Everybody breathed a sigh of relief  when a substitute walked in and not the assistant principal, nor our regular teacher. “Good mornin’ students, your teacher is sick so I will be your teacher until he is able to return,” the sub spoke.

Everyone celebrated since no one liked our regular math teacher until the sub finally spoke again.

“Alright let’s take roll and I like to know names, so tell me if you go by something different then what I have here,” the mouse on the desk clicked “Jace Abram?”

“Here.”

“Ella Brown?”

“Here.” The study rhythm and repetition brought me fully back to reality and right on time, “Harper Laurent?” my name echoed. “Why do you look familiar?” the sub spoke. “Did you do a dance cover to You Say by Lauren Daigle?”

That’s the video we just did this morning  it’s been up for not even five minutes how could he have already seen it.

“Yeah that’s me. You’ve already seen the possible?”

“I’m logged into my daughter’s YouTube account and there was a notification for it so I watched it as I walked up here.” This wasn’t happening. Why did I say yes. The algorithm doesn’t usually work this well if at all.

Like flies to honey nearly everybody in class looked up the video and watching it and I had a front row seat to all of their reactions. Where girls found it awesome and most of the guys were clearly not impressed by the dance. The group in the back though had their own reactions.

“You're such a loser, you think this is dancing, fat cow, I’d bang that ass . . .” and other more explicit comments were said from them. Aaron and Luke immediately stood up to throw hands and knock some heads in, but the sub sent the group of boys out into the hall before they could.

My phone started buzzing like crazy with notifications and tags from people reposting the video. All but five minutes later I get a text from Jonah, Why didn’t you tell me you had a YouTube Channel? This is dope. You’re finally cool. I’m the brother of a YouTuber. Do mom and dad know? This was a lot. My phone vibrated in my hand and then again and again and again. Flicking the switch I turned it off, this was a lot. Without any particular beat my leg began tapping the floor violently. Every muscle was no longer connected to my brain. As if I had been out in below sub weather my body began to shake. Elephant, why is there an elephant on my chest? Two by two the walls came in. Breathing became harder and darkness began to splutter my vision.

“Harper? Harper breathe.” Aaron’s voice was distant, yet soothing. “Follow my breathing, okay.” I barely nodded in agreement. “In on one, two, three. Out on one, two, three . . .” This repeated for a minute or two. “You back?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m back. Just got overwhelmed there for a sec.” The remainder of class was simply matrices and mind games to stay focused. I don’t need another matrix to distract me I need a bell to say I am free for lunch and hince a chance to breath and not be confined. Please bell ring, but the more I pleaded the slower time went. This period had become the longest forty minutes I’d ever spent in school. Ring rings, the bell sounded. 10:50:  lunch and a chance to breathe.

All of my hopes of breathing were washed away the second we reached the cafeteria. We didn’t even enter, for I was mobbed at the door by 360 high schoolers that were somehow more fond of me than food for once.

“Hey Harper! Shout out my Instagram! Be my friend!” and many more were shouted as Aaron and Luke helped guide me through the crowd.

“BACK AWAY AND STOP SHOUTING! Let her be.” Was amplified by our assistant principal through a megaphone to calm down the mass of highschoolers. Eventually our bodies made it through the crowd and found there way to a table in the back corner of the cafeteria where we normally sat, but this time with all eyes on us. We were gazelles and they were the lions.

“I’ll go get food for us. What do y’all want?” Luke offered.

“An uncrustable” Aaron requested.

“Same.” Ella agreed.

“What about you Harper?”

“No thanks. I’m not that hungry.” They all gave me that mother look, but didn’t question it. Luke came back a couple minutes later with three uncrustables and four bottles of water. My phone sat turned off in front of, waiting to be turned back on.

“You should at least text your brother back and finally tell your parents.” Aaron tried to reason.

