-:I'll Be Watching You:-[An Original Story]-Chapter Two

I was blinded.

Everywhere I looked, there was bright orange and green. What was this place? A school for crossing guards?

I couldn’t stop blinking. Justin looked at me with concern.

“You okay Cora?” He asked. I just nodded, blinking a few times more.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine. I was just kind of…startled.” I told him, eyeing a banner that read “GO JUMPING IGUANAS!”. Were there even any iguanas native to Ohio?

We made our way to the main office, where my eyes were given sweet relief. This room was dressed in soothing browns and tans. The main desk was occupied by a stick-thin old lady with short graying hair. She was wearing a puke pink cardigan. Some people liked to call this color “salmon”. I called it puke pink.

The receptionist looked up from whatever she was typing. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. That’s odd. I must have been under the impression that she was supposed to make people feel welcome. Silly, silly me. I narrowed my own eyes slightly in response. I could tell that I was not going to like this woman.

“Can I help you?” The lady asked.

Justin took in my expression and tried to ease the tension. “Yes ma’am. We’re new students, told to report here on our first day.” He spoke for the both of us.

“Last names?”

“Markesan. Cora and Justin.” My brother answered.

The woman nodded and shuffled through some papers. After a minute, she pulled out two thick folders with our names on them. “In here you’ll find your agendas, schedules, student handbooks, and school maps. If you need any help, ask one of your classmates or a staff member.” She smiled fakely.

Justin nodded and politely said thank you, while taking the folders, handing one to me. We walked out to the eyesore that was the main entrance hall and sat down at a large wooden table. We pulled out our schedules and began to compare them. I grabbed his and put it next to mine. I repeated the comparing process several times in a minute before I realized the awful truth.

Justin and I only had 2 classes together. Out of 8- 40 minute classes, we only had 2 together. That was only 80 minutes, plus a 30 minute lunch.

I had just discovered the true definition of school: Hell with fluorescent lighting.

I couldn’t believe this. How could they take me away from my brother like that?! I felt angry tears beginning to fall down my face as I stared in disbelief. I was going to be all alone…

“Cora?!” Justin’s voice called me back to my senses. He sounded alarmed. I shook my head and wiped my eyes. I had to be strong, so Justin wouldn’t worry about me. I held my hand up for a moment, while I composed myself, closing my eyes.

After about thirty seconds of this, I opened my eyes. Justin still looked worried.

“I’m okay, Justin. I was just a bit surprised, is all.” I said. He nodded, and pulled out our school maps. We began highlighting the fastest routes to our classes.

We had about 5 minutes until the halls were going to get crowded. We needed to get to our first classes before we could be smushed by the rest of the school. We made our way to our lockers, which were right next to each other. At least this school had done something right. I silently thanked society for alphabetical order. The lockers were small and bright orange. The lockers on the other side of the hall were green. Just looking at them gave me a headache.

I didn’t put much in my locker. It made no difference if I had a locker or not. I preferred to keep most of my stuff with me. Once this hall became crowded, I would be avoiding it as much as possible.

Justin walked me to my first class of the morning. Trigonometry. Ick. We were silent for the whole way. As we walked, the halls began to fill up with strangers. Our fellow students. I involuntarily moved a bit closer to my towering twin. He put his arm around me protectively, guiding me through the growing crowd. I calmed down just a little bit. It was obvious about the frown on his face that he wasn’t too happy about the schedule situation either. My brother rarely frowned. He was usually a pretty happy camper. People were giving us strange looks, but I ignored them. I just stared straight ahead.

We stopped just outside the door of the classroom. Justin faced me and put his hands on my shoulders. More weird looks from the strangers.

“Cora, if anything happens, go to a bathroom and text me, okay?”

I bit my lip and nodded, trying to smile so he wouldn’t be so worried. My twin smiled and pulled me into a quick hug, which reassured me a little bit. I could handle 40 minutes without him, couldn’t I? I sincerely hoped so.

I managed to finally smile at my brother. “I’ll be okay Justin. You know me.” I winked jokingly at him, trying to lighten the mood.

It worked. His concern was replaced by laughter. “I’ll see you in a little while, Cor.” He said. I nodded and entered the classroom.
“Here goes nothing…” I thought.
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Next chapter: We hear from both Cora AND Justin’s point of view!

AND, we find out exactly why Cora and Justin are so close. Believe me, it’s more than just being twins.

Stay tuned everyone!