Senior Year

So I was now living with "James" and his family. I hadn't stopped to think of how much I had moved around by then, it certainly was a lot. I wanted so much to have my own place and only move when I wanted.

I was always the first one on the bus from "James's" house and the first one off. Due to asbestos removal at our high school that year, the juniors and seniors had to go to local middle schools, in split sessions, with the freshmen and sophomores. It was a crazy way to spend a senior year. Despite it all, I was really buckling down in my senior year. After the past few years of really screwing up and failing in classes that I loved, I wanted to do better and try to live a decent life. If only I could figure out what a decent life was...

 I was getting my bus at 6am and getting out at 12pm or so. Other classes would go from 12-5pm The schedules at the schools were crazy, to try and accommodate everyone. My first day riding the bus was an eye opener. The route came out onto a main road and there, on the side of the bus that I was sitting, was a field...and the shack. It was set back from the road but due to all of the leaves falling from the trees, over the winter, it was easily seen from the road. I had to go past that every morning. I tried to just ignore it or it would ruin my whole day. It was hard to do though, I would always catch where we were, out of the corner of my eye.

Then one day, during change of classes and a week after "S's" birthday, I ran into the sister of one of "K's" friends. She said, "Did you hear?" I didn't know what she was talking about. ""K" shot himself last night, out on his grandparents property. They said he never came back from hunting out there and they found him in the hunting shack." It was the shack he had taken me to, so many times. I felt like a zombie. I just walked away to my next class. I was late. I didn't know how to feel. I sat down and my teacher looked at me and asked if something was wrong. I said out loud, "My sister's ex husband killed himself." He said to go to the nurses office and I was excused for however long I needed. The nurses office wasn't so understanding. They had heard nothing of it and didn't want to allow me to leave school. I told them I was leaving and they probably didn't know anything because it just happened overnight. Out in the lobby, I called "James" to pick me up.

Years after that, I was looking through my yearbook at candid pictures taken around school. There was a picture of me, from that day, talking on the payphone. There aways seemed to be little reminders.