fascination // ✔

1. flame

Boarding school is a place most consider a nightmare, including my mom. She didn't have much of a choice but to send me though, my parents had separated for almost two years now and it was about time she actually found a job and stopped depending on my dad for cash.

So I was kicked off to boarding school since she wanted to get a full time job and I was just getting in her way.

I was pretty hyped to go because it meant starting over.

I'd get to be a whole different person, someone who was cooler and smarter and braver.

In the end not much changed except my hype for new beginnings.

I met one of the nicest girls in that boarding school. And fortunately, I was too old to be bullied and too young to get stoned.

And this girl taught me to pray.

My first few requests from God were pretty lame - a shorter skirt, cooler phone, makeup.

And I was forced to go to the chapel in school by her. And I thought I'd hate it.

But I didn't.

I didn't because as I was kneeling down for the one hundredth time I turned around to flash her a cheeky grin and instead I saw her eyes shut, her palms pressed together and her lips moving.

Her skin was a colour I'd never seen before, a milky white, so white she glowed, so pale I realise God must have made Eve quite a similar masterpiece. Her hair was down to her chin, it's silky straightness illuminated by a ray of light which filtered through the murky window.

I still remember the purple blue colour of the glass in the window, a depiction of a man who I now knew was God's son, Jesus.

Her hair was chocolate brown but I'd rather believe it consisted of all the colours in a rainbow with a glimmer that was uniquely perfect. Uniquely hers. Her lips were peach, her cheeks were peach. She was like a doll, like one of her numerous dolls.

Fragile and delicate looking.

I realise then that what I'm feeling is strange, alien . . . and nice.

But I turn away anyway, joining my own hands and shutting my eyes from the thoughts.

But in the darkness of my closed lids they don't go away, they keep flitting about and I see that image of her again and again. And I don't mind.

I let them flit.

When we finally get out of the small chapel her image is burned into my retinas and I'm afraid it always will be.

But I'm not afraid. Not really.

For almost a week, I can't bring myself to look at her properly, suffocating on the inside because I know if I do then she'll see it.

See what I saw, feel what I felt, hear what I'm thinking.

And I decide to spend every free minute of my day with her, every single second I'm not doing something I absolutely have to.

I liked to slip my hand through the crook of her arm even though she hated it. She hated me nuzzling her cheek and tugging on her hair.

But she considered me her annoying bestfriend and told me everything anyway.

I could tell I was her favourite and I know for a fact that she's mine too. And that amazed me even if I wasn't her favourite in the way I wanted to be.

I continued going to our school's chapel on Sundays with her but I made sure to never sit in the same pew as her.

I made sure I was always in a position to observe.

I know that makes me sound like some sick creep who preys on innocent girls but at the time it was just what I called a passing fascination.

My fascination with the way the light hit her hair, how she'd scrunch up her eyes real hard when she was praying, how her hair would brush her cheek gently when she'd bend her head.

This fascination continued for quite a long time and there were days when I'd be hit by it at the oddest of times.

Like when she'd come out of our domitory's bathroom with her hair dripping wet but she'd never be in a towel, she would always dress inside, unlike the rest of us shameless ones. Or when she would wake me in the middle of the night when she had a bad dream so we'd end up pushing our cots together. Or the time we had a school trip to the mall and while coming coming back she put her head on my shoulder and fell asleep, it was the most uncomfortable bus ride ever but is was worth it. I could smell the clean smell of soap on her skin and it was like I was in heaven and I had just learned about heaven. Heaven and angels. And God.

But I wasn't dead and, yet, I found my heaven.

My fascination with her was more than just a physical one, I was tied to her now.

I was fascinated by how calm she was. When I was frazzled, nervous or even mildly excited I'd be all over the place all at once but she'd be understanding and patient and good hearted. I was fascinated by how kind she always was. Always lending people money to buy something from the tuck shop and never willing to take it back. Always lending me money because my mother always forgot and my dad never cared.

I would have been content to live this quiet, awkward life of fascination if no one had found out about it.

But, someone had.