Blue Skies

Chapter 3 [Abelia]

Chapter 3 [Abelia]

I fidgeted in with my fingers while Mrs. Wilbur called out the new seating arrangements for our class, hoping that when she called my name it won’t bring much attention to me. Nobody really pays attention to me anyway, so I guess it was a fair deal. I stared down at my miniature hands, with my nail bitten fingers and ink splotched palms. If I wanted bigger hands or perfect nails or clean palms I would do more sports, quit my nail biting habit and stop writing as much with my ink pen, but why would I want to get rid of evidence of who I was?

“Amelia Vinson, Calumn Farrell.”

Clipboard in hand, Mrs. Wilbur pointed to two empty seats near the back of the room. I grabbed my bag and my giant pencil case, clumsily trudging to the back two seats. At least it was at the back of the room, right?

“Well, those will be your seats for the entire year. I’m quite old, so I won’t be able to remember all of your names probably. But I’m not that old, so you can stop your snickering and be sure that I know very well whether you are disturbing other students or flapping your mouths.”

She clapped her wrinkly hands together to show that her decision was final, and then proceeded to sit in her teacher stool. A presentation on the types of art she wanted us to “explore” shot up onto the screen and she read out paragraph after paragraph as people around the room simultaneously fell asleep.

It really was art class, so I didn’t see why I shouldn’t be drawing. I flipped my notebook to a fresh page and I started drawing blue flowers and blue clouds. I wasn’t good at drawing particularly, but being an indoor person, one will always come upon to learning the art of, well, art.

“Hey, I’m Calumn. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your name isn’t really Amelia, is it?”

 I turned slightly towards the source of the voice, and as I did that, I caught peppermint on his breath. Peppermint boy? I overanalyze things too much and too often, which is why I’m an observant type.

“And you’re Calumn with an n.”

His smile was bright and wide as he reached up and brushed his hair away from his eyes. I’m just going to assume that like how other people get my name wrong, they get his wrong too.

“Just like Autumn. You’re so quiet, you know that. But seeing that we’re both art students, we might as well get to know each other more. I mean, we are stuck together for the rest of the year. So, what’s your name?”

If he thought this was going to be a “chatty and fun-filled year” of art classes, he was wrong. Just because I remember his name due to my more observant skills does not mean that I would like to drag our conversation any farther. This was an uncomfortable situation for me. Possibilities of every mistake and horrible thing that could happen were running through my head already, and I was stressed. People left me alone and I did the same for them. But I guess he did deserve to know my real name the least. The “Amelia” thing really does tick me off, but I don’t see any reason as to why I should have to speak up for a matter as small as that.

“My name’s Abelia. With a b.”

“I actually prefer Abelia over Amelia.”

“Well then, you’d be the first.”

I stiffened and continued working on my clouds and flowers, hoping that my last statement didn’t reveal anything too strong about my personality. I peeked over at him through the waves of my brown hair, and saw his smile soften. Like he was…wishful? Hopeful? For once, I honestly could not read his face. This was a first for anyone.

“Cloudy sky, isn’t it?”

Puzzled yet curious, I turned to him again to see what he was talking about. He gestured towards my ink sketch that I was currently absorbed in.

“Cloudy skies mean rain for flowers.” I argued.

I haven’t had a conversation with anyone for a long while. Not even my parents. But this conversation seemed refreshing, since he didn’t know anything about me and I didn’t know anything about him. We were strangers, having an afternoon tea of conversations and pauses.

“Would you cry in suffering in order to save dying flowers?”

“Absolutely.”

“Oh, well then, would you mind as to telling me why you would prefer to suffer in order to save something?”

“That,” I said sternly to mark the end of our conversation, “is love.”

=  =  =  =  =  =

I sat on my bed, collapsed from the tiring events of the day. Especially that tiresomely long conversation from art class. When did I have the courage to ever speak like that?

I doubt I ever will again. It was as if for once I wanted to be able to tell someone something, and have them respond. To have a conversation of actual importance yet of simple subjects. When I spoke, my voice almost seemed foreign to my own ears, and my heart beat sped because I was scared yet exhilarated.

Just a simple conversation.

To think that someone like me, who would rather be alone and silent, that I would actually begin to want something like actual human interaction.

But… The more I thought of it.

Soon, if we would to be talking more, we would reach into deeper subjects. Why? Because of this weird psychological fantasy called ‘trust’. Then with trust, there would be secrets and promises, and then we would be ‘friends’. I am a horrible friend because if someone doesn’t leave me or ruin me, I will have somehow messed it up so we would leave on mutual terms. I cannot stand to be able to have someone depend on me, because even though I may be considered “smart”, I would be considered selfish.

Ideas flew in and out of my head as I debated with myself, struggling to maintain steady breaths.

I slumped into my bed, calming myself with the thought that I was completely overthinking and I shouldn’t have to worry that Calumn Farrell of all people were to be my so-called “friend”.

Turning over in my bed, I sighed and scanned the titles of my tiny “bookcase”. Books were sort of a luxury in my mother’s view, since we were not rich and there was a public library around the street corner.

I covered my face with my hands and remained lying on my bed. Speaking of the public library, today was a Monday, which meant that I would have to wait until Tuesday to get the copy of Alice in Wonderland back into my hands. The public library was closed on Sundays and Mondays, but opened all the other days.

They had a policy where you had to return the book you borrowed every two weeks, and if you wanted to check it out again you could after the “next cycle” (Friday is when you turn the books in, and the new cycle would start after the library’s holiday, which would be Tuesday.)

 I borrowed Alice in Wonderland every week, so much until no one else but I borrowed it. That soon resulted in a new rule from the library, stating that if you borrowed a book more than 10 times, you would have to return in in a week, and not two. I’m pretty sure that this rule only affected me, but rules are rules, and I didn’t feel like I wanted to say anything about something so meaningless.

It was getting late anyway, and I shouldn’t be dwelling on whether the fact that the copy of Alice in Wonderland was in my hands or not. I basically had everything memorized by now, so it didn’t really matter. It was almost like a baby blanket to me.

“Dinner!”

Again, my mother did this again and again every single night. The act of pretending to be a normal family.

Dinner usually consisted of leftovers, take out Chinese food, stale pizza, canned soup, a microwave meal, or something of the sort. Not that I had an appetite in the first place, but that really does take one’s appetite away. I wasn’t hungry, and I wasn’t going to suddenly just feel like stuffing my face with whatever artificial gunk she’s cooked up.

So when my mother yelled up the stairs “Dinner!”, she shouldn’t have had her hopes up today, because like all the other nights, I didn’t go down for a bite.

Instead, I laid there on my bed, trying my best to fall asleep, getting my hopes up thinking that maybe tonight will be the night where I will finally get a good night’s sleep instead of hours of staring at my too plain ceiling.