TBD

Elia

The first day of school was always my favourite. I loved getting all of my school supplies organized, my pencils sharpened, and my whole outfit set out (down to my socks). Yeah, I had a bit of OCD. I reached out to erase a tiny marking on my notebook-blue for History. Ok, a lot of OCD. But I couldn’t help it!
I grabbed my netbook to check my email one last time before I went to bed. Surprisingly, I had an email. Well, it had been 5 minutes since I last checked.
Dear Students of East Ridge High, it started,
We hope you enjoyed your summer, and can’t wait to see you back tomorrow. However, there will be some changes:

Student access cards will be available in the house offices starting next week. Every door will be open from 7-8 every morning and from 2-3 every afternoon until then.

The first two days of school will not be the regular schedule. Blocks 1-3 will meet tomorrow, and blocks 4-7 will meet on Thursday. Also on Thursday, students will have a meeting with their counselors, and clubs will have tables out during all three lunches- we strongly encourage you to go and sign up for a few clubs.

Rugby team tryouts will be tomorrow afternoon-all other tryouts will be held on Thursday after school. Cross-country team first practice will be next Tuesday, september 3rd. Anyone who would like to join is welcome.

Lastly, we would like to inform you that our beloved Mrs. Mackenzie Wessman has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and will not be returning this year. Anyone who would like to make her a card is encouraged to. Cards should be put in her mailbox at school, and the front office will mail them for you.

Best regards,
Mr. Alexander Gruenes
East Ridge High Principal

No. It isn’t possible. Not Mrs. Wessman. Not the light of the school. She was the teacher who helped me survive freshman year. She helped me through many long hours after school, trying to write an essay. Ok, she was a history teacher, sure, but she was also super nice! Its a history teacher thing, I swear. Just like all science teachers are creepy. Or all math teachers are...well, I don’t know what math teachers are. But it's a thing, I promise.
The thing was, I loved science. And music. And math. They both had a specific order that things were supposed to happen, and a specific way that they happened, and a specific way to figure out what happened. Everything was ordered and specific and made sense. Humanities, on the other hand, always threw me off. There was no specific way to do anything, with all of these stupid philosophical questions and open-ended answers. I honestly would not have been able to move on to 10th grade without her.
And now she was dying!?!
I couldn’t believe it.
I wouldn’t.
When I got to school tomorrow, she would be in room B312 like she always was, waiting for me. I was sure of it.
Right?


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I was on my way to first-period AP Biology-yes, the junior level class, no, I didn’t cheat to get into (I promise)- with Mr. Hanson when I met the cutest girl I had ever seen. I was heading out of the bathroom and took a right hand turn (even though I usually take three lefts instead, but there was no way to avoid it this time) in order to get to the science building. As I rounded the corner, a girl came flying at me. Literally. She had long black hair, which was slicked back framing her cute face with small features that fit perfectly in the oval shape. I wanted to talk to her, figure out what her name was, anything, but as soon as she helped me up she ran away. A few moments later, sweating, red faced boy ran by me. He was not cute at all. He stopped to catch his breath and noticed me for the first time.
“Oh hey. Have you seen a girl sprint by with a phone? Tell me now or I will destroy everything you hold dear to you.”
Yikes. That was not good. I don’t like people talking to me, or about me, or really talking about me period. It’s not really -well, it’s not surprising coming from a dude with really shaggy hair wearing a heavy metal band t-shirt. Those guys are always bad news.
I jerked my thumb in the direction that the girl ran, not trusting myself to speak for fear of getting burned at the stake. He took off again.
My brain kept running a mile a minute trying to figure out what had just happened. Who was that girl, and why couldn’t I get her out of my head? Am I-No, I couldn’t possibly be…
Am I?


Maddie

First days of school are always interesting. Usually I’m excited to go to school, but not today. Something feels off about today, my parents always seem to be sending me places. Like lots of places and every time we move, something bad happens at the place we last moved. Like the time we moved away from Scarborough, when my old house burned down. Or like the time we moved away from Westminster and my dad’s new car exploded, (thankfully without people in it). Anyways, I'm get off topic sometimes. Well, not all the time, who am I kidding, all I do is get off topic. Anywho. The first day of school was uneventful, that is until Jason nuked the school wifi. As in nuked, I mean technologically nuked, not literally nuked. He says buying uranium in the US is too hard. He also says that he may be able to receive a shipment by the time he’s thirty. He’s weird, but not a bad weird. Kinda like an acceptable weird. Anyways, after he crashed the wifi, I decided to go for a walk. When I say walk, I mean ditch class. Which is usually what I do, all I need is a pound of candy and then no class for an hour. Anyways, as I was walking down the hallway, I bumped into this girl. I’ve honestly have no idea who the heck she is. Anyways, as I continue down the hall, I pause to stop every few feet, to check if anyone is behind me. No one follows me which means I’m fine for now. Hopefully. My phone buzzes and I reach for it. It’s an email that says,

