Join the Manassas High School Teen Scene Book Club ! See Ms. Taylor in the Library.

Book of the Month

I am an outcast.

My first day of high school and I can see, as we are herded into the auditorium for orientation, that I don’t fit in. Everyone else falls into a clan – you know, a clique; THE JOCKS, THE CHEERLEADERS, FUTURE FASCISTS OF AMERICA, GOTHS, …well, you get the idea.

Me? I am clanless…I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, and definitely the wrong attitude. No one will speak to me.

I am an outcast.

The orientation begins with “the rules” – All lies!
#1. We are here to help you!
#2. You will have enough time to get to your classes between bells.
#3. The dress code will be enforced.
#4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds.
#5. Our football team will win the championship.
#6. We expect more of you here.
#7. Guidance counselors are always available to listen.
#8 Your schedule was created with your needs in mind.
#9. Your locker combination is private.
#10. These will be the years you will look back on most fondly.

Yeah, right! Fondly. NOT.

I didn’t want high school to start out this way – it just sort of happened. I’m not used to failing classes. I don’t skip school. I talk. I have friends.

Not any more.

It all started at that end-of-the-summer party. Big deal, that party. Rachel and I were pretty excited about going to a high school party.

Now, they all blame me – they blame me for calling the cops and closing down the party. Even Rachel hates me.

I am an outcast.

No one knows the truth about that night. No one CARES to know the truth. I don’t know the truth - can’t face the truth, anyway.

So, I get a brilliant idea … if they won’t talk to me, then I won’t talk to them! I’ll just retreat. Yes, I’ll retreat into that old janitor’s closet I found on Senior Hall. No one will find me there. The closet is abandoned – it has no purpose, no name…. Perfect, for me. There, I can think.

Problem is, I don’t want to think. I fainted in biology class the other day and hit my head on the table. I was really worried… Worried when the doctor looked into the back of my eyes with a bright light. Could she read the thoughts hidden there? What will she do? Call the cops? Send me to the nuthouse?

Can’t they understand that the whole point of NOT talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. IT won’t. I’ll need brain surgery to cut IT out of my head.

IT is my nightmare … and I can’t wake up.