the long way home [ h.s. ]

Thirteen | 13

thirteen | 13

☓

The morning after my acceptance into the university, I think about Beautiful Alice.

For whatever reason, I don't know why; but once my eyes open I don't move for a good ten minutes, and lay there in the early light thinking about the way Harry glared at her.

The repercussions of what he's said to me hit heavily and full of force.

"Scoot over, please."

"There's something about you that I feel comfortable with."

I've never really thought about it until now, but it's remarkable that he even approached me in the first place. Why me, and not her? Why not anyone else?

And then all those small memories of Alice rush back, running hand-in-hand with the look he had in his eyes, and the somber

"I don't care--"

... and it's almost haunting, really.

How he brushed her off his shoulder like gathered dust, a thin sheet of silver, into empty air.

And yesterday, he walked right up to me and asked to sit down, and pressed his rain-soaked body next to mine in the cramped leather seat--

Because he wanted to.

☓

The morning begins slowly, and full of noise.

There's the sound of the alarm on my phone: an angry noise.

Next, the sound of running water, thousands of droplets hitting the smooth shower floor: an active noise.

There's the soft patter of my mother's footsteps, and my father gently clearing his throat: noise that comes in a pair.

Of all these, the one that I pay closest attention to is the quiet ticking of Thomas's clock in the next room, which is shaped like a blue train: peaceful noise.

I get ready in a timely fashion, poking around in my closest for something that will look alright. As usual, I wear a pair of jeans and sneakers, and tug on a warm sweater with sleeves long enough to pull over my fingers.

I don't care all that much about clothes, as long as they're comfortable and I don't look ridiculous. One time in my biology class, my sort-of-friend Anne and I were talking in hushed tones and trying to be discreet about it, when she asked me when I'd been shopping last-- I told her it was a few months back, and that I didn't get out to buy things often.

All of the sudden, I felt embarrassed of my battered blue converse. 

She smiled at me really fondly and her eyes had this pronounced look of knowing.

"That makes sense, Mary. You're a simple person, it doesn't sound like you to worry about material things."

"You think I'm simple?"

"Not in a bad way," she said. "I just think you're real. You look real, you act real; well actually, you don't even act, you just are-- and you talk about real things. It's a good way to be."

That was actually one of the nicest things anyone has ever told me. I think the reason I liked it so much was that she looked inside of me. She's odd in the way that she can speak to someone for five minutes and already know all their secrets.

And she says the most profound things, and it's like she doesn't even try to piece things together, they just come out, and her blue eyes shine and her rust-colored ringlets bounce around her ears with each new word.