the propinquity effect

03

+ 03 +

I had been reading my favorite romance book for the hundredth time and had not grown bored of it. It was about midnight when I read the last sentence and it made me tear up, just a bit since I had read it multiple times before. I didn't know why I didn't want to sleep; probably because of the immense heat. The sweater I was wearing wasn't too good too since it made me feel hotter. Why I wore a sweater was one of God's will and I had no idea.

Lexi was probably sleeping and Mom was probably downstairs getting some midnight-snack. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and rested my head on the head-board, my bun giving some kind of restriction from pure relaxation. I bit my lip and exhaled carefully while taking off my sweater, letting myself be free from it and only be in my crop-tee.

There wasn't anything to do and I wasn't sleepy at all. I looked at my left and saw my bookcase that held all of my books collection. I made up my mind and realized that I wasn't going to sleep so I could reread all my favorite books and probably fall asleep on them. If that was what God wanted me to do, then I would do that.

I stood up from my previous position on the bed and walked over the bookcase, looking through the dusty spine and some cobwebs covering the pages. I had a lot of books, they were all sort of romance books when I wasn't a lover. I sighed and glided my hands through them, I settled on a book that I had read many times before but never failed to amuse me.

'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' the yellow writings said. It was yellow and had a cartoon theme on it with the background of a green wall and Charlie, Sam and Patrick leaning on it. I bought the book when the movie came out since everybody had talked about it before and I felt like an outcast for not reading it. So whenever I felt a bit broken-hearted or sad, I would take it out of my bookcase and read it overnight. I couldn't bear not to cry since Charlie seemed like a nice boy with a nice heart, and he didn't deserve Sam because she was far too troubled for him.

Although she didn't deserve him, maybe the least she could do was tell him that his hope was all false and that she wasn't going to fall in love with him. They did kiss, but it was just something Sam would do.

And before I knew it, I had arrived on page 177 and started to doze off to sleep.

-

I woke up to the sound of my door being banged repeatedly by someone's fist. I looked at my surroundings and noticed that I had fallen asleep leaning against my window with an opened book on my lap. I didn't remember a single thing that happened the night before but I got on my feet and walked to the door, knowing that the person on the other side was fuming with rage.

I unlocked the door with my eyes still half-opened and pulled it, revealing my mom on the other side. She had her hair up in a formal bun and she was wearing her navy-blue blazer with suit skirt. She had a meeting but I didn't understand why she had the need to wake me up.

"Hmm?" I asked the woman that was taller than me even though she was counted as short. I perked one of my eyebrows up at her, asking her what she wanted.

"Why aren't you awake by eight?" She yelled and I rubbed my eyes from frustration. It was my fucking summer holiday, I could wake up whenever I wanted to and she couldn't forbid me.

"Why?"

"Because I have a meeting by twelve and with Karen, you're spending your day either in a coffee-shop in my office-building or with Michael!" She stated. I ruffled my hair from frustration. She was really moody in the morning but I didn't understand why she chose that day to be moody; I was awake half the night so she couldn't really blame me.

"Why can't I be home alone?" I asked. There wasn't anything wrong in being home alone. I had been home alone for like a thousand times and nothing bad ever happened to me. But of course, my mom was such a paranoid. Why Michael's house, though? There were much more houses in the neighborhood and not only Michael's.