*completely reconfigure to make Audrey spend more time with her parents

"Woah," Olivia said as she, Lila, and I walked out of the school lobby together, "your mom's actually picking you up today."

"Yeah, I know," I said, shouldering my backpack. I glanced down at my phone, which lit up at that exact moment with a text from my mom that said something like "we're going to be late; hurry up". She really had extraordinary timing. I continued offhandedly, "I'm going to pick up my contacts today."

Lila wiggled her eyebrows. "Fancy. No more days of pushing up your glasses, right?"

I shot her a grin. "Yeah, I guess I'll miss that a bit. But at least I won't look like a geek, right?" My mom, who was parked on the far end of the parking lot, looked increasingly panicked as she frowned at me and pointed at the passenger door like she really, really wanted me to get in.

"You should head off," said Olivia. She fumbled with a folder in her hands, almost dropping a couple papers, but she caught herself before they could slip away in the gentle breeze of the afternoon. Knowing her, they were probably color-coded and organized just right for whatever club meeting for which she was late now.

This was one of the moments when I felt incredibly inadequate due to her superhuman organizational skills.

Heaving a sigh, I sent a last look at my best friends, who all seemed preoccupied with their own business. If I had to be honest, I was looking for a lot more support from them (after all, I was taking a huge step in my life!)—but again, a girl can't have everything.

I waved at my mom (who looked a bit too far away to see me, but I did it anyway) to let her know that I saw her and looked back at the gang. "See you guys later?"

"I'd come with you," Lila mumbled as she texted away furiously on her phone, "but Luc has some sort of away game that I have to pick him up from, so..."

"I got it," I said quickly before Olivia's bashfulness from the mere mention of Luc Mercier's name could seep into me and cause me to have a heart attack right before I was going to take a huge step in my life. "Bye!"

I jumped off the pavement of the school sidewalk (newly reconstructed in the last summer due to some complaints about the paint's chipping or something like that) and jogged on the road down to the edge of the parking lot, where my mom was parked. Behind the parking lot was the baseball field, where some varsity players were practicing. If I was right, they had a huge game coming up this week and were expected to win. Vaguely, I wondered if Luc was there, but then I told myself off (he wasn't even a baseball player because he was a rugby player, and I was starting to remind myself of Olivia, which was ridiculous). I collided with the passenger side of my mom's car, gasping for air (I really was out of shape), and jumped in.

"Hey, Mom," I said, stuffing my backpack next to my feet and slamming the door shut. "Just how late are we?" I buckled in my seat belt.

Then, just out of sight of my mom, who was anti-technology whenever anything concerned me (she believed I was obsessed with my phone, completely disregarding the fact that I'd only figured out how to properly navigate my apps about a week ago), I checked my school uniform pocket to make sure I hadn't left it behind. It lay there, a comforting little lump against my thigh.

That also brought in the realization that I was going to a doctor's appointment in my school uniform, out of all things.

"Well," my mom responded, pulling smoothly out of the parking lot onto the main road (I had to learn how to do that soon; I was always in danger of crashing into other vehicles while driving myself anyway), "if I hurry up, I might be able to make it there with ten minutes to spare. Checking in is a very important process that a patient always has to be early for."

"Mmh." I'd taken my phone out of my pocket already. I looked down at it, which pinged with a text from Lila.

I think I left my chem textbook in Bredbenner's classroom, and I'm thinking that's the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life.

Covering my mouth with a hand, I couldn't help giggling. For such an accomplished student, Lila was like a clueless puppy left alone in a completely foreign environment.

You're so ridiculous. Couldn't you use the online version?

Lila's response came back immediately, so I could assume that Olivia had abandoned her to go to her club meeting.

No.

I could practically imagine her expression, and that set off my snickering like fireworks.

"Audrey?" Mom said.

I cleared my expression as quickly as I could, but my lips kept twitching, which was kind of distracting and annoying. (Sometimes I really needed to learn when to tune down my sense of humor.)

"Yeah, Mom?" I put my phone away and straightened up in my seat. I wasn't supposed to be using my phone too much—right.

She turned into an exit sharply, and I held onto the side of the door, squeaking a little. All right, maybe I didn't want to be a driver exactly like my mom. "How's school?"

Now there was an opener into a surely-to-be-awkward conversation. I cleared my throat, pushing up my glasses. "It's okay."

"Is your GPA recovering?"

