The library lights were lower than ever this evening- as if they had fallen through the sky alongside the early-setting sun, which had been a type of dark golden-orange the last time Camila checked. But she didn't mind. If anything, the dim lighting made it easier to forget yourself than the still rather dim, but on the brighter half of things, golden table lamps she was used to. For all she knew, she was a floating pile of thoughts in an empty library, though for once the library was actually empty of all but her. Unless Shawn was hiding in a shadowy corner once again, the thought of which made her heart skip a little.
As her fingertips collected piles of dust from running them across the shelves of untouched books, Camila searched for the books she thought she would like best, even though she was in that rare mood where reading felt like too much for her, and she would probably only lie her head on and drag her eyes across them mindlessly. She took a thick brown poetry collection from one of the tallest shelves she was able to reach without climbing on that rolling ladder she had just noticed was resting at the edge of the room, as well as a more modern looking, blue-covered poetry and photograph collection by an author of a similar last name. She carried the two to the mahogany table in the opposite corner, dropping them on the table and opening the leatherbound brown book to a page near the ¾ mark. The ink was faded and faint after years of no one reading it, and even harder to read in the spare light. She could only catch a slight few words that must've been the titles to poems because of their larger size, like part of the word 'euphoria' and a few letters of 'aurora'.
A poem or two she could catch. They were difficult to understand; they used too many metaphors about specific stars and astrologers' jargon for them to make any sense. But the words taken by themselves were quite enchanting, especially the poem about the nighttime sky that sparked a bit of a memory from the waltzing, scattered clouds of two days ago.
She had wondered whether those dancers she'd seen in the clouds were simply fragments of a dream she'd turned into memory, but they quickly turned back into broken glass in her mind, and she knew it was real. It was as real as the small smile she gave him by instinct when he passed by yesterday at lunch, and as real as the fall of his eyes to the ground when she did. He wasn't there during drama club yesterday, but neither were a couple of the other boys she'd assumed were the type to cause trouble.
Camila let her eyes close and leaned her cheek on her arms and her arms on the book. She could imagine Shawn would lift her chin up as fast, or even lean his head on his arms himself so he could look her in the eyes. Although the thought he might be here at all made her quite uneasy, the thought of what he might do if he were here made her smile a bit in spite of herself. She couldn't bring herself to hold him to the slightest bit of dislike even though she hadn't slept at all that night after he left, and she was sure she would smile at those memories for a long while. It was wrong of her to still think of him nearly the same way after his unexplained, sudden words, and the way he wouldn't look her in the eye when she tried, but something inside her told her she would regret being bitter toward him if she ever heard why he walked out of her house that night, though she knew she shouldn't trust the little voice in her head, and especially not as of late. But whatever was right or wrong, oh well. All he was was a boy. He was a weekend getaway, a brush of lips in the trees, a sunset on a balcony. He didn't have to be the villain.
At the thought of the balcony, Camila lifted her head from her hands and ran to the staircase in the Main Hall. She went to the third floor like she remembered and traced through a few pathways until she found the same one they'd gone to, pushing through the door that looked like it could never open to a balcony like the one outside. She slowly walked to the railing, grasping to the cold metal as she stared across the expanse of clouds, across the black night sky.
✧✦✧
Throwing her backpack over her two shoulders, Camila walked out of the classroom and to the tiny field of grass where the students ate. She sat with her back against the wall of the school building, a few feet from the group of three boys that were missing from drama club yesterday. She didn't mean to look, but it was hard not to catch a look of the bandaged knuckles of one of the boys, and the not quite black but not quite normal color of the skin around the other one's eye. The boys were speaking bitterly without trying to quiet themselves.
Camila took the blue-covered poetry book from yesterday out of her bag. Her eyes focused only on the words of ink on the page, but her mind wouldn't pull itself away from the low, dark whispers next to her, the glowering stares that seemed to start from somewhere deep inside each of those boys' anger.
"I swear to God," she caught one muttering. "I swear to the fucking heavens."
"No wonder his father killed himself," the other one laughed. His friends let out laughter that sounded more like cackling than anything. "I would too if I had to put up with that dick for a living."
"But his sister, though," the third one, the one with the not yet faded black eye, chimed in. They all laughed in time, before leaning into each other and continuing their inaudible whispers.
Camila cursed her heart for racing as it did, and cursed her mind for jumping to the endless conclusions, of which none were probably true. Oh, but her memories of his short and sharp words on the blue stone driveway, or the calluses near his knuckles when she caressed his hand so gently, or even his unexplained absence with those same boys that sat next to her yesterday during drama.
She pictured the one and only tattoo of the swallow he'd shown her, the ear piercings, the skilled, confident way in which he'd kissed all over her, and the denim jacket he let her wear during their first drama club. He was more than those small things that could make anyone think of the main character from a stereotypical 2010s romance novel- he was gentleness, he was kindness, he was light humor and whispered affirmations in dark library corners. But after all, weren't those main characters best known for the façade of sweetness, their façade of perfection?
Shaking her head of the doubt that clouded her mind so heavily, she turned back to the crisp, white pages of her book, before slamming it shut. The only three words she read from the page were kiss, lie, and scars, but that was enough for her to make herself hold back a tear.
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if i can't update for a little bit of time [i'm one of two writers in my school's drama club and we have to write a murder mystery 20 min long script before winter break] i wish everyone happy holidays! have a lovely winter season
december 19, 2022
12:04 p.m.
YOU ARE READING
Admit It
Romance𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞. Tattoos, denim jackets, soft curls that light golden under the evening sun. Caramel skin, pencil on paper, silent smiles that hold back unspoken promises. She moves into the city with the ghosts of the mistakes...
