I heard the news that the first tower had been hit during the break between my first and second classes. I thought of my mother, who worked four blocks away in the World Financial Center. I frantically dialed her cell-phone number, but the call wouldn’t go through. My teacher told my classmates and me to calm down, but my desk was next to the window facing the towers. My heart raced as I stared at the black inferno.

My mother came for me a few minutes into class, and I met her at our school’s entrance. It was packed with parents who were begging the security guards to bring their children to them. As we stood there, a portion of one of the towers crashed into the ground. I stood paralyzed while parents and kids howled around me.

Then we all started running uptown, away from the terror. When we were a half mile away from the school, my mom and I slowed to a walk and tried to calm down. Minutes later we heard someone scream, “Run!” I looked back and saw the North Tower collapsing into oblivion. The ground beneath our feet quaked with the impact.

We finally reached the Manhattan Bridge and crossed into Brooklyn, where we live. Hundreds of people walked with us, terrified and panicked. Behind us were the smoking remains of the towers. I passed a woman with debris in her hair and clothes who was crying that she did not know who she was anymore.

The rest of that afternoon and the next several days were a blur. I watched news reports and traded theories with my friends about where and when we might resume class. On Oct. 9, after two weeks at Brooklyn Tech, we returned to Stuy. As we reached the school, we were thrust full force into the media spotlight. Security guards asked to see our student ID cards and then ushered us inside, as flashbulbs went off and reporters shouted questions about what it was like to be back. During third period, the principal got on the loudspeaker and sternly told us that no one would be allowed to go out for lunch that day due to the poor air quality.

Being kept indoors may have reduced our exposure to the bad air, but nothing could stop the flow of memories that hit us every time we glanced outside. I remembered the freedom I had felt the year before as a freshman, when I took the train to the Cortland Street station at the World Trade Center by myself. After school I would walk to the Borders bookshop in the WTC to read and listen to music, or just to relax.

Whenever I used to visit downtown, I would orient myself according to the direction of the towers. After September 11 I realized that there was something more than just geographical about that. The towers were a focal point in my life, something that was there every morning when I walked to school and every afternoon when I walked to the train station. When that focal point was obliterated, I felt like I was in an unfamiliar place. Nothing was certain anymore.

This year, as I walk the four blocks from the train to school, I’ll see reminders of September 11 all around. There are the vendors who sell American-flag pins and NYPD/FDNY hats. There are the washed-out signs that boldly proclaim we will not let them destroy our spirit in the windows of most stores and eateries. And closer to the Stuyvesant building, a more telling sight looms to the left. It is the expanse of blue sky where the towers once stood.

When I walk through the doors of Stuy this year, I will be asked to show my ID card. During third period, we will all stand up and say the pledge. The spirit of patriotism, as well as security, has considerably heightened since last fall, and paranoia about another terrorist attack is still there.

After a year of incessant media coverage and legal wrangling between the Board of Education and the PTA over the air quality in the school, things are beginning to quiet down. There is a general desire among all of us at Stuy to move on.

That can be difficult. Just last month my mom and I were discussing buying tickets for a concert, something we used to do at the WTC, and for a few seconds I thought it was still there. But I know that it is not possible to ever truly forget. I can only accept what happened and reflect on it, because a part of me will always be with that terrible day.