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pich-u · 9 years

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(No Title Yet) Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Charlie

I stroll down the blue-tiled hallways, vaguely aware of my surroundings. A long, shimmery, purple ball gown hugs my body. Students scurry into the classrooms that line the corridor. I glance up at the clock on the wall, but the its hands are frozen. Huh. Everyone is wearing street clothes except me, but my outfit doesn’t seem to phase them at all. In fact, they ignore me. People rush by on all sides of me, the way a river glides gently around a stone. After a minute, the hallway is clear. I have no idea where I’m going, but I don’t seem worried about that. More time goes by and I’m still strolling about the corridors. I turn a corner, and Nate is standing at the end of the hallway. In a tux. All the lights in the hallway are off, except the one above him. He walks over to me, grinning, and as he steps under each light, it turns on. Once he reaches me, he gets down on one knee and says, “Charlie. I’ve loved you since eighth grade, when you first came into my life. Will you marry me, my beloved?” His voice is smooth, syrupy, and confident.

“Oh, yes, of course!” I squeal. He jumps up and his strong arms wrap around my waist as he lifts me into the air, swinging my body around and around. Nate gently puts me back on the floor, and touches my cheek with one of his rough hands. His other hand finds my waist, and pulls me into him. His face gets closer and closer to mine. Our eyes shut. Suddenly, he pushes me away and opens his jaws, a piercing shriek tearing out of his mouth.

My eyes flutter open, and I reach over to my bedside-table to turn off the blaring alarm clock. Disappointment fills my gut as I realize it was a dream. I start blushing when I remember all the other times I’ve had this particular dream. I feel more embarrassment when I think about how idiotic and unrealistic it is. The dream still makes me happy, though. Reluctantly, I peel the comforter off of my warm body. The fabric feels luscious against my clean-shaven legs. I nearly trip as I walk into the bathroom. Over the summer, I got to wake up at noon everyday, but now I have to get up at 6:00 if I want to look presentable and not be driven to school by my parents.

Once I finally make it into the bathroom, I turn on the faucet and cup my hands under the gushing water. I splash the cool liquid on my face. Well, I try to anyway. Most of the water ends up all over my night shirt or in little puddles on the floor. Next, I squirt some white cream onto my finger tips and smear it across my face. I massage it into my skin, wait a minute, and rinse it off. After cleaning my face, I mark it with stripes and dots of makeup, resembling warpaint. When I’m finished applying my foundation and concealer, I start on my eyes. I grab my mascara, twist it, and pull out the wand, which results in a nice little popping noise. I raise the sticky bristles up to my eyes, which are brown like my father’s, and drag them over my lashes, thickening and elongating them. I’m feeling fierce today, I think. I decide to take my liquid eyeliner and draw wings, which branch off of my eyelids and are sharp enough to pierce a man’s heart. I fumble around through my makeup bag before pulling out eye shadow, and then deciding against it. Satisfied with my artwork, I tuck my makeup bag back inside my cabinet and head over to my dresser. Yesterday I wore skinny jeans and a ruffly tank. To change things up a bit, I pull out a clean white shirt, and tuck it into my favorite black skater skirt. It’s my favorite skater skirt because it has pockets. Women’s clothing nowadays doesn’t flaunt many pockets. I snatch my brand new white Converse, still in mint condition, and slide my small feet into them. Now that I’m clothed, I walk back into the bathroom and contemplate what to do with my hair. Naturally, it’s black and wavy and gorgeous, but I have awful bed-head. I gaze at the curling wand sitting on the counter. After a moment of contemplation, I choose to curl it, because my outfit is fairly plain today anyway. To make up for it, my hair needs to have some pizazz.

“Come, on, Charlie, get a move on!” my brother calls from the front door.

“Calm down, I’m coming!” I shout back.

Once my hair is bouncy, flouncy, and flirty, I skip downstairs to the kitchen and stuff a bagel into my mouth. I tell my parents “goodbye” and get my backpack. Then I hop into the passenger seat of my brother’s car, and we pull out of the driveway.

My parents got my brother this car for his Sweet 16, which was just over two years ago. Aaron is somewhere around 18 months older than me. I’m pretty sure he is, at least. The car is a used, shiny black Mercedes. The interior is also black, which I love because I hate cars with interiors that clash with the exterior. I didn’t get a car for my Sweet 16. Instead, my parents got me a cat. Her name is Purris Hilton. I’m in 11th grade this year, and nearly all of the kids in my grade have their licenses. I have a license myself, and a perfect driving record, but Aaron still won’t let me drive his car. Ever.

