The first thing Thane noticed was the fact that his legs weren’t broke. He did a little mental cheer in response to that. The next thing he noticed was that his mom was home. Before he had gone back in time his mom would work late, so wouldn’t have time to get up and serve him breakfast. It was awful. Finally, he stopped himself. He didn’t want to get through that storm of emotions again. To end up dead again. He wouldn’t let it happen. Thane promised to himself he would never give up on life again.
He wondered how he could stop that from happening this time. Thane moved out of his bed and gave out a yawn, as he moved toward his dresser.
“That dresser was the worst. God, I can’t wait till I can get rid of this piece of trash.” The thought drifted into Thane’s head as he looked at the wooden three drawer dresser. He opened the second drawer.
“What should I wear today?” Thane wondered looking at all his shirts, and finally deciding on wearing a green polo. It would look nice with a pair of jeans. He proceeded to throw the chosen article of clothing onto his bed and take off his shirt.
“Man, you really are oblivious,” Amy stated. She was currently sitting on his bookshelf, which by the way astounded him. The bookshelf that this tormenter sat on was at least four feet tall and eight and a half feet wide. There was no possible way to get up there, so the fact that Amy was sitting on the top of this white flimsy bookshelf surprised him. No, correction, Thane was annoyed with his angel.
“What do you want Amy? I thought I was good to leave, and try again.” Amy hopped off the bookshelf, though it was more of a hop than float down to so she didn’t get hurt.
“Well, that’s a good question. To answer your question, if you had read the contract thoroughly you would’ve known that I have to accompany you throughout the rest of your life, also there are some other things I have to go over with you. By the way, why do your pajamas have Mario all over them?” She was speaking the truth, for there on the pajamas was the little red Italian man jumping around. This though also brought him back to the reality that he was changing.
“Will you please get out I need to get changed?” Thane tried to keep from yelling of getting mad at her but was unsuccessful. It came out as a snarl, and Amy obviously noticed. She raised her eyebrow in response to this but continued on.
“It will only take a few seconds, just let me explain. So basically what’s going on is-“She was unable to finish her sentence as she stopped speaking and looked upwards. “Sorry, got to go. Apparently, I have other responsibilities. Thane let out a deep breath as he leaned against the wooden door. “What the heck is going on?” Thane asked himself as he held his head in his palms. Thane decided that if Amy was going to be with him for the rest of his life than he might just go insane. Thane lowered his body to the floor, while still having his back pressed against his door. Thane needed time to relax because life had become befuddling at the moment. “Oh well. I’ll deal with this later.” This thought resounded around Thane’s head, while he picked himself up off the floor. Thane contemplated his situation as he stood in the house that he was living in – no, the house he lived in. Currently, Thane had been sent back in time to a time before he had become a paraplegic. He was probably in 9th grade, maybe 8th, though he wasn’t sure. Thane was without a shirt on and a pair of jeans on, and outside his door was a crazy lady, who wouldn’t stop bugging him.
Ok, so things weren’t half bad, but things could still be better. Thane moved to the bed and picked up the green polo, where he had thrown it. Thane finally donned the shirt, and let out the pent up tension in his chest. “Here goes nothing.” On those words, his keeper made her appearance.
“So, you finally finished changing. Damn, you take a while, Thane. That’s saying something too because I take at least half that time. Also, it looks like we might be speeding things up a bit.” Amy had returned and was now sitting on Thane’s bed.
“The only reason I took so long was because you were bothering me.” Thane pulled out a pair of socks and sat back down beside Amy. He proceeded to don the socks and search for his shoes.
Thane drooped back down and picked up his shoes, and backpack, which ironically was in the same spot.
“Whoa, no need to freak out; anyway we still need to talk. It’s really important and- too late… I’ll tell him later.” Thane had left his room jumped down the stairs two at a time to see his mom waiting for him in the kitchen.
Mrs. Dread was a tall woman with long smooth brown hair that flowed down her back from the top of her head ponytail. Mrs. Dread was a tall woman for an age of forty-six years old, and her appearance didn’t show that age either. There wasn’t a single gray hair on her head yet, nor had her hard muscles turned to soft flab. Her figure had also maintained a nice curvy shape. Her face though showed weariness and stress. The smiles she gave were always weak and sorrowful. A flashback reminded Thane of one of those smiles. He remembered it clearly, small, but the teeth were still visible, yet there was fragility to it. The smile looked as if it would break at the slightest touch. Mrs. Dread’s real wearisome came from her eyes. Her eyes were light blue, and always had a shine to them, until the smiles started. The color died in them, no, the life seemed to be have been drained out of her. He remembered it started about a few months before he committed suicide. His father was the cause, but he couldn’t bring to mind the exact details of the incident. He wondered why, but that could wait for another time. His mother today was wearing a white skirt with a white top, yet all over it were light blue butterflies. The butterflies seemed to be flying freely and something about them showed extreme joy. She wore a pair of simple brown plain flats, which made a clip clop sound as she walked to and fro grabbing two plates from the cabinet. The clip clop seemed to mesmerize Thane as he stood in the doorframe of the kitchen. Thane watched as his mother grabbed two cups from the white wooden cabinet where their family kept the glasses.
