The Secret Life Of Nerds

Running. That was what was on her mind; nothing else. She realized that her feet touched the ground, and that her legs were moving. But she couldn't remember doing anything. Moving, getting away. She really didn't know what persued her, but the steady hitting of the footsteps behind her told her that it was coming, and coming fast. Finally, taking a turn in a narrowed hallway, there was a door. A slight chuckle was heard behind her; the person couldn't be more thean fifty feet away. In her desperation, she opened the door. Nothing.

The door locked behind her, and in the room, that looked like a classrom, had nothing to hid her, nothing to defend herself with. She was trapped. She shrank into a corner, whimpering, praying to anyone that would be foolish enought to listen to her thoughts, and knew it was the end. The door opened, and she pulled herself in the fetal position, the darkness surrounding her-

Audrey woke herself up, shivering, even though her duvet could easity smother her. This dream. Not dream, nightmare. She got out of her bed, and shivered as the cold floor came into contact with her feet. Shuffling along in her p.j. shorts and cami, she opened the door to her room and walked down the hallway to the stairs, and finally outside. Wrapping her arms around her for warmth, she looked up into the stars, and thought if anyone else was wondering the same thing, or looking up in the stars in just rapt wonder.

"You always forget a blanket."

Whirling around as well as she could while still sitting, Audrey saw Ari cover up a yawn with her hand, in huddled under a fleece blanket covered in penguins.

Audrey wryly smiled, "The door gave me away, huh?"

Ari smiled. "I was awake. The moon was still shining through my curtins." Ari walked twoards Audrey, sat next to her on the wooden porch steps, and covered her with ther blanet. "Same deam?" Ari asked sadly, quietly.

Audrey hung her head, as if she was ashamed. "Yeah." She muttered.

"I've been doing some research..."Ari rubbed her eyes, unsure of how to continue.

"Basically, you've got too much stress in your life, or problems. And, instead of facing them, you're running away." Ari chuckled. "Except, Hol, you're one of the bluntest people I know. You're not afraid to face the world. I remember when Cameron broke up with me, like, three years ago, and I felt like shiate. So, even though you were thirteen, you found him in the highschool and yelled at him about how crappy of a person he was, how he was a chouvanistic bastard, how cruel he was to break up with me through a text-message, how he was most likely the result of a science experiment gone wrong, and how he was most likely going to go hook up with his cousin. Oh, and then create more in-bred children who were going to become exactly like him, a washed up loser."

Audrey gave a watery smile. "That was easy, Ari. He pissed off me, because he hurt you. No one deserves to hurt you, ever. You're my perfect older sister."

Ari rolled her eyes.

"But this dream...It's like there's a light inside of you, y'know? And for some reason, I feel when it finds me, all that light...happiness, will just die inside. I think it's my ultimeate fear, Ari." Sucking in a breath, and resting her head on Ari's sholder, she continued.

"And I'm scared. Some days, when I wake up, the bedroom floor just seems miles away and the farthest thing from my mind is getting out of my bed."

Ari pursed her lips. "If Joan of Arc could change the tide of a war before her eighteenth birthday, you can get out of bed." Ari said, quoting a missalanious smart person.

"But you know what, Holl? We're nerds. We're cool nerds. We are the people our friends call when they need help on homework. We help them, even though we haven't started our homework yet. We're invited to parties, and wear reasonable clothes. We are the people on the highschool brochere, who had their highschool shedule planned out from the first month of highschool. We go to school every day, putting up a perfect mask between us and the world. "

Ari smoothed out Audrey's hair, then contuned petting her. "But you know what? Every mask has cracks. As much as we claim to be, we cannot be perfect. We mess up as much as the next person, just diffrent messes. We know how to clean up after them better.

Sometimes people who can see though our masks- they're the ones we want to surround us. Because they know how to look though our vacant smiles and really know that something else is on our mind other then the upcoming test. Those people also scare us, because we can't pull our normal tricks around them. But those people are as rare as dimonds, and just as precious. So tomorrow morning, we're going to school. We're going to smile, and pretend everythings ok, because we are better then this. So, Holl, advice from your 'perfect' sister is this: go to bed. One day, you'll find the key to that dream, and maybe understand why you had it."

Kissing Audrey's head, she took her hand. "So, tomorrow, we're going to get up and face the day."

Standing up, then mumbling into Ari's shoulder as she helped pull her up, she mumbled, "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Scoffing into Audrey's hair, Ari wondered the exact same thing.