Lullaby

Chapter 9 - Plays and Plastics

I woke up in a cold sweat, panicked from the dream the night before, was it real? Was Leo hurt? Who was that… thing? What did he want from me? Why was I his? What did Leo steal? What happened after? These questions spiralled in my head for a good long time… am I crazy? It was just a dream… wasn’t it?

  Shaking these thoughts from my head I got out of bed and ran straight for the shower… I stank of sweat and my hair was greasy from where the sweat had stuck to it. The water was warm and welcoming as I stepped into it; it was just what the doctor ordered… a nice shower to wash all your troubles away. These dreams I was having lately were nothing but pure fiction… but why did I dream of a boy I had never met before… then find him joining our college the next day? It was madness, the lot of it. I grabbed the Nivea shower gel in the corner of the bath, squeezed a handful onto my body and began to scrub.

  After scrubbing I turned the water off, grabbed s nearby towel and stepped out wrapping myself up tightly, I smelled like a tropical banquet ‘thank you coconut!’ I thought happily to myself as I waltzed back into my room. The first thing I noticed as I walked back into my room was that the clock read 6:30am ‘Great…’ I moaned I knew my dad would be up in about 50 minutes so I had plenty of time to get ready and dart off… I was not in the mood for confrontation this morning. I blow dried my hair before quickly deciding on a purple tight fit top, black skinny jeans and blue high-tops… it wasn’t the most organised or colour co-ordinated but it worked. Looking in the mirror I tried almost every hair style I thought I could pull off, but being the lazy ass I was… I just brushed it and left it down; making my way downstairs to the kitchen I wrote a note to my dad and left it on the kitchen counter next to the kettle.

‘Sorry dad, decided to go in early… don’t worry I will be fine! Ha ha. I shall text you if I go out anywhere, so please can you for once look at your phone? I love you…

Jen xx

P.S I made a new friend… his name is Leo, things are looking up!’

I read over the letter once more, just for luck… before grabbing my bag an apple from the fruit basket and heading out the door. The air was cool and crisp as it hit my lungs ‘just right’ I thought, the streets were deserted and the sky was a light violet colour tinted with the florescent streaks of orange that swam along its edges. Some of the street lights were still on, and it just added to that ‘cool factor’ for me. I grabbed the apple from my bag and took a bite, the sweet and yet sour juices flowed from its body as my teeth stabbed and invaded its skin. A few cars drove past with their lights dimmed as I approached the bus stop, I loved this time of day… it was so mysterious and alluring ‘an artist’s muse’. I was almost finished with my apple and spotted the bin next to me, so I sat up and gracefully walked over to the bin before stopping, smiling and slam dunking it into the bin ‘Simple minds… Simple pleasures’ as mom would always say, I let my eyes close and drift back to a memory of when I was young… mom was in the kitchen making gingerbread men, she said it was a treat for being so well behaved today… I remember reaching up and asking to taste but all she did was laugh and tell me that they weren’t ready yet and still needed to be baked or they would escape… I remember being truly entranced and telling the dough that if they didn’t stay, I couldn’t eat them… and if I couldn’t eat them… then I couldn’t tell mommy how wonderful her baking was… it still amused me at how naïve I was back then…

“HEY!” a voice shouted along with a honk of a horn that sent me shooting back to the present, as I turned I was both relieved and disappointed to see the very flashy Citroen DS3 parked over the other side of the street and in that car… was none other than Mr fabulous Leo Carter… I was hoping to avoid him today, the dream I had was just too intimate and too personal… it was making me feel awkward just looking at him “Wanna lift?” he politely asked, but I just shook my head “ So your just gonna wait in the cold for a bus that may not even turn up on time?” he grinned, it was true… the bus was nearly always late and smelt so bad some days that you had to use an entire bottle of deodorant on yourself before it would fade… it was filled to the brim normally of either other college kids, screaming school kids and babies with parents that were twice as cranky and rude… or it simply smelt of old people that stank up the bus, either smelling of perfume, cough sweets, soap or piss… it was awful.