Spirit

Chapter 23: Return
There is really no need for me to have an alarm clock when the thing that truly wakes me up is my nightmares. As much as I want to, I was never able to get used to them.
Today the police was finally leaving my house and I was free to roam the world without the need of secrecy which basically meant-back to school. I sighed.
I got out of bed and took my clothes from my drawer and trudged into the bathroom to get ready.
Once I was done and got out of the bathroom, I heard someone downstairs talking to my mom. I leaved over on the railings to hear better.
“She’s going to be so happy,” my mom said.
“I bet she is,” Nathan answered.
A smiled came across my face and I ran down the stairs, slipping on the last step due to my sock on hardwood flooring.
Nathan ran to me and kneeled down beside me. “Are you okay?” He chuckled and helped me up.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” I said and laughed. “What’re you doing here?” I asked as we walked into the kitchen where my mom was putting together my brother and sisters lunches.
“I missed many years of education so I decided: hey! Why don’t I make up for my junior year at Roosevelt High with Natalia? So I pulled some strings so now….” He left his sentence unfinished because he already knew I knew what he was talking about.
“Are you serious?!” I squealed. I jumped and gave Nathan a tight hug.
“So everything is set? You’re starting at Roosevelt today?”
“Yup.”
I squealed again and hugged him.
“You’re quite buoyant this morning,” he said and chuckled.
“How can I not be? I don’t even want to eat breakfast I just want to go to school!” I said with a laugh.
“Nathan made you’re breakfast,” my mom said and smiled.
I looked at Nathan. “You cook?” I looked down at the table. There was two delicious looking egg omelets sitting on the table.
“I took a year of cooking classes back in Boston,” he said indifferently like it was nothing.
“In that case, let’s eat!”
Nathan and I sat down across from each other and started to eat our omelet. We were talking about school of course and the last time he went to school. We also talked about how hopefully I wouldn’t be the center of attention today at school and it would be like any other day except for the fact that Nathan was with me.
When we were done eating, we got our school bags and headed out the door.
“Is that your car?” I asked when we got to the driveway where a shiny black car was parked.
“Yeah,” he said and chuckled. “It was the first thing I bought with my share of the fortune.”
We hoped into his car. The seats were leather of course and it still had that new car smell.
“It’s a Lexus Hybrid LS.”
“You act like I don’t know my cars,” I scoffed. But actually I didn’t know it was a Lexus until he told me. I wasn’t very good with cars. “Going eco-friendly, huh?”
“Yeah. Saving the Earth is a great thing to do.”
“It is,” I agreed as Nathan pulled out of my driveway.
“Do you have a car?”
“Ha! Me? Have a car? No. My parents ‘can’t afford it’,” I said making quotations in the air with my fingers.
“We need to go car shopping for you sometime.”
“I don’t have money, remember?”
“I’ll buy you a car,” he said like buying me a car was nothing to him.
“You can’t do that! I bet you’re still paying off this car.”
“Actually, I’m not. And like I said before, your worth it,” he said, reminding me of the time we went out to breakfast.
“I really don’t like you buying things for me.”
“Okay, how about you give me half of the money the car is worth when your share of the fortune is released?
I thought about it. “Fine,” I mumbled. “I’ll probably give you more than half though.”
Nathan chuckled.
“Here we are!” Nathan exclaimed when we got to the parking lot at Roosevelt. “Ready?”
I felt frozen. I didn’t want to get out of my seat. “Not really,” I said and grinned.
“C’mon, Natalia. You’re going to have to come out of the car sooner or later.”
“I know. It’s just that I don’t think I’m ready to go back.”
“It’s not like there was a scandal about you.”
“You’re right,” I said and took a deep breath. I started to climb out of the car but then the seat belt flung me back into my chair. Nathan chuckled.
I took off my seat belt and got out of the car.
Nathan was already waiting for me at the door. “Ready?” He asked again.
I took in another deep breath and nodded my head.
We started to walk toward the school and as I walked passed people, some of the people would turn their heads and scrutinize me. I put my head down so I wouldn’t see them.
Nathan saw my mood and took my hand in his. This made me feel better. More than better. It made me smile. I looked up at Nathan and he looked at me. He was smiling too.
As we walked to the entrance of the school, I realized that this was where my friends and I used to hang out. My friends as in a certain ex-bestfriend. I put my head back down but Nathan subtly sqeezed my hand.
“Don’t be gloomy,” he whispered to me.
I looked up at him and smiled. He was right. Lawren was the past and I was finally ready to put the past behind me.
Alex was the first one to spot me. When she where my hand was, her jaw dropped. Chloe looked at Alex’s expression and followed her gaze at me and Nathan. Next was Blaine who poked Lawren to look behind him. When Lawren found what everyone else on campus was staring at, he looked at Nathan in disgust. For some reason it made me smile. Not the fact that Lawren was probably jealous but the fact that everyone finally knew that I was a whole new person.