8:32. I have to stop. I can’t look at the clock any more. Time goes by slower when you keep looking at the time. Okay, I’m going to concentrate on the lecture now. I’m staring, I’m trying really hard to stay engaged and pay attention, but I have absolutely no clue what’s going on. Today doesn’t even feel like a day. It feels like I’m at school on a weird gloomy Sunday. Crap. I’m not concentrating on the lecture again. 8:33. I don’t know how, I didn’t even try to look up at the clock. It’s safe to say that I’ve given up on listening to this lesson entirely. I sway side to side, trying to get the best view of the window through the heads of the kids who sit in front of me. It comforts me knowing that I’m not the only one whose not paying attention. Olivia’s falling asleep, Maddy is reapplying lip stick for the 20th time this class, and Jack and Charlie just aren’t in class. I finally get a small glimpse of the window. It’s very gloomy, but no rain just leftover snow. I look back inside and stare at the posters of Abraham Lincoln and other historical figures that I’ve never even seen before. 8:35. Okay, two minutes have passed now. 

At this point I’ve stared at every single person and observed every corner of this stuffy history classroom.

J   ♡  S 

Gross. 

It kinda intrigues me and disgusts me at the same time when “lovebirds” engrave their names on these wooden desks. Like at one point they were so in love, they thought that they were the love of each other's lives, and felt the need to write it in a desk that everyone and their mother could see. I wonder who this is, or was. These desks are so old that they could even be dead. Mounds Park Academy was founded in 1982 after all. 

After I stared at the engravings in my desk,  I reach into the depths of my black Jansport backpack, past the old gum rappers, crumpled up homework assignments, and goldfish crumbs, and I finally grasp my computer. 

I turn it in a way that no one can see what I’m looking at. How many times should I look up at the teacher, so it looks like I’m paying attention and not looking at my computer?

I look up and quickly right back down at my screen. I then look left and right, and left again, just to make sure that no one sees what I’m looking at. Slowly, I type in the six letter word that will show me where I’ll be living for god knows how long. 

Google 

    zillow.com

I spent the rest of the class clicking through all 52 of the pictures from Zillow, so extremely focused on what was on my screen that Ms. Meyers had to tell me twice that class was over. 

“Whatcha lookin at there Isabella?” She said in a condescending tone, implying that she knew I wasn’t paying attention to the lecture.

“Oh…sorry” My voice squeaked out. It was the first time I spoke that morning. 

I quickly shoved my computer back into my backpack and took off so fast all the contents in my bag were exposed because I forgot to zip it up. 8:58. I quickly glanced down at my Apple Watch. Two minutes to get to my next class.

I just stare at the ground. The sloshy, muddy ground covered with ugly splotches of left over snow from a few days ago. I’m walking fast enough to get to class on time, but slow enough to not slip. As my mind slowly begins to wander off while on this treacherous journey, I hear footsteps approaching me. I don’t even need to shift my gaze from off the ground because I know it’s Carrie. 

Carrie and her obnoxiously loud footsteps. She’s not exactly a quite person, in fact she’s very loud. She’s also like extremely tall. Like 6’2 type of tall. When everyone else in middle school was 4’5, she was up there, growing approximately 8 inches in one year. She’s literally gorgeous though. She’s built like a literal Victoria Secret Model. And her hair! I’ve never seen a natural blond like that. My hair is just trying to imitate hers, but my roots clearly show that I’ll never be a real blond. 

As Carrie (not so quietly) approached me, she tried to scare me from behind. I honestly don’t know what goes through her head when she thinks she can be sneaky and scare me, so I just laugh a little. Her footsteps are literally so loud a deaf person could hear her.  She immediately breaks out into a loud cackle. Like so loudly that other kids walking to class stopped and turned around.

Not everyone can be perfect. That’s what my other best friend Marie told me. For example, if some guy is super hot, then somethings definitely wrong with his personality. Or if not, you find enough icks in him to be turned off. That’s kinda the case with Carrie. She’s super sweet, don’t get me wrong, but her laugh. MY LORD. I want to reach down her throat, take out her voice box, and chuck it so far away so that I’d never have to hear that laugh again. 

“Where were you this morning?” Carrie exclaimed. “You weren’t at the table with us. Where were you?

Did she just ask the same question twice? Anyways, I replied with a simple “the bus was running late”

“Oh” 

Silence. I just kept walking. Head down, just glaring that the path beneath me. There’s no way I’m telling her about the fact that I’m moving 3 hours away in approximately seven days. Even though she’s my best friend, she wouldn’t understand. She doesn’t even know that my parents have been gone for the past few months. 