"Mm, I suppose." I had just gotten back my chem test, and to be honest, I wasn't too thrilled or satisfied at the same time. The amount of red marks on the front page alone (which was a short answer section) was astonishing. I had no desire to look at the bloodbath anymore even though I'd merely gotten an A minus (how the hell did the teacher manage to make so many comments when I only got about twelve points off?).

"What grade did you receive?"

This would usually be the cue for me to awkwardly slink away, but I supposed there wasn't enough room for me to do that in the car.

"An A minus." I winced apologetically when she looked over.

Then, I somehow found humor in the situation and had to stifle a laugh that was threatening to burst out of my mouth.

(Sleep deprival did that to a person.)

My mom shook her head, clucking to herself. "Well, I guess I can't expect results too soon." She paused before looking over to me again. "Your dad will be coming home late today, so we can't have a family dinner."

I nodded. That meant I would have to get myself dinner alone—not like that was a hassle, since I could then maybe skip dinner. (My mom was very adamant that I received all three meals of the day, disregarding the fact that I really did need to lose weight.)

There was an awkward silence for the next ten minutes to the eye doctor's place. Mom had put in her ear buds to listen to some inspirational lecture just as we passed some punk guy who was blasting his rap music through his completely rolled down windows. Furrowing my brows, I observed the plants that we passed by. Everything really was getting a little green now, even though the first day of spring was about four weeks ago on spring break. I'd really missed spring and all the flowers—especially tulips with their vibrant colors. Then, vaguely, I wondered if the landscaper my parents had hired a week ago would include any tulips in our front yard when he got to work.

My thoughts stopped wandering as soon as my mom parked the car. Without taking off her ear buds, she unbuckled herself and hopped out of the driver's seat. I shrugged to myself (after all, she did think that sometimes my company was not as fulfilling as that of a speaker who was full of bullshit about how a person should live his or her life) and followed her silently, making sure to pocket my phone.

Inside the professional center, the eye doctor's was located almost right next to the gleaming revolving doors, which was good since otherwise, my mom and I would spend at least half an hour trying to figure out where it would be on the very-complicated-looking map. We were both hopeless with directions.

The building was—for lack of a better description—white, so white that the marble walls seemed to scorch my eyes. But really, the structure was gorgeous. As I ogled the surroundings like I'd never seen before (I had), I was having too much fun sliding across the floors while following my mom into the shop.

There was no one inside but a front desk attendant, who greeted us immediately. My mom took out her earbuds, stuffing them into her ever present purse. "We're here to pick up Audrey's contacts," she said matter-of-factly.

I shuffled behind my mom awkwardly, feeling a little like a displaced five-year-old.

"Can I have your last name?" The attendant was already typing away on her computer. I wondered how much information she could gleam from just my first name. Maybe she was just unlocking the computer, I reasoned to myself.

"Burke, Audrey Burke," Mom said. She leaned on the counter, which also gleamed (I could practically see its cleanness even through my glasses, which I hadn't properly cleaned in a couple weeks).

"Is this your first time wearing contacts?" the lady addressed me for once. It struck me funny that she was wearing glasses, just like me (maybe it wasn't that funny, but in my current sleep-deprived state—I went to bed at 2am last night to finish up an English Lit essay that I was supposed to start last week—I thought everything was amusing).

I nodded. I didn't think the question was necessary; surely she could already see my nervousness. After all, I could poke out my own eye and not even notice. Actually, I wasn't too sure about that. I was sure, however, that poking out one's eye was painful. But again, I might not be able to notice due to my own nervousness...

My own logic was already starting to give me a headache, which was alarming, to say the least.

"Please take a seat," the attendant said, gesturing to the row of leather chairs not too far away from the counter. "The doctor will be with you right away."

My mom and I went to do as she said. Right behind the chairs was a huge, very clean mirror (probably for clients to examine themselves before going through a life-changing physical transformation—all right, maybe not so much since they were either getting glasses or contacts). I turned to look at myself as soon as my mom and I sat down.

I stared into my own dark brown eyes that were kind-of-but-not-really magnified by my black nerd glasses. Then, I couldn't help but notice my dark, long, straight hair that starkly stood out against the white blouse of my uniform. Why was I so pale? My favorite feature of my face had to be my kind-of-cute nose (that unfortunately had slightly flared nostrils).

My focus shifted then immediately because—was that a pimple smack-dab in the middle of my left cheek?

