November 4th

Chapter 5 Lost boy

I crept into magazine quiet as a still breeze in summer. My eyes scanned the cluttered box room to see if Tommy had arrived yet. "He's not here you know, he pulled out" I glanced over my shoulder, it was Billy wearing one of his denim pitbull clap back hats and his overalls for art class " You paint?"

"You write?," He countered. " Whatever you said to Driscoll wow," he let out a long whistle," I haven't seen a cloud like that since ....just wow, it's like he's on his period."

"What do you mean?"

" I mean he's not in the canteen not in the library. Won't speak to anyone, punched Jesse Grim between the eyes during fifth period and was suspended and fifteen minutes ago spoke to Asher about quitting magazine."

"Maybe it's for the best." Even I could hear the guilt in my voice. I tried to keep my tone as level as I possibly could. " What makes you think I have anything to do with it."

" He hasn't taken his eyes off you since last week.You dont even look at him.".His crystal eyes confronted mine. There were things that I wanted to say, like in the movies you know when the characters all conflicted but everything rushes to the surface, you have no filter. Yet I was scared. My tongue remained lead in my mouth my limbs heavy with regret. Would I always be like this, would I always calculate, micromanage , question, journal and analyse everything because of the wall I had created between me and the world. I didn't want to be Icarus and plummet so far, I had built myself so high. " Where is everybody anyway?"

" The problem with you Olivia, is your always too early for stuff, and yet you still miss the lesson." I figure Billy was talking about something else, taking me down a lane I didn't want to go down. "He's by the Ocean if your wondering."

" Cool it Billy I'm not."

When i got home,i took three baths all in one row. I used different bath oils and lit scented candles.The first two were showers, the final one was a bubble bath. I put bath salts in it, but after fifteen minutes I got bored.I read the first chapter of to kill a mockingbird bird twice, and played Mozart on blast. None of it worked. Mother was in the house, and she lay at the bottom of the stairs the bottle in her hand, her pink fluffy bathrobe on. "I've left water in the tub for you," I shout. " Let's make tonight special okay?"

"Okay," my mum agrees. Yet my mind isn't here, my mind is with Tommy by the Ocean bed.when I was younger we used to go skinny dipping, and pick seashells where it looked like the moon touched the water. I'd try and do all Tommy's moves the somersaults in the ocean, and splash water everywhere , it always went up my nose. Tommy reminded me of the Ocean. I'd seen when the storms came in, how they'd destroyed a row of houses the water had seemed so tranquil, yet to others appear such a threat.