Hope isn't a word I really believe in. [ON HOLD]

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

‘Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.’

James Russell Lowell

Morning came and all that work the walk had done for her, disappeared. Pinnferr kept on sending her glares and she felt useless. Pathetic and useless – just like what she used to be.

Its amazing how one person can build another, up so great, and then tear them down so swiftly.

For the next two days, Sinny and Pinnferr avoided each other. It was like some elaborate tango, except they couldn’t touch each other’s hands. Sinny knew she should apologize, but she didn’t know how, so why bother?

Kallee kept on giving her these weird side glances like she wished she could throw daggers at her. Sinny felt like she was and everytime she saw them, she gulped with regret.

Sinny clumsily moved her spoon around in her bowl of grain, watching it slop, she didn’t feel like eating at all. She felt sick and lonely, removed from the others. Her face was pale.

My thoughts are my only friends now, she thought. Something else popped into her head.

I haven’t visited Ackiar yet! She silently gasped.

Another stab of guilt hit her, adding to the pain of the others.

She gently placed her grain on the ground and went to Ackiar. Maybe just his company would make her think clearly?

Her fingers pulled back the green canvas and she peered inside. She sighed. There was her sweet Ackiar, sound asleep. His rhythmic breaths filled the tent.

“Um, hey…” she said, awkwardly. “I just wanted to talk about something, I don’t have anyone else to talk to and er, yeah.”

His soft features didn’t move, only his chest did - raising and lowering.

Sinny sat herself down on a wooden chair and cleared her throat.

“I don’t know how you can handle this… I can’t even handle it! Me and Pinnferr kind of…” she stopped, nervously. “…kissed.”

She gulped as if he could actually hear her and that he would be angry or sad.

“I didn’t mean to! He kissed me and I sort of, well, kissed back… Then I punched him.”

Ackiar’s eyelids remained closed.

“He seems really upset – well, he would be – and he’s avoiding me and I don’t know how we can stay friends. Every time I attempt to apologise, I just mess things up once more. The words pour out of me, stumble all over the place, and I convey the incorrect sentences. Our relationship is drifting apart and I feel that we’ll never be true friends again. It’s terrible-”

Sinny put a hand over her mouth. The words that just came out of her sounded like that little lonely nerd in primary school. How she hated that girl. She could never turn back to that past again.

 “What I meant to say – it’s horrible that we’ll never be that way again! He was a great friend, the best friend I could ever wish for. What am I goin’ to do?”

Ackiar still slept.

That curl was still in the middle of his perfect face. Well perfect, minus the stitches.

One word came to mind – hopeless. Hopeless: with no hope of success, despairing, very bad.

Hopeless with the war, Pinnferr, life.