Chapter one (from part one)

 She sounded too serious for someone her age, but I’ve started seeing girls like her more and more often.  

“It’s not that I don’t like it here, I mean, there are worse places to spend four years.  People can get stuck in prison for longer than we’re stuck here, but what gets me every single day is how bored everyone looks.  Most of the kids here are so wrapped up in their grades, sports, video games, relationships, drama, family life, or whatever.  It’s like…everyone’s got this idea that the one thing they kind of like is all there is to the world, and it’s just not!  But most of the faces I see here don’t know that.  They don’t even care, and if they do, they’ll pretend they don’t.  They’ll spend their entire teenage existence dedicated to not caring.  And I guess that’s why I’m so ready to leave, if that makes sense. I feel out of place.”

She started to laugh, but I didn’t catch on to what had so efficiently distracted her.

“Really though, we all are.”

I was fairly sure she was waiting for a reply.  When she didn’t get one, she dove back into whatever point she thought she was driving home. 

“Out of place.  Pretty much the only thing we all have in common is feeling like an outcast, and you know what I think?  I think we feel like outsiders because we are.  We could be out there, in the real world, figuring things out for ourselves.  We could be creating.  We could be loving.  We could be doing anything we set out to accomplish, but six hours into the day and there’s nothing inside us that wants to accomplish anything.  People aren’t meant to sit at desks their whole lives.”

It took a bit of effort to avoid walking into her when she stopped near an open door.