Aaron has morning practice for the varsity football team every other day, and I have to go with him to school unless I want one of my parents to take me. We pull up into the school parking lot at 7:00, an hour before homeroom starts. After parking the car, I walk to the school’s entrance and push open the old creaky doors. A few students mill about the hallways. Most of them are the children of parents who must start their jobs early, and can only drop their kids off on their way to work. A couple of kids sitting on the floor finishing homework. Some girls sit in clumps, chatting in hushed tones. I wander around the halls for a minute, earphones pushed in my ears, unsure of my place. The longer I’m alone in the hallways, the more nervous I get. I stare and stare at my phone, pretending to text someone. I just hope people don’t look at me. Although I know nobody is staring at me, I feel as if thousands of pairs of eyes are following my every movement and it’s driving me insane. My stomach is doing gymnastics and I feel like I might vomit. After another minute, I can’t take the fear with its many dull teeth that are gnawing at my insides, and veer to the left towards the girls’ bathroom. When I open the door, I notice two girls, their eyes glued to the mirror, putting on lipgloss and fixing their hair. I duck my head and squeeze into the stall farthest away from them. They were the same girls that were here yesterday morning, and the morning before that. Hopefully, they won’t recognize me. I take off my backpack and hang it on the hook on the door. If it’s on the floor and someone walks in, they could see it and recognize it as mine. I turn around, and softly close the lid on the toilet. Being careful to make as little noise as possible, I lower myself to the toilet lid and sit down. I wait there for a while, checking the clock on my phone every 30 seconds to see how long until homeroom starts. I do what I can to keep my breathing steady and quiet. Water threatens to flow down my cheeks, but I fight back, trying my hardest to keep the tears at bay. At 7:55, I flush the toilet and put the toilet lid back to its normal position. I fling my backpack over my shoulder, and just as I’m about to open the stall door, I realize my earphones are still in. Hastily, I take them out. If I saw someone come out of the bathroom stall, earphones dangling from their ears, I’d be a bit weirded out. I mean, does anybody use the restroom with their earbuds in? I don’t think so. Finally, I push open the stall door, wash my hands, exit the bathroom, and don’t turn back.

Today is the third day of school. Our class schedules rotate on an 8-day cycle. We have 4 periods a day, excluding homeroom, and we never have the same class two days in a row. I quite like the schedule. Even though each class is pretty long, we have two evenings to complete homework before its due, which takes away a bit of stress. I like all of my classes this year, except homeroom. I have a horrible homeroom this year. This year, my homeroom happens to be entirely made up of that group of kids who only ever talk to each other. I don’t know any of the kids well, and I hate having to be around people I don’t know well. A shrill ringing signals the start of homeroom just as I enter the classroom. I sit in one corner of the room, and try to put some space between myself and the others. Then I pull out my phone, and pretend to text once again so Mr. Groger doesn’t think I’m an absolute loser without friends. After he calls roll, we have some time to chat. I don’t move until the bell rings for homeroom to end, and then I toss my bag onto my back, and rush out of the door.

For me, today, my first class is AP Bio. Most people hate biology. Personally, I love it. My classmates think it’s murder, but it’s always been a breeze for me. I would also love to take Chemistry, but I already took the highest level of that our school has to offer. I find science so interesting. I tried Physics out last year, but it didn’t go well since I can’t do math to save my life. Science is something that is able to explain so much about the world we live in, and experience everyday. So many of the beautiful aspects of the world go unnoticed by the majority of the population, or worse; under appreciated. I also love how science is constantly evolving as we learn and understand more about the things around us, whereas math will always be the same.

The class goes by too quickly, and before I know it, the bell rings and students are racing out of the classroom like inmates in a jailbreak. I lift my bag off of the floor, and walk out of the door.

I have B lunch with Nate and Dixy everyday, and we always sit at the far left table at the very back of the cafeteria. It really comforts me to know where to sit down everyday, but everyday when I pass all of the other tables in the cafeteria, I look into the crowd for Nate and Dixy’s faces, just in case one of them decides to change things up and sit at a different table. I don’t know what I would do if I sat down at the usual table and nobody was there. Or worse, if I found somebody else sitting there. That has yet to happen. When I reach our table, I place my tray down and sit next to Dixy. I look across the table and see Nate’s adorable face, and memories of my dream crash over me. I had forgotten about it until now. My face fills with red warmth and I lean down to the floor and rummage through my bag, looking for nothing, in the hopes that he won’t notice my flushed cheeks.

