Carried by the Wind

Chapter 1

Spring

I was a sack of bones in my clothes, with chapped lips, downy hair. And I was the stench of cigarettes emanating from my skin, fading into the walls. Mom made sure I saw how she wrinkled her nose as she went through the pile of clothes on the chair in my room in search for laundry. Leave already. My heartbeat rose to my ears. I averted my gaze from her, bit my cuticles. "Mom, get out!" I pushed her gently towards the door.

Homa, my mother, did not take kindly to my words. "I won't hear you speak like this again Elika!"

I slammed the door behind her, hugged myself and took sharp breaths through my nose. I changed into a loose sweater and harlem pants. She didn't know how dirty I was. Maybe she could see it on me. My hands shook.

The bicycle stood and rusted away in the humid spring weather. The lilies mom had planted in the flowerbed on the windowsill fluttered down with the wind. I brushed the hair from my face. The university wasn't very far, except when the weather was bad. My bicycle sounded like a cat being strangled. After rounding the block, I straightened up on the saddle and lit a cigarette, let the smoke fill my cheeks before going down my lungs. It was sunny outside, although no rays ever entered our apartment in downtown Malmö. I couldn't remember ever moving other than when we moved from the refugee camp to the apartment when we had first arrived in Sweden some seventeen years ago. The lilacs were blooming.

All the bicycle spots were taken outside the faculty entrance. The building for health sciences overlooked a large pond in the park across the road, mallards with their chicks swimming in trails, joggers running on the pathway between rows of trees. I jammed my bicycle between two others. Starved for sunlight, my whole class stood waiting on the front stairs of the building. On the stairs sat Oliver, leaning back on his elbows, and Annette with a textbook in her lap, soaking in the sun. I lit another cigarette. My high strung nerves were eating at me again. I put on chapstick. I bit my cuticles. This was the first time I was seeing him after our last encounter, which would be the last time I had seen him.

"I'm going to fail this test", I heard Annette say.

Oliver shrugged, turned back his face to the sun. "I can help you study if you do", he offered.

"Yeah, you're worse than me and we both know it", laughed Annette.

Oliver smiled when he saw me, his thin cheeks rippling like James Franco. "Hey", he said. Always kind, always considerate. He was the type to make friends everywhere he went. He locked eyes with me a moment too long.

I looked away. I climbed the stairs and waited for them at the top, careful not to look at Oliver. "Hey." A warmth spread through my cheeks. I hoped my hair would hide it. I won't tell anyone. I was too inexperienced to be confident. He wasn't the man I dreamt about, but his gaze still made me shy.

"Regardless of how it goes, we will celebrate this Friday. You're up for it?" Annette said.

"I don't say no to beer," Oliver stated matter-of-factly.

I pulled the side of my mouth. "I'll try," I whimpered.

"Is it your mom again?" Annette said.

It was embarrassment flushing my cheeks this time. I appreciated that Annette was being thoughtful, but not in front of Oliver.

"What's with your mom?" Oliver said.

I shut my eyes and squeezed.

"She's pretty controlling", Annette interjected.

Just kill me already.

"But you're an adult. It's not like she can do anything", Oliver said.

Typical Swede. Aren't you helpful. What should I do? Tell Mom to go fuck herself? I shrugged. "I know she can't do anything technically. But she's still my mom. I will try to come", I said with more authority to end the conversation. Last time I'm telling Annette something.

It was a standard anatomy test. I had memorized all the parts, but if the latin spelling had to be correct too, we would all pretty much flunk; Oliver had dyslexia, Annette didn't study until the last day, and I've always been more of a talker rather than writer. With a body that didn't match the sketches in the textbooks. I was defect. All the anatomy sketches were clear, black on white, decided lines with decided text with decided names. I was just a grey mass, mess, I was a mess. All of this just to become a nurse, the bottom of the hospital food-chain.

They both sat in front of me in the test hall. Annette's long copper curls hung over the back of the wooden chair, her hips nicely filled the seat, thick feminine tights stuffed into a tight pair of blue jeans. She had a large bust, unlike me with my pair of plums that Mom teased me for and blamed on Dad's genes. Annette had sex appeal I couldn't dream of having. She was a woman, and I couldn't grow out of the little girl my air thin body represented.

Oliver's neat figure hunched over his table. He was tanned like a surfer, with blonde hair and glistening blue eyes made for swimming in. He would never see me as anything more than friends. I was a "nice, tight cunt" as he called it when he bent my legs over my head and rammed in. The way he bit his lip when he did it was all I needed. I didn't care how it hurt when he hammered, I just liked the sensation of his skin against mine, his warmth against my chilled body. He always promptly covered me when he was done, told me to shower.

My pen filled in the boxes on the test sheet. Someone like him could never love someone like me.

As I was handing in my test sheet, Annette looked at me and pulled a face with her eyes rolling back into her head - she was going to fail this test. I fought back the laughter. The test administrator cleared her throat and threw us a glance. I rearranged my face to show respect.

Oliver was looking at her, at Annette, at Annette's curls, her swelling breasts, her fine ass. He bit his lip. The smile died on my face. There I stood in the front of the test hall in my baggy jacket and muffler that covered up to my nose. I was one with the grey broadloom carpet covering the floor, swallowing down bile, clenching my jaw from envy. 

A/N: Please let me know what you think! Vote and comment, I promise to reply :) 

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