First Snow

Chapter 2: Halley

Chapter 2: Halley

“Halley Jacobson?”

“Present.”

“Halley Jaconson?!” She repeated.

“I’m here!” I tried to assert myself.

“Is she here today?” She scanned the room with her rat-like eyes. Ugh...she couldn’t hear me. I raised my hand. “Ah, there she is. You know you should really try to say ‘present’ or ‘here’ when a teacher calls you for attendance.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her in politeness.

In hindsight, I wasn’t very loud. I never tried to be in school. I told MarIa I didn’t like to stand out, but rather blend in. Much less of an effort for me.

*******

In Halley’s house, day before school started.

“You, my best friend, are gonna try to assert yourself this year! Stop being a little mouse!” Marla bent down, shook my shoulders, and tried to stare into me, as if she would instill an ‘assertive Halley mode’ in me. She’s seen me in my assertive mode before. Her dark skin highlighted the whites of her eyes, making them look large.

For most of my school life, I have never really stood out in the social rankings. The few people who would talk about me, according to Marla, would describe me as ‘that shy, mousy kid in the corner’. And I could agree. I was always petite, soft-voiced, and tried to avoid everyone, except my best friend Marla and my sister.

“But I don’t want to.” I said. She leaned in closer to hear me.

“This year!!! This year will be different! I know it will! And it will start with you trying to become more social!” Marla thought she had ESP and could see into the future.

“Like last year, when you said it would be different last year because we would get boyfriends.” I pointed out. At the end of the year, we ended up boyfriendless. Marla was close, but then I found out that he was cheating on his girlfriend with Marla. She broke it off immediately.

“Nah, that was different.” She waved it off with her manicured hand. “This year~ I can definitely feel it! Just assert yourself!”

******

I huffed a small sigh of relief once attendance finished. The teacher gave us the forms of class introduction and proceeded with the lecture. I read the form that she gave us. I was finished by the time she started reading the 3rd paragraph. Why is she reading to us? This is English 9! We’re not kids anymore. I groaned inwardly and tuned out the class. The rest of the school day was the same as English: teacher reading the handouts and no real assertion from me. Sorry Marla.

I ran home, brought a quick lunch of peanut-butter-nutella sandwich to my room, changed into a blue tshirt and shorts, and went online to Note-orious.com. It was this website that I’ve been addicted to where you can post your own music online. I found it recently and fell in love with it. I’ve posted a few lyrics before.

Username: VoicedPages109. Password: well i won’t tell you because then it wouldn’t be a password now would it?

I’ve been wanting to brainstorm some lyrics lately, but I had no inspiration. So I just searched around. I recognized a name, CharQuincyAdams. CharQuincyAdams was in the Spotlight tab for most popular Indie music. This musician was one of the first musicians that I really liked. I’ve also commented a lot on my favorite songs from him. Today, he didn’t have any new music posted so I just clicked the link to his Youtube account.

I scrolled down the uploads and clicked on one of my recent favorite songs called On the Line. It was a Dire Straits-esque instrumental; I loved Dire Straits. It was pre-dominantly chill, but had a spice of fun and energy. I plugged in my headphones and listened. I grabbed a notebook and a pencil. I tried to write some lyrics while listening to On the Line, but nothing came out. No spontaneous lightning bolt of inspiration. Not even an idea about what I wanted to sing about. Sigh...writing can be so frustrating! After about an hour, I was pretty much fed up with words and thinking in general. I turned off my laptop and removed my headphones.

I heard the door downstairs open and close. It was probably my sister and that guy who’s been coming here for a long time, Luke.  He’s been coming here for a long time. I forgot how long. I was never good at keeping time, which explained my history grade last year. At first, my parents thought that Alex was dating him, but I could tell by the way they interacted with each other that they were just friends hanging out. I knew that he really wasn’t Alex’s type. She prefers someone who’s more...eccentric. He’s always looked pretty average: creamed coffee brown hair, grey eyes, and tall, lean physique. I picked a random book from my shelf. I would go down when Alex or my parents will call me for dinner.