I kept walking. Apparently my line of vision was directed toward the ground, my brain was in a totally different world. It then hit me that I wasn’t paying attention when I felt myself hurdling toward the ground beneath me. I’m not falling fast though. I’m aware that I’m falling, but I have no effort to stop myself.  I’m just kinda frozen. And then I feel it. I hit the ground so hard, in such an awkward way, that I flop and bounce on the concrete floor. This is so embarrassing for me.
The fall didn’t hurt. I’m just in kinda a daze. I’m also kinda astonished that no one bothered to help me, they literally all just looked at me and carried on with their day. A few juniors acknowledged my fall, but not in a “I want to help you” way, but in a laughing at my embarrassment type of way. And even a few of the Freshman had the audacity to laugh. Well, I mean I would probably do the same thing. I didn’t even realize that I was still on the ground for so long until I saw that everything in my backpack was scattered across the ground. Oh lord. My textbook, my notebooks, the sad sad geometry quiz that I got a 73% on, and-

My heart froze. Or skipped a beat. Or both. I swear to God it felt like I didn’t blink for an hour. You can clearly see the terror in my eyes, the sweat dribbling down my eyebrows, and the panic in my voice. I try to shimmy my way over to the envelope, but-

“What’s this?” Carrie said in the most annoying voice possible. 

I try and shimmy across the cold sloshy ground, Her long fingers and blue acrylic nails slowly tore the envelope open. 

“Who’s?-”

I wanted to get up and grab it from her. I wanted to shove this envelope back into my backpack and walk to class like nothing happened. But I’m still on the ground. Staring blankly at her puzzled face.  Okay… I’ll just close my eyes and hope that I never have to get up from the dusty concrete ground.

I hate the color red. The color of my geometry notebook, the color of my grandmas toenail polish, and the color of my face when Carrie found out what was written in the envelope.

The rest of the day was painfully slow. The first time I saw my friend group was at lunch, and it appeared like they already knew the news. Lunch was silent, besides Maries quiet, “So guys. How are you?” She asked that question about three times until everyone stopped responding with usual answer of, “fine.” 

We just continued to eat lunch, and for the first time ever I was grateful that the bell rang. I didn’t talk to them after lunch. I actually haven’t talked to them in a few days. I knew that they were talking about me though, on that “secret” not so secret group chat they have without me. I should try and talk to them. I haven’t even explained myself, they have absolutely no clue as to what is going on, and I can’t blame them for being mad at me. They just found out that one of their best friends is moving three hours away, most likely to a different school, of course they’re going to be mad. 

I pull out my phone from back pocket. 

“Hi guys! :)”

“Hey guyyyss”

No. I’m trying too hard. 

Hi guys! So, it’s pretty clear that you all know of what was written in that letter. And understandably, you’re probably wondering what’s been going on. So, I’ll explain everything tomorrow during school, but I only have four more days here and I really don’t want to be mad at each other for the time I have left.  I’ve really missed hanging out with you guys and I hope you can understand what I’m going through. I’ll see you tomorrow. 

I sent it. 

I re-read it three times, eagerly waiting for someone to respond. I place my phone facedown on my bed. Why has no one responded yet? Did I say something wrong, did this whole paragraph auto-correct into something bad?! I quickly grab my phone and re-read it again…and again. And I hate to admit it, but I definitely started at it for an embarrassingly long time until I finally decided to throw my phone across my bed. I watched it bounce off my white comforters and blankets about twice until I heard a final thud on my carpet. 

  There’s nothing I can do at this point, except to wait for one of my friends to respond. Hopefully they’ll respond. What if they don’t respond?! I fall back into the mess of unmade bedsheets an blankets, and just stare up at the ceiling. 

I forgot about those. The glow in the dark stars and moons that I stuck at the top of my ceiling with double sided tape. I won it at an arcade with my friend when we were ten years old. I forgot about it. Maybe because it lost its glow in the dark magic. 

I roll onto my side and then onto my stomach, burying my face in a swarm of thick fluffy blankets. I want to scream. Scream so loud that the house shakes and that Bacon wakes up and also starts screaming with me. But, I have no energy to even move a single centimeter, so I just lay there, not breathing kinda almost suffocating myself, thinking about the fact that I’m going to have to leave in four days. I roll over onto my back again. My eyes wide open. 

Even though I’m only a freshman in high school I’ve thought about the fact that at the end of senior year, I’ll have to say goodbye to my best friends. After senior year, the people who I’d have seen every single day for my whole entire life would soon become people that I’d keep in touch with once in a while. I knew that I’d have a whole four years with them, that a lot would happen and a lot would change, but the thought of moving on to a different chapter of my life without them just made me tear up. 

I feel my eyes begin to water, and a single tear drip down my left cheek. I never thought I’d have to say goodbye to them midway through my freshman year.  