“I’ll text Jonah. This is something I should probably tell my parents in person if they haven’t already found out.” Turning my phone on I was blasted with countless notifications. I have been tagged in over 1,000 Instagram posts, I’ve been shared over 10,000 times on Facebook,  and have been mentioned on twitter over 6,000 times. I also had texts from relatives and two that stuck out read Mom and Dad. I’m dead. First things first though, text Jonah. Yeah, I’ve had the channel for a little bit. It’s not that big of a deal. Mom and Dad just texted me and I’m scared to look. Wish me luck. That one was easy my parents probably weren’t going to be. Let’s do Dad first.

His text read “Why didn’t you mention you started a YouTube channel? I would’ve been supportive.” Yay, he wasn’t mad. I thought you wouldn’t have been  . . . but yeah. So you’re not mad? I had to make sure.

Now mom, hers read “I’m proud and mad at the same time. Why didn’t you tell me? We are talking when you get home.” That isn’t as bad as it could’ve be. I thought you wouldn’t be supportive and yeah. What am I supposed to respond with. Their reactions aren’t as bad as they could've been.

The loudness of the chatter slowly turned into a basic humm of noise that never left c flat. The world became numb as I finally relaxed knowing that my parents weren’t too mad. C flat was eventually interrupted by the rythmic A sharp bell.  All four sets of our eyes craned and became glued to the double doors that allowed children access to food. Middle schoolers started filing in through the worn out white double doors. Since Arrow Heart Academy was a larger private school they split lunch in half, one half for eating and the other as a study hall. We slowly started counting the navy blue and red tiles to the library for study hall. Sixty - seven, sixty - eight, sixty - nine and another set of worn out white double doors opened to accommodate all 90 juniors.

“So what were your parents reactions?” Aaron asked and their attention snapped back to me.

“They both questioned why I didn’t tell them from the beginning. My mom wants to talk when I get home. But they both seem to be slightly supportive of the concept.” They nodded and began working on homework.

Just like a dance my body simply went through all the motions for the rest of the school day. Mindlessly sitting through physics and bible, then putting in concentrated effort in drawing and orchestra. You could ask me what I did today and I wouldn’t be able to give any sort of answer other then “stuff”. That’s how numb I became to the day that I had had. While strumming the last note to “I See the Light” from Tangled in orchestra the bell rang dismissing my numb body from the building. It took a maximum of thirty seconds for myself to leave the building. For 3:01 in the afternoon in spring it seemed more like 6 o'clock in the evening in the dead of winter. A spell of breath left everyone when they looked to the sky and saw a twenty shades of grey version of Starry Night.

Sliding into my car posture no longer mattered and all my emotions took hold of my body. Frigid hands buckled my seat belt and a pitter patter began onto the windshield and down my face. I didn’t even notice the passengers side door open until a warm hand patted mine.

“I can’t legally drive so calm down unless you want me to break the law and drive. I have plenty of experience through Mario Kart.”

“ Haha.” Could be heard beneath the tears. “No, I’ll drive. Just give me a sec.”

“I really will drive if you want me.” Jonah was grinning and trying to get me to laugh again.

“Your 13 that is way too illegal.”

“So if I was 14 then you would let me?” He asked with curiosity and sincerity.

“Hahaha.” Genuine laughter was finally escaping. “I would think, hahaha, about it longer, but I would hope my sense of logic would be intact.” We were both laughing knowing that it was accurate.

“Alright, you read to go now?” Putting the car into reverse I gave a simple yeah.

Jonah made jokes and puns all the way back home about anything and everything. His food puns that he quoted from his friends during lunch definitely put smiles on my face. “I don’t carrot all” and “ I value our friend - chip” were honestly creative and when combined had me laughing for a solid minute. Pulling into our driveway we saw our neighbor’s Hybrid slide down our street and Jonah made one last pun, “Whatcha doin Hybrid? . . . Nothin’ Just the electric slide.” He had a way to make you laugh and used it to his full liking.