“Thane.” A voice whispered over his shoulder. The voice itself was Amy.
Thane responded as if on instinct
“What?” His voice seemed to emanate an annoyed manner, but Amy didn’t seem to take notice as she normally did. Instead, she just kept on plowing through as if nothing happened.
“You have to get to school or else you will be late.” Thane’s coal black eyes darted to an analog clock that was on above their blackened stove, which had a gleaming silver pan a top of it. The pan currently was holding three cooking pancakes in it, which Thane could smell. Thane’s eyes darted from the clock above the pan to the cooking pancakes to find the source of the delightful smell that was making his brain perform pirouettes. His eyes then in a distracted manner began to wander around the room, as if looking over the old kitchen, which he once lived in. The walls were still a familiar banana yellow, with its red stripe around the uppermost part of the yellow walls. The walls always seemed to shine in many magnificent colors, and always reminded him of buttercups and roses. The walls brought peace to his mind. Too bad he would have to leave them behind when he moved to the new house. His eyes drifted some more to the white and red wooden cabinets that adorned the walls. The colors alternated, and they added a seeming cohesiveness with the walls as they met. The handles upon the cabinets were differing colors of butterflies. His favorite was their orange, yet it had a red to it as well butterfly. It reminded him of the sunrise and the sunset, though more of the sunrise. He had always loved it more. As it was always quite more uplifting than the sunset, because the sunset always reminded him of the end. The doorknob was a mix of those too and always gave him something simple to think about. The fact was whether or not that color was a sunset or a sunrise. It was an interesting quandary and one of the less pressing ones in his life yet to come. This cabinet in particular was in the nearest left corner to him, as the kitchen itself made a sort of rectangle with one quarter of its body cut out. The cabinet also happened to be a corner cabinet as was neither on one side or the other, also bringing him back to whether that cabinet was leading to daytime or nighttime. His eyes moved from his favorite handle to the refrigerator which cut the cabinets in half. The refrigerator was located in the middle of the rectangle and it always annoyed him. Why did the refrigerator have to cut the cabinets in half, why couldn’t chose to be at one of the ends or something like that. Thane saw the convenience of having it there, as it allowed his mother to grab the items she needed and then get right back to work making the meal at the time. Thane though always seemed to think of the separation of the two sides. His eyes finally wandered to the stove, the oven, and the dishwasher, which were all right next to each other. The unity between those three was beautiful, and he loved it. It would be another thing he would miss when he moved to the new house, as a lot of the things there were separated, especially in the kitchen. Everything was different and ugly at the new house.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
His musings were woken as Amy repeated her statement with a bit of annoyance to it. “If you don’t hurry up you will be late. I hope you realize this.” Thane’s eyes redirected themselves at the clock to see that it was only six thirty-five. Thane and his mom didn’t have to leave for another ten minutes, and even if they left in the next ten minutes the pair would not arrive at school until seven o'clock. School started at eight, and Thane always liked to be there when no one else was so he could enjoy the silence. Therefore Amy’s statement was invalid. At least in Thane’s mind.
“You’re the wrong school doesn’t start till eight, you goof.” Thane always had a tendency to call his friends goofs when they acted like idiots.
“Correction. You are the one who is wrong, Thane. You have to get there at seven to have a converse with Marissa. She actually has a chance to try having you learn about what is going on currently because you sure as won’t listen to me. Anyway, hurry up please.” Amy makes a shooing motion with her hands. Thane smiled at this as he looked over his shoulder at Amy.
“Thane, let’s go, I thought you wanted to be there at seven today!” Mrs. Dread was growing impatient waiting for Thane to finish up getting dressed, at least that’s what she thought he was doing.
“I’m coming!” Thane yelled back. “Fine, I get it I’ll hurry, but you are coming to school too. No way do you get to relax while I am bored to tears by these teachers.” Thane then stepped into the kitchen and breathed deeply. He had already smelled the deliciousness of the pancakes, but he wanted his mom to know that he appreciated her cooking, especially the pancakes. “Man, they smell really good mom, thanks for going to the trouble of making these pancakes for me.”
“What do you want?” Of course, she suspected something foul was afoot because he never used to act this way, but the mind as well goes along with the show. Right?