“Holy shit, guys, ok, so, you know how they just got the new Tech course this year, right? Well, I’m really pissed the off, because I thought it would be more advanced! I mean, Jesus, I knew half of the stuff they’re teaching us when I was in second grade, it’s ridiculous!” Dixy’s brows furrow in annoyance. Nate looks at her, the ends of his mouth curled upward and his eyes sparkling with laughter.

“We can’t all be huge nerds like you, Dixy,” he says good-naturedly.

Dixy rolls her bold green eyes. They are so deep and mesmerizing, I swear, they can suck you right in if you look at them too long. Her long eyelashes are a golden color, like the rim of a well-baked sugar cookie. Her eyebrows are thick and a chocolate brown color, perfectly shaped. Her dark brows accent the long, thin strands of sunshiney-blonde hair that falls gently against her back. The tips of her hair, which were dyed red and then purple in eighth grade, touch her lower back. When she runs, her hair billows behind her proudly, like a flag, or like a pair of soft, feathery wings. And she runs so fast, she nearly flies. Her long, thin legs and lithe build are perfect for the sport. Dixy is totally, terrifically, unquestionably, drop-dead gorgeous. In fact, she’s been asked to model for magazines more than once, but she’s never been into that sort of thing. I would kill to be asked to do a photo shoot. She even looks adorable in glasses. She has those hipster Ray-Bans ones, but she only wears them during class. Dixy has never worn makeup either, and still is stunning. I don’t know how she can look so good without any effort, but I wish I could do it.

“Yeah, well, you guys can try,” she retorts before taking a hefty bite of her burger.

“We’d have to try pretty hard,” I say, and to my relief, Nate and Dixy both laugh.

When the bell rings, and the three of us stand up to toss the remains of our lunch into the garbage, Nate speaks up. “Hey, you guys haven’t seen April today, have you? She wasn’t in homeroom today, either, but I was thinking that maybe she in came late...” he trails off. He is concerned. I can tell by the way his lips sag and his eyes scan ours hopefully.

“No, I haven’t,” I say. “Sorry.”

“I haven’t either. She is supposed to be in my AP Calc class, but she wasn’t there today.” Dixy says regretfully.

“Oh, okay, that’s fine, guys, thanks,” Nate’s voice perks up a bit, but I can tell its artificial. He’s pretending to brush it off.

Aaron parks the car and we head inside the house. He dumps all of his stuff on the floor, and then sits down in front of the television. He flips through the channels until he lands on one he’s satisfied with. I walk into our kitchen and grab some Cheetos. When I join my brother on the couch, he reaches into the bowl. “Hey! Go get your own, you pig,” I say, and turn away from him to shield the little orange nuggets with my body.

“Alright, whatever,” he mumbles, before heading off to the kitchen. Once he gets a snack, he goes off and locks himself in his room. With nobody else’s TV show preference to consider, I steal the remote and change the channel.

Two hours and nearly 3 episodes of Teen Wolf later, my parents come home. They have the same job at the same company, so they get home at the same time. When they enter the door, my parents both greet me with a hearty “hello.”

“What’s for dinner?” I ask them, as my mother kicks off her heels and sits on the couch next to me. My father enters the kitchen after setting his briefcase down, and begins flicking on lights, and putting various ingredients and supplies onto the counter.

“Dumplings,” he says, in Chinese, winking at me. He taught Aaron and me Chinese when we were young, and he really encourages us to speak it at home. We do with him sometimes, but more often than no, Aaron and I just speak in English. Mom doesn’t know Chinese, everyone in our household knows English. Baba’s parents have lived in Beijing their entire lives, but when Baba was young, and they had made enough money, they sent him to a boarding school here. When he moved moved here, my father spoke no English, but now he speaks with a fluently with a strong American accent. Although our mother is American, through and through, Baba doesn’t want us to forget our roots. Well, one half of them, anyway.

“Pork?” I respond, hopeful.

“Yup,” he tells me. Heck yeah! His dumplings are the best, especially the pork ones. Actually, everything my father makes is really good, whether it be Chinese Even my mom likes them, and she doesn’t like too many foods that aren’t from the West. My father pulls out the good chopsticks tonight.

#writing #Charlie Story

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