I kinda just layed on my bed for the rest of the night until I fell asleep. I woke up the next morning to the usual sound of ducks coming from my phone. Because my phone was still on the ground from last night, I actually had to get up and turn it off. As I was sitting up, ready to walk the long, unbearable 4.5 feet journey from the foot of my bed to my phone, I was mentally preparing myself to see the text messages from my friends. I was hoping to see the “We’ve missed you so much too <3” and “Of course we want to talk to you. We were never mad, just confused.” messages. But to my surprise there was not one notification. NOT A SINGLE ONE. Those b*tches have the nerve to ignore me. I know they were ignoring me because it says they were active on instagram 9 hours ago, and I sent that text 11 hours ago. 

Not even five minutes on the bus, and I’m literally shaking with nerves. My legs were bouncing up and down. And I was actually getting hot, even though its a whopping 13 degrees outside. About every two seconds I tap my phone to see if anyone has replied. Still nothing. I know for a fact that they’re texting on that groupchat they have without me. 

Something about my friends and I is that we talk sh*t about each other, behind each others back quite frequently. We have so many separate group chats without people that I’ve lost track of how many we have. I’m usually the unproblematic one. The one who never gets sh*t talked about, but oh how the tables have turned. 

One time actually a friend of mine found out about the group chat we have without her. I mean we all know that there are separate group chats, but we never have any evidence to prove it. To be honest, we weren’t that discrete about it, and she only mentioned it to us two years after the fact. After we made friend group amends. That’s another thing about my friend group of six. We are deathly afraid of confrontation. Like we bring up things two years after it happened in a passive aggressive laughy kind of way. 

The bus made a sudden stop at Elm Street. Guess the bus driver was daydreaming too because it seemed like he almost forgot about this stop. A little red headed junior stepped right into the bus. Her curly hair bobbles up and down drifting across her pink backpack. Even though she’s two years older than me, she’s a lot smaller. I also think it’s weird that she doesn’t have her license yet. Like didn’t she turn sixteen like a year ago? Strange. 

I continued to daydream about little things like that in order to keep my mind from thinking about the inevitable reality that I’ll have to face my “friends”. But all good things must come to an end, and we eventually reached the prison I’ve been attending for the past couple of years. 

“See you later happiness” I whisper. I then proceed to take my sweet time exiting the bus. 

I put my hand up to where I can see it. Am I shaking, or am I making myself shake?

The 30ft walk from the bus stop to the entrance of the school seems like a mile in this weather. As the snow numbs my feet, I feel it slowly melting and seeping past my shoes and into my socks. Air Force One’s are not made for this type of weather. I finally make it inside and a scoot my feet on the wet, soggy, disgustingly dirty black mat at the entrance of the building. Honestly, that gross mat is not doing anything at this point. As far as I can see down the half lit hallway are a bunch of muddy footprints, big and small, from kids in my high school. Following the trail of muddy footprints, leaving a trail of my own, I take two lefts one right climb two flights of stairs, turn right and go through the concrete archway until I enter the cafeteria. 

In my school, the cafeteria is really not used to buy food, it’s a social scenery.

Bottom left corner: Us, the freshies

Bottom right Corner: The sophomores

Kinda spread across the top (by the window): The juniors

Center: None other than the seniors. 

Okay…. I’m gonna walk toward my friends. Show them that I’m confident…. Just act like nothing’s wrong. While on the inside I’m actually slowly dying. 

I spot them, right at the back corner. Wait, is that what we really look like? Gossiping closely huddled together definitely talking sh*t about someone or something, then the random cackle. Kelsey throws her head back laughing so hard I thought she was going to fall out of her chair. 

I meekly walk up, and set my orange hydro flask down on the table. I should’ve done it more carefully because the loud clang of metal against metal really got everyone's attention. 

Five heads, just turn to me in such a syncronized manner that I almost get the creeps. Now, it’s quiet. Their conversation just stopped, and were staring at me like I was growing another eyeball from my forehead during that very moment. 

I just kinda smile at them uncomfortably acting as if they were going to say something. 

“Guys….” Marie whispers to herself. That girl cannot handle a moment of silence to save her life. 

“Okay. I know. I have a lot of explaining to do”

It was a huge relief. We, as in me, Carrie, Bella, Sammy, were twenty minutes late to our first class because my explanation took so long. Marie and Ava were late to school, as per usual, so I caught them up during lunch. It was more like I explained what was going on for about a millisecond, and then Sammy felt the need to blurt out everything I was about to say. Even though it’s my life. 

