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Finding the Light--I`ll post chapter by chapter.
Chapter One
1:42 a.m. Hardly a time to be packing—or anything, really—but I was. I couldn’t sleep, so what else was I supposed to do? Read? Yeah, right, like I could concentrate on all of the tiny black letters on the dull white paper, like I could concentrate on anything. So, packing it was. I only had a week before we would be leaving anyways. I only had a week until I had to say good-bye to the few friends I had made. Right, like they would even care.
In a way, I was glad to be leaving here. I mean, I had been here for what, six years? That’s plenty long enough, more than long enough. Double the amount of time spent anywhere else. It’s time to move on.
There’s really hardly anyone to miss me, anyway. Kerry would, but she’s my best friend and we would probably talk on the phone every night. Rachelle might, but she lives in a different town, so we never really saw each other that much before. Other than that, no one really would. I mean, sure, everyone might miss me for a while, maybe a few months, but I’m easily replaceable. Soon enough, they’ll just think of me occasionally, saying something like “hey, remember that girl Alex, she went to our school until like, grade ten or something?” and they’d reminisce for a few moments about some laughs that we had together once upon a time, but we wouldn’t keep in touch, and they wouldn’t even care. It’s that way in every school. No one would really care. Not even Jacob—no, especially not Jacob. Stupid Jacob.
He probably wouldn’t even notice that I was gone. I mean, we were friends, sure, but not really outside of school. I actually didn’t really know anything about him, except that he was the furthest thing from someone I would ever consider going out with.
So why did I want to? I'd liked Jake since sixth grade—off and on, of course. Well, grade seven I basically hated him—but then again, I hated everyone, and grades eight and nine I liked other guys. So, why, here in grade ten, did I like him again? Maybe I never really stopped. I don’t know—it doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t change anything. Nothing would ever happen between us. No, Jacob wouldn’t miss me at all.
But, I’d miss him. I’d grown so accustomed to staring at his shiny dark brown hair during science (while I should've be paying attention to Mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson and I never really had that great of a relationship anyway—mainly because he compared me to my sister too much, and him and my sister never really got along that great, either). I was so used to Jake randomly turning around and talking to me. It was normally some stupid insult about someone else, but that was just how he joked around. I loved the way his chocolate brown eyes would sparkle whenever he smiled. He always had a smile on his face. I loved his smile, it was so white, and straight, and perfect. He was so crazy about hygiene. He practically carried his bathroom in his bag! I loved the way he’d play with his lip ring. I loved his lip ring! It was right at the left bottom corner.
I’ve always loved facial-piercings. I have my nose and lip pierced, as well. I got my nose pierced in grade seven during my “rebellious” phase. I pierced it myself the first time—I was so stupid! I remember how it wouldn’t go all the way in so I walked to the park where I knew some of my friends were going to be, and got two of them to push it in for me. Now, let me tell you, it hurt! To make matters worse, it was in the total wrong place. And I wasn’t even using a nose ring. I really didn’t think it through that well.
My mom let me get it professionally done in grade eight. Then in grade nine, after I’d gotten my braces off, I got my lip pierced. It’s not quite as in the corner as Jake’s, but I don’t think I could quite pull that off either.
I decided that packing was making me extremely hungry, so I stopped and headed into the kitchen for a two-thirty-in-the-morning snack. All I could find was some cookies, fruit, and yogurt. I grabbed an apple and sat down by the heater. It was freezing in this house. Wasn’t it supposed to be warm in April?
Why were we moving at the end of April anyways? Couldn’t we at least wait two months to let me finish my school year here? Nope, I guess not. My parents were just trying to make my life a living hell… great timing guys! Screw up my life when I’m trying to get over hurting myself. Real smart.
I could just hear Chrissie’s voice in my head, telling me to stop blaming other people for something that’s not their fault. Well then, whose fault is it? Mine? I don’t think so.
