Us At Midday

Reflect and Deflect

On summer nights the stars fall a little slower and
I don't if I can catch them in time to sew words
Delicately to the palm of my hand, tell me
What am I worth? 

I trudged past faceless people, earphones on, Cavetown blasting. I wondered if he forgot about that Saturday night. I wished he would.
He'd been ignoring me for a good four months now. I still didn't know what I did wrong. Maybe something, anything. It'd probably been my fault.

Do you see words written in the air, or is it just me forming pictures from nowhere? I have funny little comic books tapped to my hands and a brain within a brain, its got a mind of its own, yeah.

The acoustic break made me smile a bit. Then, from the corner of my eye, my heart sank. It was Soleil, with a girl on his arm.

As the chorus caused everything to slow, I got a better look. He was smiling, happy, laughing. I guess it would make me an idiot. I knew better by now. Why was I so dumb? My heart, like a pebble, just swaying to the beat, into the soles of my boots. Mum was right, maybe he just wasn't the one for me.

I continued to stare from the open window. The final bridge of the song took a hold of me. She was really pretty with her dark skin and long silky hair. They hugged each other a lot, but the part that really got me was when he picked her up and swung her around, them both giggling.

Rocket ships will take off, whether you're in them or not. It's sad but it's the truth. The world will still turn without you.

I ran to the bathroom, pretending to be okay until I got there, going into the girl's one.

The song ran on repeat.

...

I finally walked out of the bathroom, it wasn't a normal school day. It was the days after exams so I was pretty much free to do whatever I wanted.
I didn't notice, however, that Sol was outside the bathroom.

"Hey, Amaris." He came behind me, "What were you doing in the girl's bathroom?" Did he suddenly come around to mess with me?
"I don't pass well enough." I kept walking.
"You should go anyway, you should get to use the bathroom of your choice." He started to walk away. What the -

"What do you even want from me, Sol? You can't just barge back into my life, saying nice things and swing girls around in your arms and -"
"Yeah, the girl you probably saw is Jayda, our friend, and I'm saying nice things because ... because we're friends, right?"
He was always saying that. "Friends this, friends that." but I kept quiet and nodded. I didn't want to talk to him, he was confusing me and hurting me.

I needed to talk to Jayda myself.

...

"Hey Jayda," I said, sliding in a seat near her.
"I heard about what you did that Saturday. What on earth did you do, Amaris?" She looked pretty mad right then. Also what I did? He did the most stuff, I was sure. So I explained it to her from my point of view - everything this time.

"That's not my point. You know that he needs space after something like that. To reflect and whatnot." She stopped me. Who did she think she was, telling me what to do with my best friend of nearly five years? (I still kept a note of what she said because I didn't know that.)

In the end, I decided to leave and go play chess with the guys, so I picked up my bag and left with Jayda, talking about all sorts of stuff.

Maybe she wasn't a total pain after all.