Hello, Again

Chapter 4

~~~
What of the wretched hollow?

~~~

She dipped her (brand new) horse hair brush in black ink and set it against the off-white pages of her (not so brand new) notebook, watching with child-like fascination as the ink seeped in, spreading along the grain of the paper like blood through veins, and she took in a deep breath before tilting her wrist and writing over the page, her script curled and graceful, slightly shaky on the first few strokes, her tongue between her teeth as her hands sought to remember what her mind had long forgotten. She underlined the result with a flourish.

20th March, 2011

It seemed she'd finally found peace – on a low wooden bench in a dusty studio with a brush in her hand and a smile on her face.

...

Somewhere in a corner on the Browns' sprawling backyard, Amelia leaned against the plastered drywall, her hand attempting (and failing) to settle on a pile of wooden planks, swallowing back her nervous chuckle and trying to look dainty instead.

It wasn't working out so well.

Months and months she'd spent gawking at him – him in his light blue jersey in the football field across from her school, a lanky figure in mid fielding position who didn't wait by the wired fences for Beth to walk home, a daily afternoon tradition that featured multiple St. Anthony suitors who'd flirt with Beth on a ten-second basis while Amelia walked beside her, as silent (and unacknowledged) as a ghost. Jeremy Warner would, however, stay by the bleachers or bounce the football off his knees, a lone heretic who'd never paid homage to this teenage goddess. This act of blasphemy was all it took for Amelia Barnett to be thoroughly enchanted.

This midsummer evening's tryst was all that had been required for this enchantment to solidify into a crush.

Even though she'd like to pretend otherwise, she knew he wasn't here for her benefit – Bethany had disappeared into the fray a few minutes ago, back into the rear lawn that had come alive with the fairy lights adorning the hydrangea bushes and the patio with the food-laden tables resting beneath, back into the chatter and laughter and the clinking of glasses that was the graduation party that the Browns had thrown in their daughters honour. Amelia, in all (private) honesty, couldn't make much sense of having anybody's GCSE grades celebrated, much less Bethany's, who had scraped by with less than stellar scores in nearly everything, but apparently parental pride didn't work that way. And so here she was, having managed to lose her parents in the crowd, and hanging out with the popular kids in the quiet corner.

It didn't feel as cool as she'd hoped it would.

His face half-illuminated by the pale white light from the party, Jeremy Warner looked positively dashing, at least in Amelia's opinion. He was dressed in a rather fashionable tweed jacket, his hair falling over his eyes, a faint, cordial smile on his lips, his back straight as he looked over her head and into the party. Her heart ached at the very sight of him – him and his left hand stuffed in his pocket, his mild, easy mannered smile, his eyes and the way they sparkled whenever Bethany was in the vicinity. Her hands smoothened the creases of her skirt nervously, acutely aware of her hideous outfit and her stringy hair, her palms clammy and her throat dry as he devotedly ignored her in favour of her friend.

They spent many minutes in dead silence, each awaiting Bethany for reasons all their own. She hadn't missed his nervous laughter or his lingering eyes –it was no surprise that despite the deception, he was just as taken by Bethany Brown as every other boy from St. Anthony's. However, for sixteen year old Amelia, it was sweet how much he wanted to impress Bethany. It was also sweet that he didn't try to chat her up in her friend's stead, as Wes had done seven months back, and that, in Amelia's opinion, was nothing short of gentlemanly.