As Thane picked up his pancakes, not hear his mom, thoughts were buzzing around his head. He was thinking about all the things that had occurred already and it had barely been thirty minutes. I can’t think about that right now. I have to focus on what is going to happen. Let’s see I met Marissa after about 3 weeks in school when I ran into her at the library, but it really was a more of an “oops I bumped into you here let me help you pick up your books” kind of thing. According to Amy though we are going to meet on the third floor by my lookout spot, and that could prove troublesome for predicting later events. Hmm… this could become problematic. Thane’s mind currently was in an organized frenzy, and it was usually as such. Thane knew it had started when he was first noticed. He was only noticed when he broke his legs, and only then was he put out as an outcast. His one place away from all this thinking and worrying was his look out spot.
It was on the third floor and it was a room detached from everything else. The room itself was in the center of the third floor yet only accessible from a hallway that one would have to walk down from the end of the left hand side of the building. The person in question would then take a right as if they were going down the stairs, but instead going down the steps the person would take a right into a hallway. This hallway people passed all the time without noticing it, so it was the perfect place for Thane to use. The room was a brick room and had one bookshelf, which was filled with old English books, which Thane had no interest in whatsoever. There was a table in the center of the room, which was obviously one of the fancier tables in the school. It wasn’t used for anything anymore. All it did was sit there and collect dust on its surface. The table had elegance to it. The black and reds that it held brought that out, for the red wasn’t too dark or too light, nor did the black dominate everything. It was circular table, which had a bit of an inward curve at the corners, where normally there would be an outward curve. The red covered the surface of the table, while the black took the edgings and the swooping legs. The black colors dominated the four chairs that surrounded the table as well. The chairs were black, while the red covered the handles and the inlay, which outlined the chairs form. The chairs and the table were the only fancy things in the room though, as the carpet and the bookshelf were so bland and boring. His interest wasn’t in the tables or the chairs. Thane’s interest was in the circular glass window. In the morning he liked to stay in the room and watch as the sun rose through the glass window. It was originally supposed to be a clock, but it never was completed, so it remained the same glass circular window, which allowed Thane to be joyously entertained each morning by a new artwork that was painted by the sun every morning. He only discovered this room though after he broke his legs though, but now he knew where it was, and could still have his own little hide away.
Thane was woken from his reverie by his mother shouting at him. “Thane! Ah back to earth are we? Now, you're acting very strange today is something wrong. First, you act very politely, and now you are spacing out. What’s up?”
“I had a life changing experience of a dream last night that’s all.” Thane wasn’t lying, technically all that had happened inside his head since he was getting a second chance, so it was true in a confusing way.
“Really, what was it?”Oh great, she’s getting curious. The nightmare of every child at the age of fourteen was their parents getting nosey.
“Well, I dreamed that I was paraplegic and that my best friend committed suicide. It was a very depressing dream if you ask me. Please don’t ask me anything else it makes me uncomfortable.” Success. Thane had out maneuvered his mother once again. He had begun to become very adept at this kind of thing once he had started to retract and build a kind of cocoon for himself. The cocoon protected him from the outside world, and it kept him in his world and he would not let anyone in his world no matter what.
Thane arrived at school to discover he was indeed in ninth grade as he had presumed, with a little annoyed Amy who told him he was really late. Late being five minutes past seven. Thane headed in through the double doors of the Ronald D. Ferror Hall. Ferror Hall, as it was known as, was the main building for Thane’s high school. Thane dashed inside and ran up the stairs two at a time. His speed slowed as his backpack, which held his computer, textbooks, and binders. Thane’s breaths became heavier as he trudged up the stairs. He heard footsteps rushing up behind him. Oh, no. Not today, it wasn’t supposed to occur today. Thane quickly sidestepped to see Amy rush by him.
“Real mature Amy, real mature,” Thane stated this in a very sassy pose.
“Nice sass Thane. By the way, you’re looking like the stereotypical teenage girl right now, just thought I’d mention that.” She was standing at the top of the steps with her hands on her hips, as she looked down on Thane with a smile on her face.
“No need to be confident. You haven’t won yet. The finish line is at the class oom but who cares. We just have to get there, cause I cannot wait to see Marissa.” Thane joined Amy on the top of the steps.
“Sounds like somebody likes Marissa.” Amy had a spark in her golden eyes. It shined with mischievousness, and it made Thane worried.
“First of all, shut up. I do not like her. Second, stop giving me that look like I am the best dessert in the world.” Thane edged away from Amy and then sped walked down the hall towards his hide away. Thane kept looking over his shoulder with a worried look on his face. Amy’s evil look tracked Thane’s movements until he went out of her sight.
“I’ll give him a few minutes while I get things ready,” Amy announced to a nonexistence companion in the room. “I know, it has to be done.” She slowly walked off in the footsteps that Thane had just taken. When Thane arrived in his hideaway, he found nobody there. Nobody was in the room. Where was Marissa?