Fight For Me ✔

Chapter 2

My first class is biology. I love biology. It's really super easy for me. Okay, most subjects are really super easy for me because of my photographic memory. But photographic memory does not make me smart. It just helps me remember stuff, but if I don't understand what I remember then what good does it do?

For example you can give me a English-Icelandic dictionary and I will have it memorized in under an hour. I still can't speak or write it since I don't know the sounds or the grammar. Or back when I read a book on philosophy. I can recite it to you perfectly, word for word, but the stuff in there? So abstract it gave me a bloody headache and I couldn't for the life of me explain what some of those old Greek guys meant.

So really photographic memory, while helpful in learning, does not a smart person make.

But in biology? There are no abstract concepts. If this happens then this is the consequence. Photosynthesis works this way, it doesn't deviate because it feels like it. It will always be a certain way. Just like in chemistry and math. No deviation. It's this way and no other way. This is why I do much better in scientific subjects than I do in English lit and other such.

And what do I want to do with this super memory of mine? I could be pretty much anything I want! Rocket scientist? Doctor? Professor of some kind? But sadly no, I don't feel like it.

Before the death of my parents I wanted to be the real life Carrie Wells from 'Unforgettable'. You know that crime series about the redhead that remembers everything and solves crime after crime? I even colored my hair red to look like her once. Unfortunately it made my skin look sickly for some reason, so that had to go.

Now? I wanna be an artist. Or a photographer. Might sound weird to want to be a photographer with a photographic memory, but I remember every beautiful thing I have ever seen and I'm a little sad when I can't share that with others. Not to mention I'm fascinated by the way the light can change a scene or an object can give it new meaning.

So starving artist of some kind it is. But first: high school.

I choose a seat in the back of the classroom. There are already some students even though it's only a quarter to ten. I pull out my sketchpad and start drawing. I don't draw anything specific. First I draw a blackbird, then the school, then a tribal. Soon I'm lost in my own closed off world.

For the second time this morning, the hairs on my neck stand in warning. My head shoots up as my pen stops moving on the paper.

Liam is standing in the doorway looking at me with his dark eyes.

I sit frozen, mesmerized by his eyes for... for who knows how long? Later I will think back and realize it was only for a few seconds, but in the moment it felt like hours. Several, long, uncomfortable hours. His stare is intense and burning an imprint onto my mind. It's uncanny how he doesn't blink, not even once, as if he will lose sight of me if he does.

He doesn't break eye contact until a friend of his push him forward.

"Beast! Get a move on, you're blocking traffic!" rage, the kind and strength I have never seen, flush over Liam's face, burning in his eyes. He turns and hits his friend in the stomach. The blond guy who pushed him bends over gasping for breath.

"Wha... What was that for?" he gasps, but Liam is already on the move. Towards me.

When I saw the rage on his face I felt myself pale. When he hit his friend I paled further. But when he started walking towards me? I felt fear. And I'm pretty sure it showed on my face since he hesitated for a second before he continued his journey to the back of the room.