Angelic

Angelic: Chapter 14

I’ve been trying to sleep for hours, it seems.  I dare to open my eyes a peek to check my alarm clock.  I figure, opening my eyes now isn’t going to hurt.  It’s not as if I can fall asleep with the chaos Mother Nature is causing. 

            The rain is pounding against my house, older than time itself.  It’s not like in Florida, where the rain was violent but harmless against our brand spanking new flat.  Here, it seems as if every thunder clap will shake the house so hard it’ll fly up to Oz.  Besides, I’ve always been terrified of thunder storms.  Lightening, in particular.  When I was six my best friend at the time, Luke McNeil, had shown me a video on a site of a man being struck by lightening.  He had teased me when I burst into tears.  Ever since, the reality of it has eaten at me.  It could happen to me.

            Now, even as a soon-to-be seventeen year old girl, I’m still terrified.  Logically, I know that the lightening can’t hurt me.  Still, each time the bright white light flashes beyond my eyelids, I bite at my tongue, trying to forget about it.  It can’t hurt you.  It can’t hurt you…

            It’s 1:27, about two hours since I decided upon turning off the lights.  Approximately five minutes after I turned out the lights the storm raged.  I decide that I might as well give up.  I’ve tried listening to every single type of music.  A loop of Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On, a mix of hard core rock that has mysteriously appeared on my iPod, a shuffle of everything, my favorite type of music, Country Pop, or just my favorite artist Shania Twain.  It does no help.  I begin to soothe into the music, letting the pounding rain mix with the melody, when another clap of thunder will roll in and I’ll shiver.

            I switch on my light which, thankfully, turns on.  The storm hasn’t caused a power outage.  Yet.  I reluctantly reach for my backpack, still beside my bed from my Science study cram.  Since I have all this extra time, I might as well attempt to catch up on the work I’ve missed due to my more-than-slightly-pathetic mourning of rejection.  

            Generally, I’m a good student.  I’ve had grades above an 80 my whole life.  There’s no way any college would ever offer me a scholarship though.  I’m ‘naturally smart’ according to counselors and school teachers, but I simply don’t care.  Why should I spend half of my evening writing a paper on a book I read?  The teacher should just read the bloody book, or the back.  If they can’t be bothered to check it out of the library, there are a zillion review sights on line.  Why should I provide it?  Therefore, I haven’t gotten above a 95 average in my whole life.  

            I begin plotting hurricanes for Science, a lab I never intended to do.  It doesn’t require using the brain, so I find myself paying more attention to my music than I am to exactly where Hurricane Katrina may have originated.  Once I’m done that, I start on an essay for Fahrenheit 451, until I remember that I did the essay a year or two ago.  I get up out of bed, shakily walking across the room, looking cautiously out the window.  I grab my laptop which has the saved files of all the essays I’ve written since eighth grade.  Apparently, colleges might some day want to look at them.  Yeah, right.  As if I would major in English.  Either way, Mum convinced me to save them. 

             I nervously switch the laptop on and place it on my legs as I pull the blanket around me.  Okay, I’m being really stupid, but I can’t help it.  Theoretically, some freak accident could happen and my window would blow open and at that precise moment a bolt of lightning would shoot through and electrify my computer, therefore burning me like bacon.

            Yeah, I’m being really stupid.

            I print the paper, hurriedly making some grammar changes and advancing the language up a grade.  That should change what used to be a ninety to a ninety eight.  I smile and hook it up to the printer.  It chugs along noisily, and I’m grateful that both my parents are heavy sleepers.  Even my ancient printer won’t wake them up.