stairs myself. Simon gave me a bright smile as I was leaving. He never said a word to anyone. Rain or shine, he just smiled and waved us off.
          I walked into the building and quickly made my way to my first class. I hated being late. Lateness meant that someone would notice and talk to me. My voice hadn’t been heard in this
school more than a handful of times.
          I took my usual seat in the back of the classroom and pulled out a notebook and pencils. The teacher, Elias Vanguard, was already standing at the front. He was writing bullet points about significant people during the Cold War on the board. He had glanced up when I walked in,
but he didn’t acknowledge me. He just returned to the book he was copying notes from. We were the only people in the room. Neither of us said a word to the other.
          Vanguard wasn’t generally rude or condescending. He cared about the students he liked—the ones he felt were trying their best. He went out of his way to help them, but he never extended that to me. He barely spoke to me. I was the quiet girl in the back of the room who
always seemed disinterested in what he had to say. I was very often just looking out of the window, because the animals in the field outside were more engaging than he was. I was not the only student who did that, but I was the only one he was openly hostile toward.
          The rest of my classmates filed in and sat down. It was an advanced placement class. There were only seven of us, and each person in the room was on the road to a top tier university.
They pulled out their notebooks and began scribbling furiously. I attempted to join them, but five minutes into the lesson, I stopped and averted my gaze to the field.
          The birds that had been nesting right by my window had disappeared. Kids on their free periods were out chasing each other and throwing things. I saw a short boy who looked to be
about two hundred pounds attempt to climb a tree to retrieve a ball. His friends were on the ground egging him on and clapping. I watched him steadily move up the trunk and into the branches. Just before he caught hold of the ball, a twig snapped, and he lost his footing. He came
tumbling to the ground and fell on one of his friends. The rest of them burst into laughter.
          A piece of paper was suddenly set down in front of me. I blinked and looked around. People had put their books away and were deeply engrossed in the assignment. Vanguard didn’t say anything. He just walked away.
          I took my time getting myself together. I stretched, and then looked back out of the window for a couple of minutes. I knew he was watching me, but I pretended not to notice. I could hear the other kids’ pencils flying over the pages. They always competed over who could
finish assignments first. I saw the teacher open his mouth to say something, and quickly started working before he could reprimand me. I finished the entire thing in about ten minutes, and then turned it over and put my pencil away. He got up and snatched it off my desk.
          When the period finally ended, I grabbed my bag and left the room. I went down to the library and took my regular seat in a corner behind the World Religions shelf. It was always
empty—a nice quiet place no one would ever find me. I cracked open my book and started reading.
          Fifteen minutes later, I heard a voice say over the intercom, “Jane Diggs, to Miss Lynn’s office. Jane Diggs, report to Miss Lynn’s office.”
          This was the first time I had ever heard my name being called so loudly, and it made me uncomfortable. I debated ignoring the call. Miss Lynn was the guidance counselor. I had no
interest in anything she had to say. I mulled it over for a minute, and then got up. I put my book away and shouldered my bag yet again. No one in the library was the least bit perturbed.
          I dragged myself down the hall and took the stairs up to the second floor. I stopped in front of Lynn’s office and knocked as quietly as possible, hoping she wouldn’t be there.
          “Come in!” she said.
          I sighed and stepped inside. I had never been there, before. The room smelled vaguely like vanilla, but there wasn’t a candle in sight. Books lined the walls, and a large mahogany desk
was dropped right in the middle of the room, taking up far too much space. There were two armchairs sitting in front of it, and a middle-aged blonde seated behind it. She gave me a wide smile and gestured to a chair.
          “Please, sit down.”
          I shut the door and sat, but I didn’t say anything. I just looked at her, waiting for her to explain why she had dragged me here.
          “It’s nice to meet you, Jane,” she said.
          “You, too.”
          “I’ve been watching you for quite a while,” she said.
          I sat back and folded my hands in my lap, like I was taught was the polite thing to do. She waited a few moments for me to answer her, but I didn’t.
          She motioned to the papers on her desk. “I have to say, you’ve got an impressive record. Perfect grades, no absences, no detentions or suspensions.”
          I just nodded, again.
          “I can’t help but notice that you haven’t signed up to take the SAT.” She waited for confirmation, but I didn’t give it to her, so she continued, “We’re approaching the end of your
junior year. That’s very concerning, to me.”
          I shrugged.
          “You’re running out of time.”