Everything’s not back to normal, I mean…I still kinda feel disconnected from them a little bit. I can still tell they’re talking about me though. But it’s the weird talking behind someone's back in not a bad way type of talking behind someones back. I think they’re just a little shocked. I mean…yeah.. Of course they’re shocked. I just confirmed that the funniest, prettiest, hottest, most relatable, funnest best friend they will ever have in their whole life is leaving. I’d honestly be devastated, but I’ll never need to worry about that. 

They’re also leaving me- I think to myself

My eyes slowly start to fill up with the tiniest bit of tears possible, and I feel a small lump forming in my throat. 

No. I sniffle once, blink a few times, and cough. 

I don’t like to think about the fact that not only are they loosing one of their bestest friends in the whole universe, but that I’m losing all of my friends. Some of whom I’ve known for my whole entire life, like before I had enough brain cells to form memories. 

I spring up out of my bed, but not too fast. I have to look for spiders hiding in my carpet before my feet touch the ground. Ok, all clear, no spiders here. I confidently set my feet on my fluffy carpet and step out my door onto the cold wooden floor. 

I race downstairs to find my phone. Anything to distract myself from my thoughts. I pick up my phone from the marble kitchen island to see a notification from Marie. 

“Want to come over :)”

That’s kind of weird. She almost never texts me first. If you look through our text threads, it a whole bunch of blue paragraphs because she never bothers to text back. 

Our dialogue during the morning at school mostly consists of: 

Me: “Did you see what I texted you last night?”

Marie: “No”

Me: “Read it”

Marie: “Oh yeah. I read that”

Me: “Why didn’t you reply?”

Marie: “I didn’t know how to answer.”

Me: “IT WAS A YES OR NO QUESTION!”

Yeah… So understandably I was quite shocked. I quickly held my phone up to my face, and began to reply. This message was send seventeen minutes ago, there’s absolutely no ways she’s still on her phone. I delete the whole message that I was texting, and quickly call her. 

Ringing

And ringing

And still ringing. 

So I call her sister, her sister has an apple watch so she has no excuse to ignore any of my calls. 

Ringi-

Before my phone even had time to complete one ring I hear: 

“Hello!” 

“Hi Fia! Um. Do you know where Marie is?” I ask in my most bubbly voice possible. I always feel kinda bad when I call her. I almost never call to talk to her, I always ask her what her sister is doing. 

“I’ll get her” She replies. I can tell she’s quite annoyed. 

“Thank you!” I meekly squeak out.

I hear her slam her phone down, probably on her purple bedside table, and begin to stomp out of her room. I hear three loud stomps, her swing open the door, most likely poke her head out to the right so she can see her sisters bedroom door and shout:

 “MARIEEEE MAYA WANTS TO TALK TO YOU” 

Even though she wasn’t near the phone, I could hear her loud and clear. I could probably hear her even if she wasn’t on the phone with me. Probably people in China can hear her. 

“FINE STOP YELLING FIA YOU’RE SO LOUD” I hear Marie yell back even louder. 

Fia then closes the door behind her and picks the phone back up. 

“Ok, she’ll call you back now Izzy.” She says.

“Ok tha-”

I get a call from Marie. Finally.

“Hello Marie!” I exclaim

“Sorry. I was feeding my fish, and I saw that the bottom feeder, you know him, Bob, was eating blue fish. Like poor blue fish’s tail was in his mouth, and he was just watching himself get eaten. So I didn’t want him to die, so I pulled out my veterinary camp notes, from fifth grade when we studied fish, and tried to figure out what the problem was. Apparently it took me so long to find out the problem, that when I went to go asses the situation it…was..already over.”

“Oh. wow. Um-sounds like you had an interesting afternoon” I said kinda sarcastically

“So do you want to come over?” She asked.

“Sure!” I exclaimed. I was really excited that she asked me to come over. But deep down inside, I knew that this was going to be the last time I’d spend time with her for a while. 

“I’ll be there at eight” 

I quickly hung up the phone and rushed downstairs to get a lululemon bag. I was only going to be there for a couple of hours, but I ended up packing for a whole beach vacation. 

“Hi guys! It’s Izzy and welcome back to my chanel” 

Don’t be fooled. I don’t actually have a youtube chanel, I just kinda like to pretend that I have one. Yes, I talk outloud to myself, but I’m sure I can’t be the only one in the world who does this. Actually I’m not just talking to myself.. I always have one viewer-Bacon. If only he’d pay attention though. He just keeps making so much noise running on that squeaky wheel of his. 

“Alright, today’s video is going to be a pack with me/what’s in my bag for when I go out with my friends”

“But before we continue this video, make sure to hit that like and subscribe button, and turn on post notifications, so you get reminders when I post.” 

“Alright, back to the video!”

