Burn Long, Burn Bright

Chaster Six

    Chapter Six

       "Hey, do i know you?"

        "No." I stated, and the girl wandered off awkwardly, the tension in my voice carrying to a group of bored-looking students beside me. The girl paused after a few steps away and turned around again, her lips pursed.

            "I'm sure I do, are you from around here?" I shook my head stiffly, and kept my eyes on a passing cloud. She insisted. "Really? What about Seattle? Ever been there?"

        She must have caught my look of surprise, and stared for a long moment until I repeated a firm denial and crossed over the grass verge and settled on the other side of some people studying on the weak grass. I took my camera out it's case, slung loosely on my back, and removed my jacket, the dark leather beginning to warm up in the sun. Once I sat down carefully on the worn roots, my back leaning on the tree trunk, I remembered her.

          Sally something, or Sophie. She smiled way too much and squealed once in a Math class. It was a flicker of thought I didn't need, and I had to rub my face gently between my palms to try and did the memory. It didn't change anything.  I toyed with my camera lens cap, taking it off and on again, then glanced up.

        Her eyes looked strange, but she smiled, a brilliant smile and started coming towards me, as she opened her mouth to speak, I took a picture.

Rose.

        I'd spent the day in a semi-conscious state of exhaustion, each lesson just sweeping straight over my head as I gazed vacantly out a window. The sun dropped through the glass and illuminated my face in yellow glow, but hardly stirred me. I left class part-way through a World History assessment, and spent half and hour watching my reflection in the ladies' mirror. My teacher knew vaguely what was going on, he grimaced kindly and knowingly as I left, but not enough to change my belief- he is a stuck-up fool.

         My Mom always said I got the best mix of my folks, and seeing as they split up so quickly, I don't think the parts of me I shared with Dad were as important to her. Red-brown hair, duller and thinner than Mom's, and blue-greenish eyes that looked awkward and off in my face. I wish I had my mother's perfect glowing tan, not Dad's pale, snowy complexion, and freckles that dotted my nose.

     In the last few months, everything just slipped away, Mom never seemed to wake anymore, her body grew thinner and weaker and Dad just sat there and watched. He could have moved, he could have cried or screamed or hit me, but instead he sorted a will. He arranged the insurance, invited Mom's big sister Kath over from London and drank a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc every night.

       With everything going on about a woman he barely knew,  just stayed as far away as he could from the family. He was Dad's son, from before my parents brief relationship, and that was always where he stayed. I guess I needed a brother at times. No point admitting it now, he isn't even coming to the funeral. I asked him after Charlie left and he just shrugged in that annoying, un-committing way of his. Too late to turn back now, we meet in an hour, down by the chapel. The one that Mom never saw before she was a cold hard carcass in a hospital bed. We wait until the pathetic group of family appear, then we ditch my Mom in a hole and forget it all happened. Just wait until the world carries on without her.

         The sunlight dapples the floor, the last bell rang a while back, and corridor windows barely let in splashes of yellow glow. My Converse were the last gift from Mom, and as I swing through the last set of doors and blink back the bright light, I glance around the lot. Carpoolers linger on the sloped grass verge until the bus traffic and parents had calmed down, and the sports clubs had five minutes until they had to rush down to changing rooms.