          “Time for what?”
          “Time to take it before college applications go out.”
          “I know.”
          “What are you planning to do about that?”
          “Nothing.”
          “You won’t get into a decent university with that attitude.”
          “I don’t plan on going to college.”
          She took off her glasses and set them on the open file in front of her, like I had just said something earth shattering that she couldn’t quite process. I didn’t say anything else.
          She finally cleared her throat. “And why is that?”
          “Because nothing that is worth knowing can be taught, Miss Lynn. Oscar Wilde said that.”
          “I know, and Oscar Wilde went to Oxford.”
          “We’re all allowed one mistake in our youth.”
          “You’re going to make yours this soon?”
          “I don’t agree that it’s a mistake.”
          “You are the brightest student to have ever walked these halls, and you are telling me that you don’t want to go to college?”
          “Yes.”
          “Then why do you work so hard?”
          “I’ve always done what’s asked of me.”
          “I am asking you to sit the exam.”
          “I don’t want to.”
          “I am the adult. You are a child. This isn’t up to you.”
          “It’s my decision whether I go to college or not. You’re supposed to respect my right to make that choice.”
          “I respect your right to choose, but this is wrong.”
          “That’s just your opinion.”
          “Children as smart as yourself do not waste their lives. They go to college and get an education.”
          “Just because it’s what’s done, doesn’t mean it’s what should be done.”
          She sat back and looked through the file in front of her carefully. She went through the entire stack of papers three times, each time reading slower than the last. Finally, she gave up and looked at me.
          “I can’t find your parents’ contact information.”
          “No one ever needed it.”
          She put the papers down. “You’re suspended, and you aren’t to come back to school unless you bring with you a parent I can talk to about this.”
          “My mom is out of town on business.”
          “Tell her to come back.”
          “I don’t understand. Why am I in trouble?”
          “Go home, Jane. You are suspended.”
          I got up and grabbed my bag. “Plenty of successful people didn’t finish school, Miss Lynn.”
          “But you will.”
          I walked out of her office and closed the door behind me. I leaned against a wall and tried to find a solution. Bringing my mother was not an option, but I could call someone else. I pulled
out my phone and started to dial a number, but someone took it out of my hand. It was Vanguard.
          “This isn’t allowed on school property. Go to class.”
          “Please, give me my phone back.”
          “No. This is not allowed on school property. Your parent can come in and retrieve it for you.”
          “I just need to make one call.”
          “I don’t care.”
          He walked away from me. I stared after him. My stomach was churning anxiously, but I ignored it. I turned and weaved through the crowd, making my way toward the stairs. I took them
two at a time up to the third floor, where there were five classrooms that were gathering dust. Only art and drama were held up here, and almost every room had a phone inside.
          I snuck past the theater class’ door. It was wide open, but they didn’t notice me. They were too busy working on creating a modern rendition of Shakespeare’s King Lear. I knew this
because they had been working on this exact project all year and had gotten nowhere. They were too immersed in their failed endeavor to notice anything else going on around them.
          I crept down the hall and went into the farthest room from the people on the floor. I gently shut the door behind me and then looked around. The room was nothing more than a mess of overturned tables and chairs. Pieces of plywood were scattered every which way, and nails lay
in random piles on the floor. It was nowhere near finished, but there was no one in there working. It seemed like it had been abandoned for a very long time. Even the light wouldn’t turn on.
          Thankfully, someone had still installed a phone. It was turned over and the receiver was off the hook. I picked it up and found the receiver jack. I jammed it into random holes in the machine until one of them clicked. I heard light static, and then the dial tone. I got on my knees
next to it and punched in the only number I had ever committed to memory.
          I sat back on my heels and held the phone up to my ear. It rang over and over, but he didn’t pick up. The phone redirected me to voicemail, but I hung up without leaving a message. I waited a few minutes, and then tried again. He never answered an unknown number the first
time. He was the most paranoid man alive, perhaps because he had more people out for his head on a platter than Caesar after Brutus turned.
          Finally, he picked up. “Hello?”
          “Uncle Robin.”
          “Jane? What’s wrong?”
          “I got suspended.”
          “You? What happened?”
          “I don’t know. I didn’t understand, and they won’t let me back until a parent shows.”
          “Did you tell your mother?”
          “No.”
          “Give me two days.”
          “Where are you?”
          “Just over the rainbow, Kiddo. I’ll be there soon.”