“Here’s what I’ve packed:

A room temperature Fiji water bottle.
Two different pairs of sunglasses, one all black and the other one tortoise color. You never know how bright the sun is going to be.” 
Yes. I am packing two different types of sunglasses, even though the sun is already down, and I’m probably just going to be in the hot tub. 

“Three different bikinis. Because I’m not staying at my house, I want to make sure that I match whatever bikini my friends are going to wear, so our instagram post looks really good.”
Notice how I said friends. I am literally just hanging out with one friend.

“Flip flops: these are from old navy
My polaroid
A towel-”
Bacon finally stopped running. Now I can continue my video with peace and 

quiet. But I should honestly get going. I conclude my fake video with a “bye guys” and grab my bag to head out my bedroom door. 

Right as I step one foot out my door my stomach drops. I have a bad feeling, a horrible feeling, like somethings going wrong. I quickly look behind me, but to my relief I see nothing. Just my windows were open, and a breeze was making the white curtains move. Thank god that’s what was wrong. I turn around and close my window and lock it, I don’t want anyone, or any animal sneaking in. I also shut my blinds. Then I stick my hand inside Bacon’s cage and give him a little pat on the head. He’s still not running on his wheel though. I know this may sound weird, but he looks kinda shocked. And he’s staring at the window that was once open. 

“Whatcha lookin at there Bacon?”

“There’s no need to worry, I closed the window.” 

I know he can’t understand me, but I like to talk to him anyways. He still looks kinda shocked tho. Like he’s not moving. His little brown eyes are just wide open, not even blinking, locked at the window. What a strange hamster. Oh well, I’ve actually got to get going. I lock Bacon’s cage from the top, and right as the metal latch clanged down, he jolted back to reality. But that reality lasted about a millisecond, until his eyes were glued in the opposite direction. His eyes were staring at my door. 

My stomach dropped again. My hampster’s just crazy. Why am I letting him freak me out? 

I slowly turn my head toward the direction of Bacon’s stare. Nothing’s there. My sigh of relief doesn’t last for long though. I realize that, yes, nothing is there, but my door is slightly ajar. I closed my door before I went to close the window.

Now my stomach dropped. It sank so far down that I felt myself go pale. I felt myself start to sweat. Not the sweat in PE. Like a cold sweat. Goosebumps formed on my arms, and my light brown arm hairs jumped up when I realized that I never opened my window either. I’ve actually never opened that window in months because it’s so cold outside. My heart started to race, and I felt the beats throughout every single part in my body. 

I don’t know why I’m so freaked out. I’m always the only one here. I lock all the doors, and I put on the alarm system when I’m home for more than a few hours. This feels like the start of a horror movie or something. I just kept facing the corner of my room, in between the window which was in front of me and slightly to my right, or my door, which was directly behind me. I felt that if I turned in either direction there’d be some masked man with a knife ready to murder me. Or a nun, or Annabelle the doll. So I just stood there, with my eyes wide open staring at my blank wall, enjoying the last few moments I had left of my life. It felt like hours that I was standing there. Still as those stone statues in Paris or Italy. But in reality I was probably only there for about a few seconds. 

A rough canvas sack, that had the same texture as sandpaper, enveloped my head. No noise was coming from my mouth as I attempted to scream. The tan sack muffling my voice, and suffocating me. The color of my blue LED lights seeping through the tiny holes in the bag is the only thing that I can see. Hands, maybe three or four hold my head and body. Two are clasping the bag around my neck and head, and the other one, or two, are holding my arms behind my back. 

After what feels like hours of squirming and struggling, slowly feel myself calming down. My eyes are wide open, but the lack of oxygen to my brain is making my vision blurry. I feel like my room is spinning around me. Like someone just started spinning the earth twenty million times faster than how it’s supposed to be spun. I eventually fall down on my carpet, I hear a big thud, but I really don’t feel too much pain. 

I have no energy to sit up, stand up, fight back. This is how I’m going to die. I just lay on the floor, with my eyes tightly shut closed, waiting for one of the hands to pick up a knife, or a gun, or something, and just put me out of my misery. 

I then feel a sharp poke, in my right thigh. The needle, I presume, was removed just as quickly as it came into my body. I try and squirm my hand out from under me, but I didn’t realize it was tied. I felt myself getting really tired. My eyelids feel heavy. Slowly shutting. But I use every ounce of energy I have left to open them back up. I gave my last attempt to scream, but no noise came out. 

I have so much to live for. I’m only fourteen. I’m only a freshman in high school. I’ve never driven by myself, I’ve never had a boyfriend, I’ll never get to go to college, I’ll never get to explore the world. At this point, I just need to accept my fate, close my eyes, and say bye bye to this weird world. 

