Michael

3. My Beautiful Mae

Jenna plopped down on the couch, tired, exhausted. She lay there for a while, one leg resting on the arm rest and the other swinging freely back and forth as she hummed a tune, replaying the first day of college in her mind. It was fun, more tedious than she had thought, but still fun. The syllabus was hectic but kind of interesting, Jessie really made a fool of himself today. She let out a little chuckle, recalling Jessie’s poor attempts at hiding his embarrassment after Hera caught him staring at her. But Jessie couldn’t be blamed completely, Hera was stunningly beautiful, a lot of other guys were checking her out too. And she was so erudite and poetic in the way she spoke, her dark brown lipstick and eyes, wow! She seemed like the poster girl for Dark Academia, that is if Dark Academia n’s have poster girls, they don’t succumb to that kind of objectification of beauty 

Ting!

Jenna picked up her phone from the table and looked at the notification that popped up

‘I’m hungry, any of Uncle J’s delicious French toast still left?’ – Jess 

‘No, some guy ate every last bite of it, and even finished off the crumbs 😊’ – Jen

‘the guy must be a legend, a handsome legend, a handsome, intelligent legend’ – Jess

‘about to puke, can’t digest this much narcissism’ – Jen

‘Alright, Alright, Alright’ – Jess

‘Come over, we’ll order something, Mr. McConaughey’ Jen

‘😊 😊 😊…I’m already outside’ – Jess

‘what? then why did you waste so much time texting me, I tell you Jess, sometimes you’re a tragic hero sometimes you’re the court jester’ – Jen

‘aren’t we all Jen?’ - Jess

‘true that, no matter how much you want to be the unfaultable Elizabeth Bennett in every space of your life, sometimes you are the court jester, you will do somethings that people will mock or laugh at, but it shouldn’t matter, you must enjoy performing the jester part as much as you enjoy performing the Elizabeth Bennett part, only then will the play of life be fun ’ – Jen

‘I don’t want to break your deep philosophical train of thought but…I’m still standing outside’ – Jess

‘Oops...’ – Jen

She quickly opened the door “I’m so sorry”

“It’s okay, that was your little Jester moment…and talking about Elizabeth Bennet, do you have a copy of Pride and Prejudice that I could borrow?”

“ya, Daddy’s old copy must be here somewhere”  

......................................................................

“Jenna, Byron is the best romantic poet and you cannot convince me otherwise”

“Please Jess, Coleridge is way better. He interacts with the supernatural like an old acquaintance and sprinkles them in the mundane world to make it interesting”

“yes, but Byron is just so poetically rebellious”

The door opens and Michael walks in to watch the two debating over romantic poets. He smiles and puts the car keys in the bowl, removes his shoes and walks over to them, his clean white socks picking up little pecks of dust along the way

“Hi Daddy”, “Hello Uncle J” Jenna and Jessie greet together, momentarily putting a pause to their debate

“Hello little appleheads, I heard you two arguing about romantic poets. I remember being torn apart during my own college days between Shelly and Coleridge”