They say that dreams are a reflection of your life and subconscious thoughts. Sigmund Freud once said that through our dreams, our subconscious mind can uncover the wishes our conscious mind has learned to repress. If that was true, then why was Felicity’s conscious mind trying to repress the beach?

In her dream she was strolling along a beach, making tracks in the sand with her bare toes. The sun was shining, golden rays streaming down from the sky and warming her shoulders. Her sleep-hazed brain was muffling the sound of waves rolling onto the shore and seagulls cawing overhead. Things seemed to be in slow motion, the way they are in a boyband music video for some generic love song.

Felicity’s peaceful dreamscape was interrupted by the angry beeping of her alarm clock.

She rolled over in bed, eyes opening then immediately squeezing shut when they came in contact with the harsh sun peeking in through the cracks in between her curtains. Blindly fumbling for her phone, the source of the noise, she picked it up off of her nightstand and pressed the ‘off’ button.

There was a voice from outside her room. “Hey, kid,” her dad opened the door and poked his head in. “Rise and shine, Sweetheart. You’ve officially made it through your first week of freshman year!”

“I still have six and a half impossibly-long hours of high school to survive, Dad,” Felicity sat up in bed, running her palm over her eyes then pushed her bed head out of her eyes.

Her dad frowned, eyebrows furrowing. “Well, someone’s pessimistic for a Friday morning.”

Felicity forced a smile. “I try my hardest.”

“You’ve got an hour, Grumpy Pants,” her dad informed her. “Chop, chop.”

He shut the door, clapping along with his words.

With a heaving sigh, Felicity pushed herself out of bed, padding her way over to her bathroom.

Maybe, she thought to herself, just maybe, today will be better than the first four days of your high school experience.

She really hoped that was the truth.

As soon as Felicity stepped foot inside of the high school building, she wished she could go back to the beach.

The memory of a conversation that Felicity had with her best friend Carter crept its way into her head.

It was the night before their first day of high school. Felicity was going through her closet, making a mental catalogue the possible outfits she could wear to make a good first impression on her teachers.

“This is going to be great for us!” Carter lounged across her bean bag chair. “Besides, think of all the new cute girls you’re gonna meet. The population of your possible girlfriends is gonna grow by, like, thirty percent!”

“You act as if I’m actually going to introduce myself to anyone.” Felicity pulled a dress from her closet and examined it. “I’m the queen of social anxiety land, remember?”

Carter snorted out a laugh, rolling his dark brown eyes as he did. “Mark my words, Morrison. You’re gonna find the girl of your dreams.”

A group of strongly-smelling teenage boys pushed past her, chasing after each other and shaking Felicity out of her own head as they did. To her left there was herd of teenage girls that looked like they were God’s given gift to hormonal high school boys and they knew it. On her right there was a row of steel blue colored lockers, half a dozen freshmen standing in front of them with worried looks on their faces as they tried to remember their locker combination.

Felicity made her way down the seemingly endless halls with her first period class in mind.

The room was relatively large, with tall windows lining one side. The natural lighting was a nice change from the fluorescent overhead lighting filling the rest of the school. There were already a few kids in the classroom, loitering around the doorway and chatting with friends. Felicity muttered a quick “excuse me” as she weaved around her fellow students, eyes set on the desk somewhere in the middle of class, not in the front, because that was too much attention and her teacher was sure to notice her there, and not in the back, because she was too overachieving to be one of those kids that sat in the back of the class.

Felicity couldn’t explain, but something willed her to turn around. The rational side of her thought it was nothing more than her rapidly moving mind, but the emotional side of her was positive it was some divine, all-seeing force that made her eyes gravitate back toward the door of the classroom. And sure enough, there she was. The new girl.

Her name, Felicity had learned through the twisting grapevine of high school hallway gossip, was Eliza. She had moved from New York City, where she went to some pretentious art school.

Felicity was completely enamored as she watched her waft into the classroom, paying special attention to the way her wavy blonde hair bounced around her lower back and her chocolate brown eyes flitted around the classroom. The natural, welcoming smile on Eliza’s face was enough to send Felicity’s heart into a gymnastics routine that could’ve put any Olympic gold medalist to shame.

Yeah, Felicity thought to herself, definitely divine intervention.

Bang!

In the process of ogling at the pretty girl, Felicity had bumped into an occupied desk, knocking over the occupant’s metal water bottle in the process.

The sound was loud and harsh, immediately drawing the eyes of all the students to the source of the noise and in turn, her.

The sight of almost three dozen eyes on her sent a wave of anxiety rushing over her body. Her stomach rolled and her cheeks flushed a bright red.