Chrissie was my counselor at school. She was cool, I guess. I would've probably liked her more if she wasn’t always trying to pry into my life. I didn’t much like going to counseling, but it got me out of class, so I guess it was okay. I’m definitely not going to some stupid counselor at my new school. Right, like this school would even have a counselor. It was so tiny. It didn’t even have a cafeteria! What was it called? Grenfell High? Real original.
Grenfell was a town with maybe 1,100 people. They had nothing; so typical small-town Saskatchewan. They had lots of churches, three restaurants, a curling rink, skating/hockey rink, entertainment center (also known as a billiards club, because that’s really all they had), grocery and hardware stores, swimming pool, and that was it. Plus, the curling and ice rinks were only open during the winter, while the swimming pool was only open during the summer. That definitely cut down the few options I had.
Grenfell had two schools; to separate the young one’s from the older one’s. There were about 150 students in each. Kindergarten to grade six went to the elementary school, while grade seven to grade twelve went to the high school. I don’t know much about the elementary because I really didn’t care,and I didn't feel like learning about it, but in the high school everybody in the same grade as you had the same classes, up until grade ten anyways. Then you got to choose a few of your own classes. You had six classes a day. Each about 50 minutes long, with a four minute break to get your books and get to your next class. The lunch hour was about 45 minutes, and a lot of students went to one of the restaurants for lunch.
I glanced at the clock: 2:47 a.m., shouldn’t I have been tired? I guess not. I wanted to go for a walk, but I lived in Saskatoon and I wasn’t stupid. There’s a lot of not smart people that went walking around at three in the morning and well, they normally weren’t still alive by four; I would much rather stay alive, thank you.
I looked at the clock again, 2:50 a.m.—time to go to sleep, or at least try to.
I crawled into bed and turned on my iPod. I turned it up full blast, it was so loud that my ears were throbbing, but that’s the way I liked it. Kerry always told me that I was going to go deaf, but I really didn’t care. My music was my comforter; it numbed me, and it was a lot healthier than some of my other ways of trying to deal with the pain.
I laid there for a long time—an hour or two, maybe—until finally I fell asleep, tears moistening my eyes, but refusing to fall, with only the worn out panda bear I still occasionally slept with as my witness.
1:42 a.m. Hardly a time to be packing—or anything, really—but I was. I couldn’t sleep, so what else was I supposed to do? Read? Yeah, right, like I could concentrate on all of the tiny black letters on the dull white paper, like I could concentrate on anything. So, packing it was. I only had a week before we would be leaving anyways. I only had a week until I had to say good-bye to the few friends I had made. Right, like they would even care.
In a way, I was glad to be leaving here. I mean, I had been here for what, six years? That’s plenty long enough, more than long enough. Double the amount of time spent anywhere else. It’s time to move on.
There’s really hardly anyone to miss me, anyway. Kerry would, but she’s my best friend and we would probably talk on the phone every night. Rachelle might, but she lives in a different town, so we never really saw each other that much before. Other than that, no one really would. I mean, sure, everyone might miss me for a while, maybe a few months, but I’m easily replaceable. Soon enough, they’ll just think of me occasionally, saying something like “hey, remember that girl Alex, she went to our school until like, grade ten or something?” and they’d reminisce for a few moments about some laughs that we had together once upon a time, but we wouldn’t keep in touch, and they wouldn’t even care. It’s that way in every school. No one would really care. Not even Jacob—no, especially not Jacob. Stupid Jacob.
He probably wouldn’t even notice that I was gone. I mean, we were friends, sure, but not really outside of school. I actually didn’t really know anything about him, except that he was the furthest thing from someone I would ever consider going out with.
So why did I want to? I'd liked Jake since sixth grade—off and on, of course. Well, grade seven I basically hated him—but then again, I hated everyone, and grades eight and nine I liked other guys. So, why, here in grade ten, did I like him again? Maybe I never really stopped. I don’t know—it doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t change anything. Nothing would ever happen between us. No, Jacob wouldn’t miss me at all.
