I wanted to ask him.
But, we weren’t friends. After today, I didn’t even know if I would see him again.
“Mr. Hawk gave me specific instructions to pick you up and make you feel at home.”
He winked at me and I wondered if he was really just a driver or did he have a second job as a therapist? In the short time that we had been in the car, he’d made me feel comfortable.
“I feel better now.” I said as he drove us through the wet streets, the sound of wet tires a background noise that I was familiar with.
“You do?” He asked as he stopped at a traffic light and waited for it to turn green.
I nodded, “Uh-hah.”
“Good, because you have nothing to worry about. I’ll take you on a short drive through the city if you like. Would that help? We have time.” He looked over at me with a gentle, kind smile.
Again, I nodded and no longer did I feel as if I was on a different planet, but a place that had more excitement than where I’d come from. I wondered if the school would make me feel that way.
I decided for now, I wouldn’t worry about that and just concentrate on the future. Which had to be bright. One more year, Teresa had reminded me.
It’d be over in a flash.
Chapter Ten
As we got to the gate, I’d nearly fallen asleep in the car. The drive had turned out to be over two hours or way longer. The city was so big and the drive to the academy added more time to it.
“Are we driving to Hotel Transylvania?”
“That’s not in Boston!”
Yeah, I knew it wasn’t, but it was a joke. His face was stern and seemed concerned, as he stopped to glance at me as the gates opened. I said it as a joke, but he wasn’t the type of person to joke with, figures!
Once we started to get closer to the gate and I saw the sign, Hawk Academy, my stomach roared like a lion. I was hungry or it could have been the nerves, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as we arrived at the gate and I had a feeling that life wasn’t going to be easy here. It looked creepy, some place that I should avoid rather than welcome with open arms.
“Don’t worry, this place looks scarier than it is. It’s big and old but that doesn’t make it creepy”, Albert said with a smile.
His words became my reality as we approached the school, and his car slowly moved through the long driveway that felt as if it was going on forever. My eyes focused on the drive hoping that it would come to a dramatic end. But it didn’t and the further we drove, the more it just seemed to go on as if we were in the middle of nowhere. Nothing was in sight and I wondered if we were driving to the academy or a prison? One that no one would discover. The kind that if someone did escape, then dogs would chase after us until they found us, and we would be eaten.
Damn!
I’d watched one too many horror movies. We were going to an academy, not a prison and certainly not the home of Dracula.
“We’re nearly there.” He said as if he was trying to bridge the silence. Everything that happened over the last couple of weeks, flashed through my mind. Not Mom dying. Not that part. It was as if I’d blocked it out of my mind. Did I feel guilty about it?
Hell no!
I had the loving memories, found ones of us together. The crappy part, the guilty part of me wanting to go to a party and only thinking about that and not leaving my mom alone in the house. I’d erased that from my mind for now, well as long as I could do it. I would be fine. It was as if I was awoken out of my misery as my phone beeped, not once, but twice.
I looked down at my bag and then grabbed it to rummage through it looking for my phone. My prized possession, the one that I would always keep near, had been so far from me. Usually whenever I went to a new place then I would take a selfie on the way to the airport, after checking in, even sitting on the plane and definitely in the airport on arrival and after picking up my bags and on the way to the place and be posting on Instagram as if my life depended on it. As if not posting would mean that someone would miss that small fraction of my life.
Mom had a good job in the bank, which was why she could afford for us to live in a house and to have good medical insurance. We often took trips together, we even visited France once. That was a trip of a lifetime. Mom’s motto was that a traveled mind was an educated one.
Crazy!
It was a craving though, this need to always post, to always be connected. A craving that I rode like so many teenagers and didn’t know how to get off the wagon. But I didn’t feel like it when I left and certainly not after I arrived. My phone stopped buzzing so did my search to find it.
The rain had stopped, the windshield wipers cleared the glass, and I caught my first sight of Hawk Academy. The big building in front of me, that we were approaching didn’t look creepy, at all. Not like the big gate or even the long drive through the driveway on the way to nowhere. No, this place looked like a fucking palace. So damn beautiful and my jaw automatically dropped as if I was catching flies.
“Impressive, right?”
I nodded, unable to catch my breath, I was so speechless. I had only felt that way twice in my life. The first was when my Gran told me that she was sick and the second was when it was confirmed that Mom had died. I realized that both of them had happened recently and neither of them were in good circumstances.
This.
This was different.
Seeing the beauty of the columns, the red bricks that seemed to last forever, both upwards and downwards. The column which looked like an old church and windows that had what appeared to be bars, but maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were part of the historical features of the building.
I sighed as the car came to a dramatic stop and I knew what it meant, but Alfred’s voice confirmed what I already knew.
“Welcome to Hawk Academy,” he smiled as he turned off the engine and opened the door. He left the key in the ignition and there was a part of me that was tempted to take the keys and drive the car. If only I had my damn license and actually knew how to drive, then it would be an option.
That’s when sudden panic took over and I gulped.
I shook my head as he opened the door, “I can’t. I’m too scared! It’s too damn quiet.”
I couldn’t get out of the car. There was supposed to be a thousand students here. Yet, silence. The only noise was coming from the wind moving in the trees and Alfred talking. Nothing else. I started imagining the kids inside being locked up and not being able to come out. This was supposed to be a school, why was it so damn quiet?
“Maybe everyone’s in class. That’s why it’s so quiet. Besides I told Mr. Hawk that we would be here at this time. He informed me that there would be someone to greet you. Don’t be scared, I reassure you that there’s nothing to be scared about.”
He stretched out his hand and I didn’t know this man, but I believed him. I didn’t know why, but I really did.
I took a deep breath which quickly disappeared the moment others appeared in that grey uniform that the students wore. So, I did a little research before I came and saw what I would be wearing on a daily basis. The uniform, another thing that I wasn’t used to doing. All my life, it’d been get up and figure out what to wear, so that I could fit in with my girls. Now, it was all about not standing out in the crowd. I still didn’t know if I’d liked the idea or not, either way I knew that I had a fresh set waiting for me to fit into the school.