18 Years

Charles Dickens

Sebastian

Sometimes you need to be awkward to beat the awkwardness.
-Charlie Flynn, professional boxer

     I was scared of going to school the next day because of what happened with everybody. I kissed Sharky. I escaped to Clyde's house. My dad hit me. All of this happened, yet I was still thinking about Beij. How could that be? I kissed Sharky, and I liked him a lot. But I also still had feelings for Beij. I strolled into the math help room, where my new tutor awaited me. She looked quite ordinary, a little too ordinary. Her bright red hair was chopped sort of like a boy's, but it fit her quite nicely. Little brown freckles and markings speckled her face, and her bright blue yes were looking out the window. I really wonder what sort of place she came from? Her physical features didn't show anything peculiar, like my horns or Beij's marks. But when I put my textbooks on the shelf beside her, I noticed a piece of crumpled paper rolling itself tighter and tighter into a ball. The girl was waving her thin index finger in a figure eight, muttering under her breath. The ball of paper had this soft, barely noticeable blue light encircling it. The light danced from the girl's fingers, and then I suddenly realized what she was. She was a sorceress, or a witch. Or maybe an enchantress? When she realized my eyes were fixated on her, the heap of crinkled paper fell back into the wastebasket, and her hands stopped mysteriously glowing. I went in to shake her hand, but I don't think she knew what I was trying to do."Oh, um hi. I think you're my new tut-," I said in a gentle tone. But, like usual, I couldn't finish my sentence.              

     "What were you trying to do!? Why was your hand trying to touch me? That's really no way to make a first impression on someone!" Her doe eyes were set in a strict, "let's-get-down-to-business" way. I flinched as she slammed down her notebook. She stomped away, swatting my ready-to-shake hand away. I looked at her as she slammed the door behind her, without even touching it. Well, this is going to be a long day.

    I closed the door to the math room, and went into the library. I immediately went to the back, where I always go when I have free time at school. I paged through the stack of books I had carefully hidden in the few back shelves. I pulled out a dusty Harry Potter book when I saw Sharky. His hunched body was shaking, and he was huddled against the wall with what looked like an old dusty book in his hands. My eyes widened when I saw his shaking shoulders. I shoved my book back on the shelf and creeped over to where he was huddled. I touched his shoulder, and he immediately started wiping at his eyes and covering his red face. "Hey Sharky, you okay?" I asked him. Silence. He had dropped the book he was clutching onto the ugly brown carpet. I picked it up and examined the cover. A Tale of Two Cities, it read. I love that book, I thought to myself. I  flipped through it, while patting Sharky's shoulder. A few rumpled notes slipped out from the pages. Hateful words were scrawled across them, all of them signed by some unknown person named Anonymous. I stuffed them into my sweatshirt pocket, and hugged Sharky. "None of those things are true about you. It's just a few stupid notes. But I know how this hurts. It hurts me to see you this way." A few tears slid down his face. "You know you could tell me about anything, right?"

"I- I was going to tell you, Sebastian. I really was. It was just so embarrassing, how something so petty like this could make me cry like I'm eight or something." Sharky said this as he gazed at the floor, too ashamed to look into my eyes. I pushed his chin up to look at me, his eyes searching my face for a sign of embarrassment or hate. Instead I gave him a smile, and embraced him. "I would never let anyone hurt you," I whispered. He nodded, his fresh tears wetting my cotton shirt fabric. I held his head into my chest, and ran my fingers through his fine strands of blond hair. I leaned my head on his, and picked up his forgotten book.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

-R