My eyes jolt open. Goosebumps are covering my body.  My pillow is wet with sweat. I roll over to try and get on the cold, un-wet side of the bed. I can’t sleep anymore. For the past three months I’ve been getting flashbacks of February 23rd. But I always wake up at the exact same time. Apparently, people wake up from their dreams right before they’re supposed to die. It’s because they’ve never experienced death before, so their brain can’t possibly imagine it. This recurring nightmare haunts me about twice a week, and I’m so scared of the day that I actually die in my dream. 

I roll to my side, and kick the handmade quilt off of my bed. I look at the clock beside me. I make out the faint lines pointing to 3:42am. I flop back onto my bed and stare and the slow moving fan above me, which is doing absolutely nothing to cool down this hot, steamy, humid room. I sit up and place my feet on the coldish wood floor. As I stand up the floor bed creaks underneath me. 

I slide into my bunny slippers, and stand up. I peel the sweaty oversized shirt from my back and ruffle it out. I try my best to make it to the kitchen quietly, but the creaky floorboards make it almost impossible. 

Soon I hear the switch of a lamp, and I see the little space under the door of the room at the end of the hall light up. I freeze, trying so hard not to make a sound. Hopefully they’ll go back to sleep, and I can continue to get water without anyone noticing. Unfortunately, I woke up my mom. She slowly swings her wooden door open, making what seemed like the loudest creaking noise possible. She takes half a step outside her room, and I can see that she seems quite exhausted. Her short blond hair is smushed to the left side of her face, and her under-eye bags look deeper and darker than normal. She’s wearing the extra extra extra large gray Mickey Mouse tee-shirt we found at the garage sale down the street. It was only 40 pesos because it had quite the array of stains on it. Her shorts seem non-existent because the shirt is so large on her 5’2 body that it almost covers her knees. 

“Qué te pasa mija” She says in a raspy, quiet voice.

“Voy a tomar agua” I say in the most gringo tone possible. My Spanish is stilly kinda iffy.

“Alright then” She quickly gets out before she yawns. 

She then just continues to stare at me. Like I’m growing a third eyeball right in between my already two existent eyes. I don’t know whether I should continue on my way, or if I should say something, or if she’ll say something. 

“See you in the morning.” I mumble as I start walking towards the kitchen. Hopefully she went back to her room. 

I grab a small plastic Mcdonalds cup, that I think was from last Wednesday, and walk over to the sink. I turn on the cold water, wait for the tap to sputter for a few seconds, and eventually some semi-safe water dribbles out of the crusty tap. I place my cup under the sink, and watch the small stream of water flow down. I twist the cold water nob so the water stops. I grab my cup and make my way to the porch. I open the screen door, and make sure to close it so mosquitos don’t get in, and take a seat on the plastic lawn chair, that we also got from a garage sale (a different garage sale though). It’s pitch black outside, and the cool breeze on my sweaty skin feels really nice. I take a sip of my water, and I hear some birds chirping, and I begin to feel a lot better. 

I guess I stared into the nothingness of the night that I fell asleep. I woke up with a bead of sweat dribbling down my face because the humidity during the day is absolutely insane. The bright 6:00am sunlight blares in my face, so I shield my eyes from the sun with my hand, and then make my way back to my room. 

I see my dad through the corner of my eye. Oh god. I can’t deal with him this early in the morning. He’s cracking eggs for our breakfast. We might not have much, but the chickens in our backyard provide us with so many eggs. 

“¡Buenos días!” My dad says in the most cheery voice possible. He towers over kitchen countertop. He’s so tall, he makes everything seem miniature. His gray and brown hair is covered by an old Golden Gophers hat. His shirt spells out HAPPES. I’m guessing it originally said HAPPINESS, but again, what can you expect from a garage sale. 

“Thought you died outside on that lawnchair, you were out there for so long.” He chucked.

“Ugggh” I groan, and shuffle my feet back to my room. 

After I flop back onto my cold bed for a solid two minutes, I get up to stand in front of my full body mirror. This is definitely a daily ritual I do all the time without realizing. My long brown hair looks like it hasn’t been brushed in years. I take a step closer and look into my grayish/blue eyes, blink a few times, and wipe away all the eye boogers. My oversized Walmart graphic tee hide the fact that I haven’t worked out in three months. My knees are ashy, I need to buy more lotion. And I finally look at my feet in the mirror to see that the remnants of my once favorite nail salon are pretty much gone.  

I slowly meander into my small bathroom. Light shines through the cracked blinds that once worked to block the sun when you twist the clear rod. I wash my face, brush my teeth, tie my hair up away from my face, and put on an orange flower halter dress, which is definitely something some girl would post on instagram wearing with the caption “Mexi!” 

