Sea Glass: Marie and Lauryn

Chapter 6

January 18, 2009

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Lauryn pulled her coat around her as she walked down the road. It was too icy to ride the bike she shared with Finn to school and the chilly air blew against her thin school uniform skirt and tights as she walked home. She thought briefly about going to see Granda and Dean at the shipyard, but she was too cold.

To ignore the cold, Lauryn's mind drifted to Megan, the pretty girl who sat in front of her in maths. She was the most beautiful girl in Year 9 and all the boys at the all-boys school across the road always talked to her after classes let out for the day. She really didn't have much interest in boys, but they certainly were interested in her. Instead of feeling like the other girls in her class when boys paid attention to them, she felt annoyed. At least Finn usually kept them at bay anyway with threats of beating them up if they as much as spoke to her. That protectiveness left over from the orphanage. 

She preferred to spend time with the few friends she had. She didn't have many friends and most girls at school made fun of her for her speech impediment and how small she was. Megan wasn't one of her friends, nor was she one of the girls who bullied her, but she did find herself wanting to be around her. Lauryn didn't quite understand why she was so enamored with her. 

Maybe I want to be exactly like her? That's it. She's just so pretty and you're so ugly. 

Megan had long, light blonde hair that her mother put into two even braids every morning. In trying to be just like her, Lauryn had started putting her hair into two braids, too. At 14, Lauryn had long given up on her own mother doing her hair. Even though her mother always said her hair was ugly, it was one of the few things she liked about herself.

At least Granda thinks it's pretty. 

Their mother had moved into Granda's house this last summer because there had been a flood in her apartment. It was still being fixed, and Lauryn couldn't wait for her to leave. At least she was mostly working and had been sober for a few years now. But she was still so harsh with them, but particularly Finn and Lauryn. Dean, 21 had joined Granda at the shipyard while Kieran, 19, and Eammon, 18, were both working at the farm across the road for old Mr. McTavish and left early in the morning and really came home only to eat and sleep. And now there was no Bridget nor Patty to protect her. Bridget, 24, had gotten married that summer and moved into an apartment closer to the city center with her husband. Patty had joined the Royal Air Force four years earlier at 19 and while at first he could live at home due to his posting, they had moved him to the RAF Killadeas Base, which was two hours away by bus. She missed them both terribly. 

Lauryn was pulled out of her thoughts as she approached the art store on the road. She always stopped and looked in the window on her way home. She had been drawing buildings and landscapes for as long as she could remember. Granda did his best on the weekends to take her to different places to let her draw them. Even though it was freezing, the weekend before he had taken the bus with her to Donegal Castle so she could draw it.

She usually used paper that other girls in her class had thrown out or that Granda managed to bring home from work. The pencils and paints she had were ones that teachers had graciously given her that had been left over at the end of term. She had never owned architecture drafting supplies of her own, but she did love looking in the window of the store at the paper and drafting tools. 

Today, as she looked in, she noticed a flyer on the wall. 

Architecture Design Contest

It was too small for her to read, so she opened the door of the shop and walked in. Walking up to the flyer, she looked at it again.