The dentist was just down the street from high school, and I just had my teeth cleaned. It was a nice day outside in Front Royal, Virginia which is an hour away from Washington D.C. While walking to class all I could think of was getting home from school to enjoy the beautiful afternoon. I just moved to Northern Virginia from Groton, Connecticut; a place I was sure to hate simply because it was up in the mountains in the middle of no where.
I could see Warren County High School sitting in the distance on top of a small hill and the blue clear sky looking down upon the Shenandoah. To my surprise a swarm of Apache helicopters were passing over; that's something I had not seen since my dad was stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Considering that there weren't any military airfields nearby, they were considerably low causing a slight disturbence above Front Royal. Then they began to circle, but I payed no attention to it.
Walking the halls of the high school the atmosphere was simply dead. Everything was altered; I don't understand why I never question the eerie silence set before me. Then there was the sound of cries and dispair(maybe that's too dramatic). Everyone was fixed upon the television within their classrooms. I hear one young lady say, "my dad works at the Pentagon". All this did not phase me one bit.
My destination was physical education and I was furious at having to take it once again after my freshmen year at Fitch High School in Connecticut simply because Warren County requires all sophmores to do so. I had stumbled upon a group of new friends that I began to associate myself with. One was a metrosexual black guy named Joel, who we all knew was gay but he never would admit it(until after high school). A good friend of mine named Vinnie and her step-brother Brandon. Then there was this girl named Angela who was simply divine, or maybe I was just oogling her knockers all the time. Ok, yes I was but she was really cool to hang with. Plus her humor was one step ahead of my own, and over the top.
The worst question to ask at the time was "what's going on"? And I did. They directed my attention to the TV and that's when 9/11 became more then just a date for me. The Army Apache helicopters, the disaster on the news, concerned students; everything! And almost the majority of the teenagers attending Warren County High School had a family member working in the D.C. area at the time when one of the planes hit the Pentagon. But our fear could not compare to the children living in New York City...