But, I’d miss him. I’d grown so accustomed to staring at his shiny dark brown hair during science (while I should've be paying attention to Mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson and I never really had that great of a relationship anyway—mainly because he compared me to my sister too much, and him and my sister never really got along that great, either). I was so used to Jake randomly turning around and talking to me. It was normally some stupid insult about someone else, but that was just how he joked around. I loved the way his chocolate brown eyes would sparkle whenever he smiled. He always had a smile on his face. I loved his smile, it was so white, and straight, and perfect. He was so crazy about hygiene. He practically carried his bathroom in his bag! I loved the way he’d play with his lip ring. I loved his lip ring! It was right at the left bottom corner.
I’ve always loved facial-piercings. I have my nose and lip pierced, as well. I got my nose pierced in grade seven during my “rebellious” phase. I pierced it myself the first time—I was so stupid! I remember how it wouldn’t go all the way in so I walked to the park where I knew some of my friends were going to be, and got two of them to push it in for me. Now, let me tell you, it hurt! To make matters worse, it was in the total wrong place. And I wasn’t even using a nose ring. I really didn’t think it through that well.
My mom let me get it professionally done in grade eight. Then in grade nine, after I’d gotten my braces off, I got my lip pierced. It’s not quite as in the corner as Jake’s, but I don’t think I could quite pull that off either.
I decided that packing was making me extremely hungry, so I stopped and headed into the kitchen for a two-thirty-in-the-morning snack. All I could find was some cookies, fruit, and yogurt. I grabbed an apple and sat down by the heater. It was freezing in this house. Wasn’t it supposed to be warm in April?
Why were we moving at the end of April anyways? Couldn’t we at least wait two months to let me finish my school year here? Nope, I guess not. My parents were just trying to make my life a living hell… great timing guys! Screw up my life when I’m trying to get over hurting myself. Real smart.
I could just hear Chrissie’s voice in my head, telling me to stop blaming other people for something that’s not their fault. Well then, whose fault is it? Mine? I don’t think so.
Chrissie was my counselor at school. She was cool, I guess. I would've probably liked her more if she wasn’t always trying to pry into my life. I didn’t much like going to counseling, but it got me out of class, so I guess it was okay. I’m definitely not going to some stupid counselor at my new school. Right, like this school would even have a counselor. It was so tiny. It didn’t even have a cafeteria! What was it called? Grenfell High? Real original.
Grenfell was a town with maybe 1,100 people. They had nothing; so typical small-town Saskatchewan. They had lots of churches, three restaurants, a curling rink, skating/hockey rink, entertainment center (also known as a billiards club, because that’s really all they had), grocery and hardware stores, swimming pool, and that was it. Plus, the curling and ice rinks were only open during the winter, while the swimming pool was only open during the summer. That definitely cut down the few options I had.
Grenfell had two schools; to separate the young one’s from the older one’s. There were about 150 students in each. Kindergarten to grade six went to the elementary school, while grade seven to grade twelve went to the high school. I don’t know much about the elementary because I really didn’t care,and I didn't feel like learning about it, but in the high school everybody in the same grade as you had the same classes, up until grade ten anyways. Then you got to choose a few of your own classes. You had six classes a day. Each about 50 minutes long, with a four minute break to get your books and get to your next class. The lunch hour was about 45 minutes, and a lot of students went to one of the restaurants for lunch.
I glanced at the clock: 2:47 a.m., shouldn’t I have been tired? I guess not. I wanted to go for a walk, but I lived in Saskatoon and I wasn’t stupid. There’s a lot of not smart people that went walking around at three in the morning and well, they normally weren’t still alive by four; I would much rather stay alive, thank you.
I looked at the clock again, 2:50 a.m.—time to go to sleep, or at least try to.
I crawled into bed and turned on my iPod. I turned it up full blast, it was so loud that my ears were throbbing, but that’s the way I liked it. Kerry always told me that I was going to go deaf, but I really didn’t care. My music was my comforter; it numbed me, and it was a lot healthier than some of my other ways of trying to deal with the pain.
I laid there for a long time—an hour or two, maybe—until finally I fell asleep, tears moistening my eyes, but refusing to fall, with only the worn out panda bear I still occasionally slept with as my witness.
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