High School Struggles

By: Kaitlyn DeMarco

I wake up to the sound of my alarm clock. Without opening my eyes, I bang on the device until the sound is no longer ringing through my ears. I pick it up and chuck it across my room. I tug my blanket back over my head and groan. The silence is music to my ears. Once again, the alarm clock goes off again. I pick up my phone to read the time. Regretful, I toss and roll myself out of bed to turn off the death trap that now has me wide awake. The time: 6:30 in the morning. I set the alarm to prepare myself for the tortures of waking up for the week. I have never been an early bird. I never will be.

On a Monday morning, six is not the time I want to be awake. From working all weekend to staying up late doing assignments, school is the last place that I want to be. I lied when I said I was wide awake. Walking around my house stumbling to find clothes, I realize it is almost time for me to leave. Feeling panicked, I sprint to my bathroom and turn on the faucet. I run my toothbrush under the water and brush my teeth faster than I thought was humanly possible. I wipe the excess water from my face, and sprint down my steps to grab my shoes. In a rush, I hop around like a rabbit trying to put my shoes on at the same time I am trying to grab my jacket.

I give myself one last look to make sure I have everything I would need for school. To my surprise, I look down to see that I have my pants on inside out. I kick off my shoes and put my pants on the right way.

“Don’t forget your keys!” I hear my mom calling from her room.

I have a habit of forgetting where I put my keys. Realizing I don’t have them, I run back up the stairs to my room. The keys were sitting in plain sight on my makeup table. I put them there the night before so I would not forget them. I walked right past them on my panic sprint to brush my teeth. I pick them up and run back down the stairs again. I take one last look and make my way to my car.

Me being me, I realize that I had no idea it snowed last night. My windows are frozen. I grab my window scraper from the back seat and I scrape off the ice. With time running out, I have no choice but to only scrape half of the ice off of my windows. Back in the car and freezing, I turn the heat all the way up. I put the key in the ignition and rev up the engine. Next thing I know, I’m getting a call from my best friend Grace.

“Hey, can you pick me up?” she asks.

“I’ll be there in two,” I answer back.

I do not mind picking her up because she lives down the street from me. I arrive at her house, and I call her. There’s no answer. Thinking she did not hear my phone call, I honk my horn twice to give her the hint I am here. Still, she does not come out. A couple of minutes pass before she comes out to my car.

“Sorry, I had to brush my teeth,” she says.

“Well, now we’re late,” I say back angrily.

I take my time driving up to the school since the roads are icy. We arrive at the school, and sprint to the main entrance.

“Late again?” the office lady jokingly says to us.

“It was Grace’s fault this time,” I answer, pointing to Grace while smiling at the office lady.

Like I said before, I am not a morning person. The office lady is used to seeing my face by now. I do not even have to tell her what class I am going to because she has it memorized. Grace and I go our separate ways through the school. I speed walk to class knowing that my friends, Mia and Sierra, will be waiting for me. Walking through Mrs. Edick’s door, I finally feel relief. The feeling of relief slowly fades away when I realize I forgot to do my anatomy homework and I have a math test that I forgot to study for. To top it all off, Sierra starts talking about medieval torture devices, and her theory about Shakespeare being gay. I should have stayed home.