It Should Have Been a #GoodDay

By Natalie Corbett Sampson

Sometimes a situation is not what you think it is

In high school perception can be the key to surviving. Especially if you’re hiding something.

The new girl — Emily hopes to leave a painful event behind her by starting at a new school, but it looks like that’s just a pipe dream.

The golden boy — Brogan is the big man on campus until a knee injury has him benched. Now he’s struggling to hold on to his top dog position while pushed to the sidelines.

The popularity seeker — Thomas desperately wants to shed his loser status. He can, as long as he doesn’t let his nice guy instincts get in the way.

The heart of gold — Henry doesn’t know how different he is, although everyone else at school does. And the popular kids have no problem letting him know he doesn’t fit in.

As they go through an ordinary day of negotiating halls, classes and the baggage of their lives, each of them has no idea that their paths will cross in such a way that will change their lives forever.

Sometimes what should have been a good day turns out to be the worst day of your life.

Canada Book Awards Winner!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Natalie Corbett Sampson
• Release date: Feb 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9780987994110

Natalie Corbett Sampson

Natalie lives outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia with her husband and kids (furry and bipedal). She is the author of Game Plan (November 2013), Aptitude (September 2015), It Should Have Been a #GoodDay (February 2016) and Take These Broken Wings (February 2017). Natalie carves out time to write between taxiing athletes, pianists, academics and social butterflies to their various events and her day job as a speech language pathologist. Natalie also enjoys sports, photography, art and reading.

Book preview

&RunnerSy43 — Streak still going #Sameshirtdifferentday

&PowerVic — &RunnerSy43 How many days? LOL #Sameshirtdifferentday

&Andrea43 — &RunnerSy43 B nice. Blue 2day, red yesterday.

&RunnerSy43 — &Andrea43 Still SuperLoser uni. #Sameshirtdifferentday #Colourdoesntcount

7:30 a.m.

the first sign that today is a good day is i wake up right at 7:30 am. i used the ipad alarm app to wake me up right at 7:30 am. mom used to wake me up in the morning but sometimes it would be 7:32 am or 7:27 am or anything except right at 7:30 am and that meant the day would start wrong right from the very first part and my thoughts would be worried about how bad the day would be if the very first part was wrong. when mom woke me up at 7:32 am or 7:27 am or any time that was not right at 7:30 am my thoughts would get worried that it was a different time and since i was not dressed when i woke up i did not have my string to spin and so i would yell. mom gave me a strategy for getting up right at 7:30 am to stop my thoughts from worrying and stop my voice from yelling and that is he said i could use the alarm app on my ipad and set it right at 7:30 am and now i can wake up right on time right at 7:30 am and that is a strategy to make sure the day starts as a good day from the very first part. waking up right at 7:30 am gives me the right amount of time to do everything i need to do in the morning like put on underwear and put on pants and put on the blue Superman t-shirt because it is tuesday and put on socks and put on a hoodie and put on—wait that is Too Much detail. mom says sometimes i say Too Much detail and i need to think about what is important in a story. this story is not about what i wear on tuesdays so i do not need to say all of the clothes i put on after i wake up right at 7:30 am.

today i wake up right at 7:30 am and do all of the things that are Too Much detail to tell. then i have toast with blueberry jam and butter for breakfast. that is a big detail that is important to the story because i woke up right at 7:30 am and we had blueberry jam so it should be a good day not a bad day. i have toast with blueberry jam and butter for breakfast every morning. but one day we were out of blueberry jam and i was mad i had to have toast without blueberry jam and just with butter. that was a very bad day. but this morning we have blueberry jam so i make toast with butter and i put on one spoon of blueberry jam. mom says one spoon is enough. if I spread it out it can reach all the crusts so there is no bald spots. i eat my toast with blueberry jam and butter and wipe up forty-two crumbs because that is a strategy mom made to keep the house tidy. and i go brush my thirty-two teeth but i do not brush my hair because i do not know how many hairs are on Henr—my head.

i watch the weather channel because i am ready to go. every morning when i am ready to go and it is not time to go to the bus i watch the weather channel so it can tell me what will happen with the weather that day and that helps to tell me if it is a good day or a bad day even though i woke up right at 7:30 am and there was blueberry jam on the toast. even though it is december the weather channel says the weather will be not cold, a high of minus four degrees celsius and sunny skies with zero chance of precipitation. precipitation is the scientific word for rain and snow and sleet and hail and anything wet that falls from the sky. i do not like any precipitation. there is zero chance of precipitation so it should be a good day. four degrees celsius is not warm but in december four degrees celsius is warmer than a lot of other days.

