Chapter 2: Did Hailey just get caught?

Hailey steps outside the counsellor's office and runs into the last person she wants to see right now

Sandra Telebomi.

Sandra makes me nervous. She doesn’t fit any stereotypes about high school students—she’s not a “mean girl” or part of a “cool” group or any other misleading, movie-inspired depictions of what students are actually like.

There’s just something about her that makes my back itch and my mind race before culminating in the urge to run in the other direction.

But that would be rude, so I put all my weight into my feet, yoga-style, ball my hands into fists at my side, and bite my lip—everything I can do to keep myself from running as Sandra gets closer, and my mind races with panicked thoughts.

The thing about Sandra is that she’s unpredictable. When she’s on social media, she’s all about posting and applying filters, but she’s missing them in real life. She tends to say things—loudly—that are embarrassing, discouraging or downright humiliating. She also tends to blurt out people’s secrets—but not in obvious, loud ways, which is kind of a good thing. They slip out casually, calmly into conversations in a way that is so subtle that I believe it may be accidental, but it happens so often that I have to wonder if she’s really that unaware of it.

And yet, Sandra’s also so open and full of energy that fellow students can’t help opening up to her and giving her more information to accidentally or on purpose use against us.

So as Sandra and Almira reach me, stopping a foot away, and Sandra’s mouth starts to open, I start to mini-hyperventilate. I haven’t offered up any information freely. The question sending my heart rate into top-speed mode is Did Sandra see me come out of the counsellor’s office?

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Dear subscribers, thank you all so much for subscribing and for reading section two of The Other Side of the Ocean! We invite you to participate in a character-building exercise before we reach section three.

Do you prefer to read a certain genre? To watch the same sorts of movies? We often gravitate towards the same types of books or movies over and over without getting bored of them. A big reason for this is that we care about the characters.

So let’s talk about getting to know and developing our characters!

Well-developed characters, like people, really want something and have “felt needs” that they strive for. For example, a character (like a person) needs food and water. That same character (like a person) may also want to feel like they belong, are listened to and accepted—that would be their “felt need”.

We know that Hailey is worried about her health and wants to find out why her heart rate is sometimes increasing, and how to stop it. We’ll learn more about her felt needs too.

We’d love your thoughts and suggestions on Sandra and Almira’s felt needs. We invite you to vote and share your feedback in the polls or comments section below!

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