Nice job, Stupid.

Felicity knelt down to both grab the water bottle and avoid the eyes of her peers.

“Sorry,” she mumbled quietly, setting the water bottle back on the desk of its owner.

Felicity hurried to the desk that she had previous set her eyes on. The desk creaked and wobbled as she slumped into it and shrugged her backpack off of her shoulders. She reached into the front pocket of her backpack and pulled out a pencil, twisting it rapidly between her pointer and middle finger in an attempt to distract herself.

“Excuse me?” a female voice caught Felicity off guard.

She looked up from the pencil that was occupying her attention, now face to face with Eliza in all her beautiful glory.

Now that she was up close, Felicity could get a good look at her face. There were small flecks of green and gold in her chocolate brown eyes that Felicity could see if she looked hard enough. A small dusting of freckles dotted her nose and tops of her cheeks. She was around Felicity’s height, maybe 5’5ish.

“Is this seat taken?” Eliza’s nodded toward the empty desk.

Even her voice is cute.

“Uh, n-nope,” Felicity stuttered on her words. “It’s free. Completely free. All yours.”

Oh God, I’m embarrassed by myself.

Eliza smiled, “Great!”

The teacher began speaking, something about reminding the students to get their syllabus signed, but Felicity wasn’t listening. All of her attention was devoted to the blonde sitting next to her. Her bookbag was yellow, printed with the words “save the bees”. The notebooks she was pulling out of said bookbag were printed with various flower patterns. She pulled out a pencil case filled with a rainbow of gel pens.

In fact, Felicity didn’t listen for most of the class. She spent the 45 minute period watching Eliza out of the corner of her eye.

She discovered that the blonde also had a habit of twirling writing utensils and she doodled on her hand when she got bored. They were nice doodles, better than Felicity could’ve ever done. That probably explained why she had gone to a fancy-shmancy art school back in New York.

Apparently time flies when you’re staring at pretty girls, because suddenly the shrill sound of the school bell was ringing and kids were gathering their things.

Felicity pulled her folded up schedule out of her pocket and swung her backpack over her shoulder. She was trying to remember how to get to her next class when someone’s hand landed on her elbow.

Eliza was standing behind her, brown eyes gleaming. “Hey! Do you know how to get to room 215 from here?”

Oh my God, she’s talking to me.

“Uh, y-yeah.” Felicity attempted to sound like she wasn’t internally freaking out, but she wasn’t sure if it was working. “My next class is in room 213, so I, uh, I can walk there with you.”

Eliza’s natural smile got even wider. “Great! I’m Eliza, by the way. I’m new here.”

The two girls weaved around other teenagers as they walked down the crowded hallway.

“I’m Felicity. You moved from New York, right?”

Felicity knew the answer to the question, but she needed to make some kind of small talk or she was 97% sure she was going to pass out.

“Yeah, but I like it here. Portland’s not that different from New York, just a little less crowded. How long have you lived here?”

“My whole life,” Felicity answered. She was starting to feel the nervous bubbles in her stomach disappear. “And I’ve always wanted to go to New York.”

“Well, if you ever do, tell me,” Eliza told her. “I can give you all the deets about good restaurants and sightseeing spots.”

Felicity smiled, a genuine smile, not a nervous smile. “Sounds like a plan.”

At this point, they had reached their respective classrooms and Felicity felt her heart deflate. The rational part of her brain knew she’d most likely see Eliza after class, but the lovestruck teenage girl side of her brain knew that it was going to be the longest 45 minutes of her life.

“You wouldn’t happen to have an empty spot at the lunch table would you?” Eliza asked. “Because I’m not exactly looking forward to being the stereotypical new kid that sits by herself.”

“Totally!” Felicity nodded enthusiastically. “I can introduce you to my friends.”

“Great!” Eliza smiled. “You’re a lifesaver.”

The warning bell rang, telling them that they had one minute to get to class.

“Well, I better go,” Eliza threw a thumb over her shoulder in reference to the class behind her, “but thanks for walking me here. And for letting me sit with you at lunch. And for just talking to me in general.”

Felicity could’ve sworn Eliza was blushing, but she passed it off as a side effect of poorly air conditioned hallways. “No problem. I’ll meet you back here after class?”

Eliza smiled again. “Sounds like a plan.”

With that, the two girls turned and walked into their classes.

Felicity felt like she did in her dream from the night before, light, like she floating on air, and the rest of the world seemed to move in slow motion around her. The nervous caterpillars crawling around in her stomach had turned into happy butterflies.

Maybe, just maybe, Felicity thought to herself, this year isn’t going to be so bad.