I rolled my eyes in disgust and settled back in my seat. Now I really wanted to pop that red, mocking pimple. What business did it have in disrupting my previously smooth countenance? It was a sign from God that I really did need to lay off of my dairy.

"Audrey?" The nice doctor (I couldn't really remember her name) whom I had met a week ago for my first eye appointment was standing by the chairs with a folder in her arms. "We're ready for you."

"Hi," I said, standing up and felt for my phone into the pocket of my school skirt. My mom looked up briefly and nodded reassuringly.

"You can do it," she mouthed.

Inspirational.

I gave her a nervous smile before following the doctor into her office. Inside, it was fairly spacious, like I'd remembered from my last appointment. A couple posters about glaucoma and one of those charts with letters adorned the otherwise plain walls. (They didn't really help me feel any more reassured—was the doctor absolutely sure that I wasn't going to go blind due to some unknown genetic disease?)

I cleared my thoughts and took a seat at a little table with a mirror and a sink, arranging my skirt nervously. Then I pushed up my glasses.

The doctor walked me through the necessary information about contacts (washing my hands before and after doing anything, right eye first, etc.), and after a little lecture, she handed over my trial contacts (so I wouldn't waste or damage my actual contacts). I accepted the little container, opened the foil, stared, tried to convince myself that I would, in fact, be able to put that clear film that was a contact into my eye, and scooped the contact out.

The doctor waited expectantly all the way, as if I was being a bit ridiculous about everything, so I tried.

For the first few minutes, I couldn't get the nerve to get the damn contact anywhere close to my actual eye. Then, when I could actually feel my finger (through my contact, of course) on my eye, the stupid thing kept sticking to my finger. (It was something about how my contact and I hadn't made actual contact with my eye, apparently—I didn't know why I found the pun so funny because I giggled for the next three minutes straight).

The doctor always gave me a reassuring smile whenever I looked at her and gave me some pieces of useless encouragement, which I appreciated nevertheless. She was incredibly patient, anyway.

I glanced at the clock (which was very blurry without any visual aids). It had been approximately twenty-five minutes since I had first started attempting to put in my contact.

My body felt ridiculously warm, and my breaths sped up. Panicking was so not going to help—but that was I was going to do now because after all, I was Audrey Burke.

"It's okay," the doctor said, sensing my distress. "Lots of practice will make this as easy as pie."

Yeah, after months. I kept going. A couple times, I actually thought I'd done it, but the contact fell out as soon as I blinked. Finally, when I was sweating and just about to give up on the whole damn procedure, the contact actually stuck.

I blinked furiously a couple times although the doctor told me to slow down. My eye felt itchy. Not to mention that feeling that there was something that didn't belong in there (the contact, obviously, was not naturally meant to be in my eye). When I covered my other eye and looked out, as the doctor instructed me, my vision was clear.

It was incredible.

But again, I shouldn't have been so flabbergasted.

And on to my other eye. Surprisingly, it only took me about ten minutes to put my left contact in (maybe because I was getting more and more used to the idea of touching my eye). The doctor smiled at me.

"Fantastic. Now, why don't you take them out, and then put them in one more time?"

I nodded. Taking the contacts out was a matter of dragging them down to my eyelid and letting them pop out on their own, and so, it only took a couple minutes for both eyes. Again, it took me ten minutes to put my contacts in again, and by the time I was finished, my eyes felt horrid because they were drooping (from my fatigue, probably) and red, as I could see from the mirror (from all the constant pressure my fingers were applying on them).

Then, the doctor directed me to a big chair where she shone lights in my eyes (to check on something; I was honestly too tired to pay attention to her explanation). And then, after I answered a couple of questions, I followed the doctor out to the front, where my mom was waiting.

As my mom signed a couple of documents and talked to the doctor about making a new appointment for next week to check on my contacts, I stared into the mirror.

My face looked so empty without my glasses, which I was clutching in my hands.

I looked so, so different.

But maybe, I thought (my thoughts were starting to blur a little, which wasn't good since I still had homework to do), this would be a new start for me.

Here's to independence, a changed Audrey Burke...and Luc.

Luc?

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Hey guys! Here's today's chapter. I know it's a little dry (not as much of the gang or Luc), but it is a pivotal point in the story (so early, I know). More action soon!

Anyways, has anyone has experience with contacts? I just got mine recently, so I can tell you all about the pain I have to go through XD But I spared you most of it, so yay!

Thanks for reading along and supporting me, and I shall see you lovelies (I feel British, haha) tomorrow!

Anne