Broken Feathers

Human

Chapter Five: Human (Gabrielle Aplin) 

  

There were several reasons I wasn't eating my lunch with Kalem the next day. I had managed not to speak to him all day, sneaking out of the flat before he'd woken and hiding in the library until school actually started. I just knew that he would be full of news from my family, and little jokes that they'd made together. And it felt like a stab in the gut every time I thought about it.  

My sandwich tasted like tar and my mouth moved rhythmically as I tried to swallow the stuff down. I was about to get up and leave when I saw Star making her way across the canteen, head held high as she sat down with a group of girls on the far side of the room. Her hair was bright under the artificial light, shining reflectively with each small movement she made.  

I gazed over, very aware of the fact that I probably looked like a complete sad case. I was probably just one of many who fawned over Star like she was an endangered animal at the zoo. But I guess I had the added bonus of having visions and dreams of her. Only, it hadn't felt like a bonus when she found out.  

She had the ability, it seemed, to make me feel like even more of a freak than I already was.  

Despite this, I found myself smiling as she burst out laughing, tilting her head back as her body shook with mirth. She was completely radiant, like a flower bursting into bloom in the middle of a sea of weeds.  

Star looked around, catching my eye and staring blankly at me, and suddenly that small flicker of hope and appreciation died. I was nothing. It didn't matter that she was beautiful and forbidden, I was always just going to be a speck of nothing to her. 

"Fuck, this stuff is exhausting." 

I looked up, barely even managing to glare at Kalem as he flopped down across from me, the food on his tray sliding about. 

"Kalem, have you ever had your dream shot out of the sky?" I muttered darkly, staring at the half-eaten sandwich in front of me. Kalem snorted derisively, as though it was the most stupid question going. 

"Every night, I have this dream that you suddenly see the error of your ways," he answered flatly. "Does that answer your question?" 

I sighed witheringly, rubbing my forehead tiredly. He just always knew how to kick a guy when he was down. It didn't matter that my family loved him more than they loved me; I had always had my muse in the back of my head, guiding me. And now she didn't want me, and my family didn't want me and my best friend was a dick who couldn't relate to teenage angst to save his life. 

"You think if I bucked up my ideas a bit, she'd...start to notice?" I asked, a sudden brainwave appearing.  Perhaps if she could see that I wasn't just a waste of space? Maybe then she would give me a chance. 

"...Are we talking about Star? Again?" 

"Who the fuck else would we be talking about?" I demanded, staring at Kalem incredulously.  

"I don't know." Kalem sighed. "And how should I know what turns Star on?" 

"If it didn't make her notice," I thought out loud, "it might make my mum proud..." "Your mum's proud of you anyway, Jay!" Kalem protested, not sounding entirely convincing. I snorted, shaking my head. We could argue about it until we were blue in the face; my mother deserved more of a son that me, and we both knew it. 

"Why are you so hung up on Star?" Kalem asked.  

Why couldn't he get it into his head? Why couldn't he understand how important this girl was? 

"She's my muse, man," I mumbled, rubbing my hair tiredly, "I've seen her in my head every day since I was a kid; that's gotta mean something." 

"But what if it doesn't?" 

He was starting to kill me with his pessimism.  

 "But it's got to." 

"Jay..." "No," I said finally. "I'll...stick in at this school shit and...it'll pay off." I finished rather desperately, nodding my head as though to convince myself that this could happen. And as I looked back over at Star, something in me stirred.  

I was going to win her over; even if it meant going along with the rules.