The Approximation

Standing Still

I passed back and forth in my room. My hair was a mess of curls around me and my English homework was sprawled on my bed undone. I couldn't stop thinking about what happened at my sister's house, I can't lose myself like this again I simply can't afford to.

I lied down on my bed face down and sighed before promptly punching my pillow.  

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Aria was not the first person that I've ever loved. 

The first time I realized what was fundamentally wrong with me was the summer before my eighth grade year. That summer wasn't any different than any other summer. Like usual I spent it with Aria splashing at the community pool riding our bikes and spying on the laboratories that the government had on the compound. But that summer was the summer I changed. 

Around that time my parents bought Brendan. Sometimes when families where very busy and couldn't maintain all their household chores the government allows them to buy a slave. All of them are under the age of sixteen though because at sixteen they are used for approximation in order to produce babies. And once they have completed their purpose half are killed and then the other half is used to run factories clean up buildings and pick in the fields. So that we do not have to do those jobs so we can create all the great ideas. 

I rember the day that Momma bought him, shoving him in the house and laying down the rules. She instructed him on all the household chores that needed to be done and the slave's bedroom that he would sleep. She called us down. Mage was completely preoccupied with her new girlfriend and couldn't care less about him and Lana was happy she didn't have to wash dishes. But when I saw Brendon my cheeks felt hot and my hands turned sweaty because Brendon, needless to say, was beautiful. 

He had hair so blonde it was almost white, and blue eyes such a deep blue that it reminded me of the sky on a particularly clear day. But what I rember the most clearly were his lips, they were red, like a rose. I noticed that most boys didn't have red lips and that some girls even tried to die their lips to look like his. So for a boy, it was pretty weird. But when I looked at his lips they were so beautiful and it made me want to touch them to trace the lines with my fingertips to see how they where so red.  

All summer was a saga of dreaming about Brendon. I would watch him work in the yard or clean the house. Not bothering to help of course but just to watch, as a scientist I was curious to see how his lips turned so red. So whenever he was cleaning downstairs I inconspicuously would sit on the couch and pretend to read a book. Because I could never really focus on reading while he was around. 

I especially loved when he would garden because the hot August sun would make him hot and sweaty so he would take off his shirt.  so I would watch and draw sketches of him. Just to analyze simply for scientific measures. 

Although looking back at it now I knew I was a total creep. 

I kept trying to tell myself that I didn't have a crush on him, it was simply because he was an anomaly to the norm of how people look. And I would have just told myself if it wasn't for what happened next. 

I was sitting out on a lawn chair that faced the garden reading, or should I say pretending to read a book at this point I don't rember which other than the fact that it had something to do with witches and broomsticks. I remember Aria being obsessed with the series that summer so I tried to read it myself. 

Brendan had just finished watering the grass and was rolling up the hose putting it at the side of the house. I was watching him roll up the hose when he spun around. 

"I'm sorry miss but could I ask you a question." He said to me his voice deep and raspy as if he's not used to using it. 

"Uh..sure," I said my voice squeaky afraid of saying anything for the fear of saying the wrong thing. This boy had that effect on me.