Love, Take One

Scene 1

The clouds moved fast in the sky, seeming to darken by the second. Through the camera, their texture was amplified, their color concentrated. The sun was an unseen entity; its orb lost in the grey, but still brightening the slow afternoon on campus. Slow for Bo, at least, but it usually was. She lay on her back atop prickly grass, students around her but not with her, and buildings in her periphery. With her camera resting against her chest, she filmed the heavens. It would make for a good shot, but for what, she didn't know. She never had anything in mind when she hit record, but she did so often.

Rain was imminent and Bo was glad of it. It would cleanse the heat from her skin and cool the Californian nights. She'd stay until she was washed away. Or until she was ordered.

"Aren't you supposed to be studying?"

She rolled her eyes at the familiar voice before sitting up. It was a great effort; she hadn't been erect for some time. Maybe she could have eased her plight had she put down the camera, but she didn't. She watched her best friend, Eleanor, through the small screen, her arms crossed over books at her chest and her eyebrows raised in question.

"I am studying. I'm studying the clouds."

"And what education is that going to give you?"

"One that makes me happy."

Eleanor flicked her long locks over her shoulder. "Don't make me mother you, Bo. You know I hate to do that."

"You love to mother me."

She smiled, agreeing but not liking to. "Not when I'm late for class." Walking away, she called over her shoulder, "Study!"

Bo filmed her leave.

Then she felt the first drop of rain against her cheek, falling like a tear over her pale skin. She smiled and looked up from her camera. Droplets targeted and hit her fellow students, clearing the ground like they were of acid, not a balm for this heat. Bo waited it out, shielding her camera as best she could with her body as she filmed the polka-dots of rain marring her skinny legs. When she felt the wet pierce her thin shirt and meet her skin, she stood and casually headed for cover.

The library at UCLA was a pleasurable shelter. The Powell building was pretty in design and calming in nature. In the few weeks Bo had been there, she'd visited the library only a couple of times. She felt forced to work there, and she didn't like to be forced to do anything. But she liked to pretend she was living the life she ought to be.

Walking the aisles, she tried to remember the book she was meant to have read and what part of the huge library she was going to find it. She was going to text Eleanor but that would only add fuel to her friend's recurrent argument. So she wandered and wished for divine intervention.

It came in the form of a beautiful being.

Nothing about him purposely sought the attention he garnered; ashy brown hair stuck up in disarray; plain clothes, loose-fitting and worn; an air of quiet indifference. Yet attention followed him like he was on fire. Because the most expensive wardrobe, the best grooming and products in the world, could not top his beauty. His good looks were not manufactured, they were not crafted; they just were, like nature in its untouched glory.

Bo longed to see it up close, but her eyes were a poor tool and she'd yet to get glasses.

Reaching into her bag, she freed her camcorder. There were probably rules against this level of observation, but at that point in time Bo was unknowing and uncaring. She focused on the boy, framed by the library and peek-a-booing between bookshelves.