I trade out my bunny slippers for some flip flops and head to the kitchen. I take a right out of my doorway and pass by the (not so discreetly hidden) piles of “special plants”, and head straight down my hallway. The smell of bacon, eggs, and pancakes almost overpower the strong, musty, icky scent radiating from every corner, cabinet, and drawer. My mom gestures for me to come over and help squeeze the oranges. 

“Someone had a good nights rest” My mom says happily

“Night?! More like morning” My dad chuckles. 

I glance over at the old microwave to see the time. 1:46pm. Well, it’s not actually that late. Subtract three hours and 14 minutes, and that’s the real time. 10:32am. I guess I did sleep quite a long time. 

I shrug at my parents comments, chuck the orange I just squeezed in the garbage, and plop down on the couch. I kinda slid into an awkward position, and I’m just stuck there. We have a black (fake) leather couch, and Mexico is very humid, so whenever I try to slide off the couch I just stick onto it. 

I use all the energy I have to get up and properly sit on the couch. Buenos días Mexico is blaring on the TV. The people are talking so fast that I can’t even make out a single word. I then hear my mom place down two plates on the table. 

“Sit” she gestures towards the chair she’s pulling away from the table. 

I calmly sit down to a plate of perfectly toasted toast, eggs, bacon, and orange juice. We don’t usually have such an extravagant breakfast. I usually just grab a protein bar or a banana for breakfast before school, but on Sunday’s we make sure to have a special breakfast. 

“Anything going on at school this week?” my dad questions, interrupting the long silence. 

“Nothing much…just the usual I guess” I mumble with a mouth full of toast. 

I’m enrolled in the local high school in our neighborhood. It’s very small, only about 100 kids, because we live in such a rural part of town. It’s about a fifteen minute walk from my house. If I’m running late, a 12 minute speedwalk. 

It’s an outdoor school, no air conditioning, just a singular fan in some of the classrooms. The walls are tan, and they have that popcorn texture to them. We had regular, non-popcorn textured, walls in my old high school, but it’s quite interesting. If you brush you hand across it while walking, all the little pieces of dried concrete (or some weird popcornish substance) break off. There’s two levels to my school. The bottom one, at the bottom of the small hill is for 9th and 10th grades, and the Upper Level, which is only about six steps, is at the top of the hill. The students in my section are very noisy and immature. When you walk up only a few steps you enter into a realm of peace. Right as you pass by the third step, blue handprints cover the walls with names of past graduates written under them. I’ve only been up there a few times, but from what I remember there’s paintings and murals, and everyone seems to be having a great time. I know! A great time at school, that’s almost unheard of in America. Back in Minnesota all of the Juniors and Seniors seemed stressed and depressed. No uniforms like the school I’m in now, but hoddies and sweatpants were practically everyday attire. Even in 90 degree weather. One of the biggest differences when moving to Mexico, besides a completely different language, was the school system. 

I’m interrupted in my daydream by the sound of the doorbell ringing. My parents look at each other almost in a “I don’t want to get the door you get it type of way” until my dad finally gives in and walks towards the door. Right as he’s about to open the door, the door opens itself. The man on the other side of the door takes a half step into our house. My dad’s face goes visibly pale as his neck stretches to look this visitor in his eyes. 

I can’t quite pinpoint it, but I feel like I’ve seen this man before. I don’t know when, or where, but I recognize him. He towers over my dad, which is pretty hard to do since my dad is a whopping 6 feet and 2 inches tall, but this guy has got at least 6 inches on my dad. He has black shaggy hair, and a wrinkly face. Pretty bad RBF to be honest. He has a few tattoos on his face, the classic teardrops coming from his eyes, and some stars for some reason. His neck is also tatted, but kind of a weird look. It appears to me that he might have been fat before, and now he’s lost weight, so the tattoos are just kinda all wonky now. He’s wearing a formerly white tank top, that’s now gone kinda yellow, and lululemon knock off shorts. 

After scanning his whole outfit and existence, I see my mom push back her chair and motion for me to go to my room. I didn’t realize then, but her face seemed much more pale than it usually is too. Then it hit me. I stared straight at this guy one last time, and my stomach, heart, all of my vital organs dropped faster than the California Screamin' roller coaster in Disneyland. 

All I can feel is the sweat dripping down my face. I’m cramped in a small pitch black space. My ankles are tied and so are my hand, and I can only squirm about an inch or I’ll hit a wall. I try to sit up, but immediately bang my head on the roof. I’m still kinda in a daze. I’m very calm even though I know that I’ve just been kidnapped, drugged, and in the trunk of a car. I have absolutely no clue how long I’ve been in here, or where I am. We hit a bump and I feel myself lift from off the ground. I loudly bang into the top of the trunk, and then within a millisecond fall back down in such a weird position on my arm that I’m pretty sure I broke it. I scream in pain for about half a second and then just curl up in a ball and wince. 