mom says Henry go back and brush your hair.

i go back to my bathroom and look in the mirror and start counting to 270 because that is four and a half minutes and four and a half minutes is long enough to brush my hair. in the mirror i look the same as yesterday but today is different because i am sixteen years and two months and seventeen days. dad says i do not have to tell everyone the number of months and days but it is the days that is the different part about today. i am six feet and one and a half inches and that is very tall, way more tall than Simon who is only five feet and eleven and a half inches even though he is seventeen years seven months and four days. mom says my hair is a little too long and i should get a haircut but i do not like to have haircuts and i do not like to have my hair brushed. i do not like the feeling of each hair pulling on my head and that happens when scissors cut my hair or a brush pulls my hair. i have to count each piece when the hair is pulled and i do not like counting that fast. i start to miss some pulls and that makes me mad. i do not like missing any of the numbers when i am counting.

i have brown eyes. my eyes are the same colour as my hair and that is good because they match. my eyes are the same colour as mom’s eyes and the same colour as dad’s eyes. my eyes are a different colour than Simon’s eyes because Simon’s eyes are blue. that is because Simon has the two recessive genes for eye colour and that means mom and dad each have one recessive gene for eye colour and one dominant gene for eye colour because mom and dad have brown eyes but Simon has blue and to have blue there is a twenty-five percent chance to have two recessive genes, one from a mother and one from a father. or Simon was adopted. but mom said there is a one hundred percent chance Simon was not adopted. my strategy to not brush my hair is to count to 270 and i do not brush my hair and then it is 7:49 am and i do not have time to go back into my room again if mom thinks i need to brush my hair.

&GreyWolf — Today sux already

&K8ee — 2 cold 2 walk. Some1 pick me up?

7:31 a.m.

When I slap my hand on the nightstand where my phone should be, it’s not there, so I think it must have fallen off the last time I hit snooze. Taylor Swift keeps singing about shaking it off from somewhere under the bed. Taylor, really, what do you have to shake off? I pull the pillow over my head to block out the song, but it doesn’t work. I push myself up on my elbows to reach my hand under the bed to find the phone and stop the obnoxious song—I used to love it but heard it way too many times. Now it’s the only one that will wake me up for sure. There’s cat fur…a sock…something cylindrical…the rounded corner of my vibrating phone. I grab the phone and turn off the alarm in one motion, then flick on Facebook.

A new private message on J&bber…

Great. Good Morning, World. Oh, and eff off.

It’s all I can do not to throw the phone. I can’t afford to replace it or explain why it’s broken to Mom and Dad. Instead I grip it in my fingers tight enough it hurts and then slam it down on the bed while I blink fast and hold my teeth clenched until the burning wet in my eyes goes away. You are so not worth it. I wish I could tell them that to their ugly faces. If I had the nerve. Lifting my laptop off the nightstand where it’s charging and flipping open the top, I wait for it to wake up. I’m deleting every last account. Apparently using fake names and celebrity pictures won’t keep me hidden. I’m sick of trying. It’s been a couple of weeks or more since the last message, so I actually thought I’d found the right cover or they’d given up. Obviously you never will. Delete, delete, delete. On each of the sites I wipe out my online existence. I expunge the apps on the phone, too. Stupid to think I could keep in touch with the one friend who said she believed me. Melissa hasn’t written me in over week anyway. At least deleting apps will leave me room for more music.

You’re my only friend, Moses. I lay my hand on the grey-and-white ball of fur on my bed. He starts to purr and twists over so I can scratch his belly. Who needs them anyway? My voice catches, and I swallow hard.

I shouldn’t have bothered trying to stay online, but I did have a couple friends. Not from school, of course. Only Melissa from school, and I guess someone got to her. They’re virtual friends, so they don’t really know me. We chat on J&bber or Snapchat, and I follow them on Tumblr, some of them even since before everything started—I gave them my fake names when I switched accounts so we could stay in touch. It was nice to talk to someone who didn’t know anyone at school, didn’t know who I was at school. Maybe one of them outed me—but how? Who could they tell?

Chatted. Followed. I’m done with social media. Anti-social media.

There’s also a couple girls on Wattpad who read my writing, and I read theirs. I guess I can still read their stories, but they won’t be able to find me. I’ll email them later and inform them I’m gone. Or maybe I won’t bother. They probably won’t realize I’ve left.

