Falling Up by Vanessa Bernales (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📖

He keeps popping in and out of mind like a bad song. Why can’t I just block the image of his worried blue eyes away from my head or completely forget about them. I’ve tried so hard to not think about him, now that I know that it’s not working should I try this hard. How many hours of sleep did I lose during this last two weeks thinking of what I would say when I see him again. Thank you for saving my life. And oh by the way you have the most amazing eyes I have ever seen! I figured that I won’t see him again anyway that should be my reason to forget. But when I close my eyes, its his face the keeps me thinking about him. I have to know him.


***
I woke up this morning feeling different, the air felt thick as it entered my lungs making me taking in twice was much just to breath. It’s like I know something bad was lingering around the corner, ready to strike the moment I turn my back. I’ve had this feeling before many years ago. It was when I got lost in woods behind my house. I was to young to think anything about those feeling.
That day I walked around in circles for I don’t know how long, trying to find my way back home. I couldn’t even remember in the first place why I went out so far away, but I did. The sun was setting and the winter air stung my bare hands to a point where I couldn’t move them without wanting to scream in pain. I still remember that day after all this years. Every time my hands stings from the frozen air that days flashes back reminding me of what could have been.
I don’t remember finding my way back but somehow I did. I don’t remember seeing the thinning of trees before you enter the clearing which my house rested at the opening. I don‘t remember passing the pond that my father built with my granddad before I was born, I didn’t remember seeing anything. My parents found me lying outside in front of the door. They had already called everyone they knew asking if they have found me, called the cops and gathered a search party. Many searched the woods but no one found me there. I have never seen my father cry in my whole life until that day, I wanted to cry too but for the wrong reason it was my fault for all this, for those tears in my fathers eyes. I wasn’t scared of what had happened, some how I felt safe.
My doctor said that was a side effect of hypothermia, but I think I would have remembered finally coming home it was all I wanted, all I was looking for. To this day I have nightmares now and again about that bitter winter day. The fear of the unknown that what felt different about today. I woke up with a tingling sensation crawling in the pit of my stomach. Something was going to happen today, something nightmare worthy.
“Its just a dream” I keep repeating to myself like a broken record but the more I say it the more it sounded like a lie. I closed my eyes trying to breath evenly my heart slowly calmed.
“Natalie, you should eat something.” I look at my moms bowl of fiber oaths and some more fiber and couldn’t even picturing myself eat it on a day when my stomach could take it. I guess my face told my thought, on any other day she would have offered her cereal but she didn‘t. I grabbed a glass and shook the container of orange juice for five seconds, its my liquid sun shine. I count every second no more no less it’s what my granddad thought me many years ago, he said it was the perfect amount of shakes to get the orange juice taste just right. He was the only who shared my passion for orange juice and I looked up to him. I know it seems silly to count how many time I shake my orange juice but it the idea of it that make me do it every time, the idea of waiting and taking your time to get something perfect. It reminds me what a good man my granddad was and how much he was missed.
“Is something wrong honey?” my moms head tilts her head an inch to the side pushing her lips together in fine line. I sigh and shock my head
“I’m fine.” I sipped my orange juice slowly, licking my lips from its sweetness. It coats my mouth with acid. “Where’s Conner?” I looked at the clock it five minutes until we have to go. Great he hasn’t even gotten up yet just what I need. If he makes me late for first period one more time I will start charging him money. Forget the good sister pelage.
“Oh your father wanted to drive him.” there was a look of saddens in her eyes so I didn’t ask. What has he done this time.
“Do I need to pick him up after school?” I asked testing she shook her head, my father was driving him somewhere but not to school.
“No, you can do whatever you want today. Your father and I have a dinner to go too and we won’t be home until ten ish. Conner won’t be here either so your home alone tonight. I’ll leave money for piazza.” something is going on with Conner but I know she won’t tell me. I had to leave before I could ask and maybe I wasn’t ready to hear what she had to say.
