The Writers' Circle

It was a Thursday the day I met Noah. Sometimes I think, why Thursday? What was so special about it? An unexpected, unassuming day had been carved out of the week for a reason, the same reason that made me think, every Thursday morning, it's been three weeks since I met Noah. Or four. Tomorrow, it will be fifty-two. I can imagine Noah telling me, nobody says fifty-two weeks when they can say a year. But I don't think I would have cared, and saying fifty-two weeks instead of a year makes it sound much grander and much more important than it is.
	I had woken up when it was still dark out. I lay in bed, listening to the rain falling softly to the ground, like sand as it gathered in puddles and left a thin, misted layer of moisture on the grass. I listened as it accelerated and decelerated, sometimes leaping down from the sky in drops that were more like chunks of water, and sometimes soundlessly slipping down from the sky as mist rather than precipitation. When I finally tossed myself out of bed, dawn had passed and the air was a smoky blue, illuminating every morsel of white and making it glow.
	When I arrived at school, it was raining harder than ever. Each drop was like a tennis ball, hitting the ground hard and then bouncing up again. They talk about the Holy Trinity at church, which is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but they're all the same thing. They used to tell us in Sunday school that the Holy Trinity was like water. Water could be steam and it could be ice, but melt it or put your hand in it and it was water again. Sometimes I wondered if rain was a better explanation, the way it falls like mist or hits the blacktop and disappears on its way up again. But then I remind myself that rain is water, as much as it seems like just rain.
	I'm not at all popular at school, because at Trewell Academy, nobody thinks about science or philosophy or math. Nobody practices French verbs until they understand it. Nobody plays the 'cello because they love the way it sounds, or even knows that there should be an apostrophe before 'cello, because it's an abbreviation of violoncello. Nope - that's just me. At Trewell, it's all about cell phones and Coach purses and lacrosse practice. Why read a book when you can text? Why have an honest conversation when you can gossip about nail polish and the billions of dollars Daddy makes? Why have friends when you can have cliques? Even though I live in it every day, it's still foreign to me. I'll never understand it.
	I'm almost positive I'm the only student at Trewell who got in on a scholarship, or who even got in without having to give money as a bribe.