Ruthanne Georgeson High

💎 •Ring in the Garden•

          Flavoured drinks - orange, pineapple, blackcurrant - jingled in glasses, spun in lazy furls. Cookies drenched in them were popped in parted mouths. Long, pretty pink leaves rustled all around in the airy, outdoor library, whispering a melodic hum to the ears of the honeyed elite.

It was a classes revision period; a kind of leisure reading, refreshing of the memory, but the most of the students were doing things remotely related to that. They engaged in gossip and chit chat, abandoning their textbooks flipping to the brushes of the zephyr. Present were students from all departments and grades, whom were identifiable by distinct characteristics.

The Arts students, students majoring in literature, C.R.K., History, the likes, and largely pursuing careers in the humanities were distinguished by their howls and bellows, disorganized manners in general. The Science students, stereotypically believed to be the brainiacs and more studious, were placid and in group of twos, hunched over
calculators and jottings, and the Commercial students, business-oriented professions aspirants, were somewhere in between the prior depositions, poring over Economics, Accounting, and Commerce textbooks.

Demi was comfy in a hard leather, squeaky, square chair drawn to a fixed high table where her Comprehensive Chemistry laid opened on. Bleached leaves scrunched underneath her pumps as she bobbed lightly. She was at a corner of the open area. Humongous perennial trees threw shades on the floor with the help of the cool sun. Everywhere felt empyrean and she was making the best use of it, determination flowing through her more than ever to be outstanding in her studies.

She loved the sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, geology, whichever, and especially neuroscience and astronomy. She used to visit a distant uncle many years ago, when she was so young. He was of the middle class and lived relatively average, could afford a cable TV, gas cooker and such. She used to watch interesting educational programs there and had been in love with discoveries and inventions ever since.

Little Demi wished to be in those fields and would dream for hours, playing scenes like fifteen to twenty to thirty years in the future, where she's anything but the poor, spindly, disadvantaged girl she was. Doing great feats. She knew nothing about the world, its cares, adulthood. Knew nothing of goals, setting them and commitment. She only had a wish. Nothing more or less, about how to make her dreams happen. One could say it was a bit more of a psychological coping mechanism. Like 'cushion' imaginings, something to help pretend that the world she was in was not crime-filled, poverty-stricken, and reeking of illiteracy - so breathing was easier.

Years had gone by now and she's here, at fifteen-years old. The wish transformed into a plan. A direction - one that she didn't come to choose until about a half-year ago when ill-fate struck. That was her sister becoming terminally sick with the crippling and neuron-damaging disease of Lou Gehrig's. Degenerative it was, coupled with the weakness of muscles and gradual loss of its use, with no known cause. And the wish was backed by something, a cause, a purpose, a need. Her sister wasn't going to die! Nevermind that the reports showed that the average span of life remaining for an ALS patient is two years, and four at maximum.

She wasn't overly religious, but she was hoping, praying to a deity outside of the universe that her sister still be alive for the next fifteen years or so. That hers, her case be different, because it was pure gamble on her - Demi's - side. She has no guarantee, or assurance . . . that her sister would be alive in the coming few years.

Adenike is a sweet soul . . .

The feels around picked up and rose. Someone was approaching. An important person—as that was the customary signal one has to watch out for among Ruthanners whenever an esteemed student was proximate. As if their presence wasn't haughty and aloof enough, their aura would puff, yet, to an even greater alt. They were indecipherable and like the Greek gods, on the mount Olympus. Extremely exclusive.

Demi pulled out of her reverie, to find she had read through some paragraphs surprisingly, even though her subconscious was in another state. She was reading and thinking at the same time.

A difference was striking to her as her head drew up to roll on her neck, take in the surrounding. As if by some magic, the girls appeared prettier. Dazzlingly prettier and prim and posh. Heartbreaking-ly prettier.

Wow. . .what the—and then she saw from the corner of her irises.

Ren Georgeson.

Okay, not so surprising, after all.

But, wow. He was gorgeous.

She turned to face her left completely and her heart constricted in a feathery pain, her lips extended in a tiny, breathy 'o' on  sighting him.

His blond-ash hair was slick, seemingly crisp. A classy, gold, Rolex watch wound his firm wrist. His suit jacket fitted snuggly to his torso and his fingers curled a textbook as he advanced down a stony pathway to the garden.

Demi pulled her eyes away and settled them on the brownish book before her, deciding to engage with the scene with her ears instead. She was tuned in to every sound, perfectly.

Ren's Giorgio Armani's shoes made small klops on the floor as the voices around were titillating. Demi could hear wisps of air rushing in and being choked on in the girls' lungs and then a smash followed by whooshing, splattering on the floor.

"Oh, shit," a voice cursed.

Despite herself and trying to suppress it, a grin crept onto Demi's lips, ruddy and small.

"Hello? Is this seat taken?"