I zipped my coat higher as I exit the door. The sky had strip of white but the rest is purple, clouds that looked like it swallowed the sky. I can feel the wind scratch my face and neck, making shivers run to the ends of my joints making my body shake.
As I entered my car I turned the heater on full blast. Then the heat was beginning to become overwhelming, if felt nice being to warm rather than shivering in to pieces for once. I looked at the naked trees with their leaves falling, they are so beautiful a sign of change. I didn’t know I had slowed to 25 miles per hour until I hear a horn bring from behind.
I almost laughed at myself and how much I overreacted this morning, it was almost the end of the school day and nothing has happened. Still I couldn’t seem to unwind from my protective thought. I haven’t told Rachel or Jason about the weird feeling I woke up to today. Knowing them they would probably laugh at my idea. Sometime with my friend saying less is always better.
“Natalie you’ve been staring at Mike Walker for like about the whole class.” Rachel nudged me with her pencil which mad me jump a little. I wasn’t looking at him or at least I wasn’t trying to. I was blanking out from thinking so hard about my nightmare. I hope he didn’t noticed.
I have had a crush on Mike ever since fifth grade. I mean who could resist those big brown eyes. He helped me limp into the office after I fell off the swings in mid air and scraped both my knees and my chin on the hard cement ground. Thinking about it now makes me realize what kind of sick school has cement on the play ground? It’s like they have no idea kids plus playground equipment equals disaster. He was the only boy in the whole play ground who wasn’t laughing at me when I started crying endless tears and that’s when I fell in love.
But this year is when I finally stopped wondering if he would ever feel the same way about me. I mean a girl can only take so much heart ach before giving up. Ever since fifth grade he has had eight beautiful girlfriends none of them was me, of course no matter how much I wished I was. I was the opposite of what he looks for. My Chocolate brown hair too dark and long I wasn’t tall with legs that when on for miles like the models on every fashion magazine. I wasn‘t stick thin either like all the girls I see him with, the kind of girls I can picture him putting his arm around. I wasn’t anything like them and I hurts always feeling that your never enough no matter how hard you tried. My mom always joked that I had more curves than a back country road. Which is funny because every summer when we visited my grandparents in Nevada we road on road that rested on hills reminding me that I was growing every time summer came. Mike likes girls a lot like Barbie, blond and perfect. With was much personality as the plastic they make the doll from. I could never compete with them the only thing I have is my emerald eyes and I guess that wasn’t enough.
“Is there something your not telling me?” she leaned in closer to my desk her blond hair draping over her brown eye she was a picture of the kind of girl Mike would be interested in. She arched her perfectly plucked eyebrows at me “You aren’t crush on Mike again are you?” she said in her ’quiet voice’ which was to loud to even be considered a whisper.
“Gee Rach why don’t you say that louder, I think people from china couldn’t hear you.” Of all the places to look of course it would be at Mike. I guess loving a guy for almost five years can do that. I knew this summer I had to quite Mike Walker cold turkey. He was like a drug you don’t see how bad it’s effecting you because all you feel is the high that it gives. He was the reason I haven’t had a boyfriend or a real first kiss. I was thinking that I was saving up for him I felt my wait would be rewarded. I never went to a dance because I wanted my first to be when he asked me. But look where that’s gotten me now sixteen and clueless.
“Sorry… so do you?” Rachel face had fallen. She was the one who help me realized I had wasted my time with Mike and helped me get over him. If I said yes all those self-esteem talks was all for nothing.
“Of course not!” I put my pinky up to show her I was not kidding around. I grabbed hers’ and wrapped it around mine, it been a long time since anything was worth a pinky promise but I know she will believe, we never break pinky promise. I know it seem childish but this is how we know we will always understand each other that we will always be there for one another, another pinky promise that has never been broken. She smiled showing her front teeth and I knew she believed me. I didn’t like Mike that way anymore I knew I was never going to happen why wallow in make believe world? I don’t hate him either for not noticing me the way I wanted him to he was always been sweet but it was always in a friendly way.
“Good because you are going to prom, and I