Academic Incidents

The leaves were turning beautiful colours lately. Reds, oranges, gold’s, and some very light greens were winking at me from outside the window of the car. I opened my window a tiny bit to let in some of the fresh October air and my father whipped around in his seat to face me.
“River shut that window right now. The car is perfect temperature already.”
I sighed and turned the crank which closed it.
“Your attitude is really unnecessary River. We’re doing this for your own good you know.” He used his ‘soothing’ voice to try and convince me, but I was already too far gone with anger.
“Whatever…” I mumbled and pulled my black hood up around my head, slipping my earbuds in and turning my mp3 player on shuffle.

~*~ <3 ~*~

It had been sixteen years since my mother died, and six months since my dad met Elizabeth. My mother was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. Strong, independent, and very much in love with love itself. She had long, wavy, deep crimson coloured hair, stunning grey eyes, and a voluptuous body. My father fell for her immediately (so the stories say) and they were perfect for each other. When they found out that my mother was pregnant they were so happy. Unfortunately not everything went as perfectly as they’d hoped. There were a lot of complications and my mother was so afraid of losing me, she got extremely depressed, which my father wouldn’t handle.

He suggested that maybe they should just find a way to abort and try again, but she would never give up her precious first born. She made it through the full nine months, but when she was giving birth, the doctors discovered a tumor inside her that they couldn’t remove without killing me. She refused to save her own life in order to give me mine.
My father has never quite forgiven me for it. And the fact that I look almost identical to her doesn’t really help my case either.

Six months ago my father met Elizabeth. She’s okay I guess for a lying, manipulating, vile, witch. Who ever said that not all stepmothers are evil lied. They so are. My father unfortunately has gone blind since mom died, and seems to have quite the infatuation with her. I’ve tried to tell him that she’s no good, but I feel like every time I try and speak to him one on one, he only sees mom. When that happens he breaks down, and needs someone to help back up, and since seeing me makes him sad; he recruited Elizabeth.

They decided (meaning that Elizabeth decided) that I was trying to sabotage their relationship (which I kind of am) so the only way that they could stay together was to send me to a boarding school. Also, to make sure I wouldn’t ‘get into any trouble’ they were sending me to an all girls’ boarding school.
Now this would be all fine and dandy, if I actually got along with girls.

At home I had all guy friends, the closest thing I had to a ‘girl-friend’ was my gay friend Mathieu. He and I would go on shopping trips, and watch chick flicks and gossip about cute boys. The best thing was, he never got pms ! And when I did he completely understood and brought be ice-cream, Midol and gave me relaxing massages. He was the best ‘Girl-friend’ someone can ask for.

Daddy of course never believed he was actually gay though. He was convinced that Mathieu was just acting gay so I would change in front of him (which I did.) but Ryan was full blown and out of the closet gay. His parents were totally cool with it, which also made him very confident about his homosexuality. Of course our non-gay friends would make fun of him for it, all the “Don’t look at me like that Matty. I don’t play for your team…” things, he didn’t mind. Actually he would respond with things like “Why not? You weren’t complaining last night, and neither was your dad.” and a smug wink to finish.
I miss him terribly already.

~*~ <3 ~*~
I cringed as I saw the dreaded school coming in the distance like a freight train. The high castle-like walls, covered in vines like I’ve seen in old movies. I saw the smirk grow on Elizabeth’s face as we drew up to the parking lot.
“Dad, you cannot seriously tell me you think I’m going through with this!?” I cried, gripping the headrest of his chair.
“You don’t have a say in this River. We--” Elizabeth started with her phony sweet voice.
“Neither do you Elizabeth” I said her name with as much venom as I could muster.
“RIVER! THAT IS NO WAY TO TALK TO YOUR MOTHER!” Dad exclaimed, slamming his hand down on the dashboard.
“SHE IS NOT MY MOTHER, DAD. YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THAT.” I replied with all the anger I felt up to this moment.

There was a stunned silence in the car, Dad was fuming, Elizabeth looked surprised but now she had a smirk plastered across her face knowing that she’d just won, and I was out of the car and grabbing my backpack from the trunk.
I walked up to the doors alone, but waited there with my head down for my dad and Elizabeth to catch up. They did, and said nothing as we all walked into the building together.

“Try to act normal. Happy. Like a family.” Dad grunted sternly.
Lucky for him I loved drama class, and I was very good at acting. I plastered on a fake (yet believable) smile, and walked with a subtle skip. Elizabeth was almost as good, she draped her arm around my shoulders, and held father’s hand with the other.
Dad is not a good actor at all. He walked with a slouch, his brows knit-tight together and mumbling sweet nothings under his breath.
We got to the front desk and the Secretary-who smelled of alcohol and heavy perfume- told us that the Directrice would be out in a moment to give us our orientation.

Before we even sat down, a woman in a tight pencil-skirt and blazer strode out of her office. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head, but she was very beautiful. Dad seemed to notice, as he straightened up and tried to smile. Elizabeth did too, because she scooted closer to him and gripped his hand to the point where it was turning purple.
I smiled at her and she glared at me, I was automatically taken aback and shot one right back at her.

“Feel free to roam around the school, the girls are in class so don’t bother them. Your bags will be taken to your dorm room. The number is written on this-” She handed me a folded piece of paper, then shooed me from the room.
I walked down the hallway and opened the note, expecting to see a four digit code, but there was more then that. In beautiful pink cursive it read:
River,
Welcome to the Girls Academy of Arts ! I hope you have a pleasant stay here. I’m truly sorry for how rude I acted in front of your parents, but they need to see the business me, instead of the good-natured me.
My name is Directrice Allsemee, but I’d prefer if you called me May.
Your dorm room is # 1366.
Hope to see you soon,
May.

I was pretty surprised, but smiled in spite of myself. I wondered around the hallways, peeking in to the classrooms like the creep I am. Eventually I got bored and went to find my room. It wasn’t that hard as everything was numbered nice and big, I was on the second floor, and about halfway down the second hall.

I knocked on the door, but no one answered so I let myself in. The room was painted a soft earthy green, with what looked like hand painted trees from each season on each of the four walls. There was two beds, one perfectly made, and one messy. I was glad I had a roommate, hopefully she’d be friendly.

There was a small closet; half filled with clothes, and a desk by the window. On the desk was a small generic welcome note, and out the window was another huge castle-like building.

For a minute I wondered if it was just another intricate painting, but when I saw the movement of people I figured otherwise.
“What are you looking at?” a voice from behind me said curiously.

I was startled and jumped, sending my face into the window. I turned around rubbing my forehead tenderly, and saw a little form giggling by the doorway.
She had short bright red hair that spiked out like wings away from her small face. She was covered in little cinnamon coloured freckles and bright green eyes gazed out from beneath thick lashes. She was so petite she looked like a little irish doll.

“Do you speak English?” She spoke slowly just in case. I hadn’t noticed my staring was probably freaking her out.
“Oh, uh. Yeah. I speak English. At least in some form, haha” I tried to recover, but she just gave me a funny look and stepped closer.
She held out her hand and I clapped my hand with hers. She gripped it pretty tightly for such a small pixie-creature.
“My name is Neveah. You can call me Nev, though. You are?” Her green eyes sparkled as she spoke.
“River. Hey, do you know who painted these murals? They’re really good !” I released her hand and turned back to the walls, admiring them.

She giggled again, sweet and high pitched.
“I do actually, it was me. I got bored over summer vacation and decided to paints the walls. The directors encourage us to express our creativity here, I’m glad you like them.” I turned back to her completely amazed.
I think I am definitely going to like it here.