I raise my feet and start kicking against the blacked out window of the trunk. 

“Help!” I yell.

Pounding and kicking. Why hasn’t the glass broken yet? 

I suddenly feel the car come to an abrupt stop. My body slams against the side of the cramped up space. I’m getting absolutely thrashed around in here. The car finally comes to a complete stop and I hear the slamming of the car doors. There multiple deep voices talking so fast around the outside of the trunk, that I can’t make out a single word. Is this even English? It’s Spanish! Even though I’ve been taking Spanish for pretty much my whole life, I can barely make out any words that their saying. I try to make out what they’re saying, but all I can recognize is “niña” and “coche”.  Yeah, no kidding. This girl is trapped in a car. Tell me something I don’t know. 

I hear the latch of the trunk click open, and suddenly all I can see is the light. I shut my eyes immediately. The sudden change from the pitch black trunk to the brightest afternoon sun I’ve ever seen, was so extreme that my eyeballs felt like they were melting inside of my head. I slowly try and open my eyes, just to shut them even harder. Voices still surrounded me, louder this time that I was exposed to the openness of the outside world. After many cycles of opening my eyes a millimeter and then shutting them back closed, I was finally able to keep my eyes open and look outside. 

But still, the change was so drastic that I felt like I was staring into the light after death. Did I die? No. I began to make out dark outlines of figures standing before me. As my vision became more clear, I saw three men bending down staring at me like I was some sort of animal in a zoo. The one on the left was noticeably bigger than the other two. His jet black hair was plastered to his forehead because of all the sweat he produced. He was breathing really heavily, like he just finished running a 5k, but he was just bent over standing there. He turned his head to the left and whispered something to the middle guy. As he spoke spit particles flew into the middle guys ear. Poor middle guy. Suddenly, all three of the men stood up, with prime posture, and I noticed their eyes slowly shift from left to right. 

Slow footsteps shuffling through the dirt road became louder and louder. Then all three men kinda ran out of the way to make room for this new guy. He stood right in front of the trunk, and bent down. 

He had a strange vibe to him. His face and neck were covered in tattoos. Colorful tattoos. His once white tank top, was kind of a brown-ish color. Probably from all the sweat and dirt this place has to offer. He wore cargo pants, that just did not match his outfit very well, and he had black and brown nike dunk lows on. Hands down, one of the strangest outfits I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something. I live in the strangest state of all time. Minnesota. 

He suddenly reaches his hand out and grabs the back of my shirt. He lifts me up with one arm out of the trunk, like I’m some sort of duffle bag, and throughs me on the rocky, dusty, dirt ground. I scramble to get up, buy my legs and arms were still tied. I finally managed to stand up, but I looked really stupid because I managed to get into such an awkward position. One of the three guys stepped up behind me, so I hobbled a few steps forward to get away from him. He then grabbed my shoulder, and I screamed. 

I didn’t realize this before, but we weren’t in the middle of nowhere. We were in a town of some sort. So, when I screamed, so many people just dropped what they were doing and stared at me. I felt embarrassed. I then felt the rope being cut from my arms and legs. 

This is my chance. There are so many people here. If I run, I can outrun them right. I’ll find someone to help me. There’s probably an amber alert sent out already right. 

I hear the soft sound the rope makes hitting the dirt road, and I know this is the only chance I’ll have to stay alive. I start sprinting. I’m running faster than I’ve ever ran before. I get far enough away from those men and that car, and I begin to scream. Help! Help! Somebody! I was just kidnapped. No one stops to help me. They all just kind of stare at me dumbfoundedly. I we’ve in and out of people. Through the markets. Jumping over small carts that are blocking my path. I just need to get as far away from this place as possible. My foot catches the back end of a wooden tomato cart, and I faceplant into the ground. 

Tomatoes are rolling everywhere. Some are smushed, some are bruised, and some are splattered on my shirt. An older lady. Maybe late 60’s rushes over to me. She starts talking to me really fast in Spanish, but I feel so helpless. I can’t understand a single word she’s trying to say to me. Is she mad that I destroyed her tomatoes? Probably. Is she concerned? Probably. Tears start to blur my vision, and slowly roll down my cheeks. 

“¿Donde estoy?” I say quietly, trying to interrupt her long speech she’s giving me. I probably said that wrong. I just want to know where I am. 

“Fresnillo” She mumbles. 

I dust myself off and stand back up. I look around. All I see is dingy buildings, some people selling stuff. Some people rolling stuff. Some people sorting white stuff with a card, some- 

I’m in Mexico.