Dear Students of East Ridge High, it started,
We hope you enjoyed your summer, blah blah blah. Access cards-those are always late. There’s no point in figuring out when I should be there. First two days of school, blah blah blah, rugby team, #instant concussions, missing teacher, blah bl-wait. Missing teacher? I go back to read that section:

Lastly, we would like to inform you that our beloved Mrs. Mackenzie Wessman has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and will not be returning this year. Anyone who would like to make her a card is encouraged to. Cards should be put in her mailbox at school, and the front office will mail them for you.

Best regards,
Mr. Alexander Gruenes
East Ridge High Principal


Wait. Mrs. Wessman’s first name was Mackenzie!?! Weird.

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I whirled around the corner as I ran frantically away from Jason. I had his phone, and no intention to give it back. He was on the warpath, cursing and threatening to fry everything I hold dear to me.
But unfortunately, in my quick escape, I forgot to look where I was going.
And I whirled around the corner into some random sophomore.
But dang was she cute.
I reached out my hand to help her up, and she looked up at me. Her eyes were like milk chocolate stars, and her hair was the color of a lab puppy staring at the sun. She was beautiful. My heart was racing, and my mind was telling me to apologize but my brain couldn’t form the words. Jason’s words ran through my head instead:
Symptoms of romantic attraction:
Warm tingly feelings throughout body
Accelerated heart beat
Inability to speak English.
Probably will speak Greek, Roman, Arabic, or Michif, depending on the person (and their ethnicity).
Uh oh. I think I like her. Well, this isn’t good. I have really bad luck when it comes to those. I always get so nervous that I never talk to them and then they disappear or date someone else and-Uhh. Well. I’m scared. I know it seems weird, someone as popular as I am. But it’s true, I really don’t like talking to people I have feelings for. I mean, it’s just really, really hard.
But seriously. What are the chances I’ll run into her again?


Apparently, very high. I walked into my science classroom and there she was. Sitting in the chair next to the one with the tag that said Maddie on it.
Shoot.
I had to spend a whole block with her? And she was sitting next to me?
Darn. I didn’t stand a chance.
False, my brain told me. She’s a girl. There’s no way you’re attracted to her. What about Tyler? And Max? Heck, you even dated Jason for a while! Well, if I’m not going to date her we might as well be friends.
“Hello. My name’s Maddie. What’s yours?”
I have never seen such a terrified person in my life. Her eyes where the size of saucers-she looked like a deer stuck in headlights.
“Uh, hi?”
She’s really cute.
She bent down over the other side of the desk and searched through her bag, finally pulling out a red notebook, binder, and pencil case with a red pencil and red eraser inside. She took one look around the room and dove back under the desk, frantically digging around until she found the same set in green this time. She popped back up, fast, but miscalculated and banged her head on the table. She sat up again-slowly, this time-and rubbed the back of her head as she put her green set on the table.
Why was I so hyper aware of everything she was doing?
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but in reality was probably only about a minute, she turned to me.
“My name is Elia,” she said. “I’m in tenth grade. How about you?”
A sophomore? In an AP class?
She was cute and smart? What doesn’t she have going for her?








Elia



For the first time in my generally pacifist life I wanted to hurt someone. I was at this party on Saturday night. That was where it all started. It was a party hosted by this girl named Elizabeth. Needless to say, she was cute and I was scared she might steal Maddie away from me. Elizabeth was tall and willowy, with long brown hair and almond shaped hazel eyes. She was good at volleyball and french horn. She also was the same age as Maddie and was in all AP classes. To sum it up, she was gorgeous and smart. Anyways, the party that night was a big one. Elizabeth was part of a very rich family and lived in a huge house. I had arrived around eight o'clock and was greeted by the smell of around thirty to forty rip-roaring drunk teenagers. That was the first bad sign. The second bad sign was Elizabeth. She was wearing a maroon colored shirt that flowed in all of the right places and gave her a boho kind of look, along with black leggings and black wedge heels I had seen in the window of DSW last week when I was getting craft supplies at the A.C. Moore next door. Her necklace was golden and long, reaching down to the middle of her stomach and ending with a large piece of amber surrounded in gold. She had two amber drops hanging from her ears as well.