Lana feels

So here I am, back at school. Back to the routine, albeit a new routine since the schedule's changed again. I think I should not want to be here. But I do. I like it here. Danielle's not coming back next year. Lila's friend Naia isn't coming, though she wanted her to. It's going to be wierd next year. All the seniors will have gone away, replaced by this year's juniors. Obviously. I'll be a junior, which terrifies me. I never agreed to grow up. Never agreed to be halfway done with high school. So I'll be a junior, a dorm head, with a single. Lila, Katie, Cesca, they'll all be sophomores. There'll be new freshmen, who will look at us admiringly 'cause we all know what we're doing. Even the first day of school, we'll know where and what the Hogan is, and what to do with our trays after meals. We'll know who all the teachers are, and we'll talk to them like old friends. We'll be the experts, or it'll seem that way. It'll be the first time in three years that I won't be going to a new school, and that's important. I finally belong somewhere. I was new when all my friends were new. Like kindergarden, except, with sex and drugs. And homework that involved fewer colored pencils, though we still use them sometimes. And now, I'll be back, and I'll know my way around, and all of that, and that's pretty cool. I'll have power and authority, in a very limited sense, over the girls in the dorm. I'll be a junior. SAT's, college visits. I'm growing up, and maybe I'm even ready. It's a strange sensation.