I push the covers back, and my bare feet hit the hard, cold floor, shocking my system. Our old house had those in-floor heaters so even the hardwood was warm. Not this shoddy place. I tiptoe to the bathroom and put the phone on the counter. It’s 7:38. I don’t have time for a shower, not after hitting snooze so many times. Five times nine is forty-five minutes late. I have to hurry. I hate walking in after the bell—eyes everywhere, aimed at me. It’s like there’s this hot spotlight following me to my seat. I get sweaty and hot and nauseated, and that only makes me more disgusting.

I brush my teeth then scrub at my face and line the lids of my eyes with black. It changes my look by making my eyes darker somehow, appearing more brown than green. I look a little less like me, which is never a bad thing. I comb my fingers through my hair, pulling it forward, curtaining the sides of my face. Curtaining? Curtaining…curtained… I’ll have to use that description in one of my stories.

Back in my room, I find my black jeans on the floor, one leg bunched up. I shake them until both legs slap out long. My grey T-shirt and black hoodie are on the desk chair I never use. Grey-and-white cat hair flies as I shake them. Placing my phone in my back pocket, I grab my school bag and cram in my math binder. I find the school’s beat-up copy of Fahrenheit 451 under the pillow where I must have shoved it in my sleep. I slip downstairs hoping to evade Mom and sneak out of the house before she hears me, but I am almost never that fortunate.

Good morning, sweetheart, how’d you sleep? she says as she steps across the kitchen and opens the fridge.

Like crap, like always is what I would say if I told her the truth. Since she asks the same questions every morning, it’s easy to answer them without worrying too much about telling the truth. I say the same thing I always do, Good, since less is more. There’s no sense in telling her about the nightmares, since it’s not like she can stop them.

Her lunch bag is open on the counter, already holding an apple, a yoghurt and a baggie with a chicken drumstick left over from last night. That’s good, she says from inside the fridge. I head for the door while she’s digging in the crisper. Em, do you have your lunch?

It’s in my bag, I lie.

Breakfast? Another question from her checklist.

Her voice is clearer, so I know she’s out of the fridge, but I try to leave without turning around. I don’t have time, I’m late, I say and take one more step toward the door.

Emily. It’s incredible how much a mom can convey in just one word, especially my mom when she says my name. When she said ‘Emily’ I know what she really meant was ‛Emily, stop and look at me. I’m on to you, so stop being so absurd’. I know, Mom, sorry. I stop and turn to face her, looking at her through the hair that hangs in front of my face. Emily. You need to eat breakfast. At least take something with you. She holds out an apple, and I step forward and take it. It’s a trick, I’ve seen it before, but I’m already trapped. When I step closer to take the apple, she lifts her other hand and brushes the hair away from my face then tucks it behind my right ear. Her fingers brush my cheek, soft, warm. You should put your hair back, your face—

Mom, I have to go. I step back and shake my hair loose and wait. I’m seventeen, and I still feel like I need her permission to leave a conversation.

Alright, go. Have a good day. She waves her hands at the wrists, shooing me towards the door. Her eyes are wet, and she blinks fast. I know this sucks for you too, Mom. I know you’re trying. But I can’t say that out loud. It’s easier to keep things contained if I don’t let the words slip out. I step toward her and hug her instead. She holds me tightly, like when I was little and I was scared, even though I’m taller than her now. I feel her shoulders raise and sag in a sigh before she pushes me back. Ask those new girls you were telling me about to come over tonight. Pizza? Movie? I’d like to meet them.

Sure, I’ll ask, I say, but of course there are no girls. No real ones. Just imaginary friends to make her stop asking when I’m going to make new friends.

She sighs and smiles a bit, relieved, I think. Go, go, before you’re late.

For a moment I think I should stay here safe in the kitchen, safe with my mom, but I can’t. She’s going to work, and I have to go to school. Into the real world. It’s not like I can curl up in her bed and watch cartoons all day like I did when I was little, even if I wanted to. Sometimes I actually want to do just that.

&QB_Nate — #Leafs won last nite!

&SirMichael — &QB_Nate But they’re still garbage.

&PartyGrl — 4 sleeps til Friday #KeatingChristmasBall

7:35 a.m.

We’re in the finals, and my bum knee—it’s fine. I can run, I can tackle, I can pull anyone down. I’ve got the ball. Run. Run. Run, he’s gaining! Run! A crunch from behind, and I’m