Let your heart soar and

your heart run free (unfinished chapter)

I picked up the book set in front of me before flipping to a random page, and I started to read from the first sentence on it.

They kissed furiously, as if the world would end when they broke apart. The tears streamed down her face, the salty water smearing against the face of the boy clinging to her. I read

I continued reading, but instead of the brunette girl and the snarky blonde boy as the characters, I picture my red-orange hair scrambled and unorderly, connected to my head and face, against the face of my love, however her face is too close to mine to see her details. I imagined me doing everything the blonde in the book is doing, but every time he stared longingly into the brunette’s eyes, I saw blurry details of a girl’s image, shifting so that I can’t make out exactly what she looks like. I could tell that her hair was black, but the length and style evaded my eyes, even when I was standing so close to her.

For so long I had been trying to figure out what my dream girl looks like, but I couldn’t get any details out of my dreams or daydreams. I try to draw out faces of what she could look like sometimes, but none of them look right. All the drawings are missing some important details. One had the most perfect eyes, but I couldn’t think of the nose or mouth, and in another, the entire image was perfect, but she was missing eyes. I tried putting the two faces together, but that didn’t look right either. The pieces are like a puzzle that is missing crucial pieces.

The bell brought me out of my thoughts, and the people in my science class started to file through the door on the opposite side of the room from where I was sitting. I always sit in the back; I find that it helps me focus better . . . when I am trying to focus that is. Most of the time in that class, I spend sleeping, reading, or thinking/fantasizing. Yea yea, I know, it’s weird for a guy to fantasize, but whatever, I’ll do what I want in my “free time,” aka class time.

I put the book into my already packed bag, and headed out the door, pausing momentarily to wish the teacher a good day.

Like every day, when I left, I walked towards the closest flight of stairs to the second floor. Every so often I passed a group of people standing around or talking. Normally they just ignore me, but I’ve counted a handful of times that they have stopped to stare at me as I pass them. Then it is my turn to ignore them. I stick my chin out, lean forwards a little and shove my hands in my pockets, increasing my speed until they are out of the range of my hearing. I continue down the halls of the school, and open the door to the library when I reach it, holding it open for anyone who was behind me so that they can enter first.

“Hi, Alexander.” One of librarians said to me as I was signing in.

“Alec.” I corrected her, “and hi.” Smiling, I walked to the back of the library and sat down on the chair farthest to the right, in the corner. I took out my book again, and immediately went back to daydreaming.

The time traveled by quickly and before I knew it, I saw the minute hand of the clock in front of me hit the three. I got up, closing my book again, and went to the front desk to sign out. I headed out the door, down the hall and into my last class of the day. I had two more hours before school let out, and then the afterschool clubs would start. We don’t normally do much in that class, and I really didn’t care about what we were doing that day, so I took out a sheet of already written notes, put my pen down to the paper, and laid my head sideways on my arm, that was resting on my desk next to my paper. The teacher never caught me when I did this, and the funny thing was that I always used the exact same paper.

I slept all class, waking up only to the announcements that blared over the speakers around the school. I slipped my paper into the only notebook in my bag, stood up and slipped the bag over one of my shoulders.