Trapped in Forever

55 ~ Anchored with Melancholy and Isolation.

I glimpsed the swaying of Sarah-Anne’s fiery auburn strands of hair against her back about an hour later, after I fabricated an excuse to Toby about how I wasn’t feeling well—I mumbled something out about too beer and then felt as my fingers slipped away from the fabric of his polo shirt and kept my gaze down as I walked past the L-shaped couch where I imagined Reese, Veronica, and Kara all shooting me bemused gazes as they watched me walk away from Toby as he used his beer scented lips to frown in my wake—and she was munching on a handful of popcorn, keeping up a popped kernel delicately with the tips of her fingernails and then dropped it into her open mouth, her dark red lipstick beginning to wear off, probably because she didn’t apply a lip-liner first. Whatever traces of the slight shock she wore when she was standing alongside Orion when he shook his head and then turned around, bypassing her and her ajar lips, were now worn off and she chewed her popcorn, stepping backward in her tan combat boots when someone would try to walk pass her, and she didn’t seem to notice me sitting there on the first step of a carpeted staircase, my hips constantly being brushed against by either bare or jean clad legs as they jogged up the stairs, sweaty and gleaming hands clutched together, and smirks fighting against being stifled on their lips. If she saw me, I wasn’t sure how she would react—maybe she would choke on her popcorn, maybe she would just blink and then turn away, or maybe she would come at yell at me for something I wasn’t really sure I had done.

I hadn’t seen Orion since Toby’s lips nudged against mine, though.

She was wearing an olive green jacket and a black swoop neck T-shirt underneath, and a pair of dark skinny jeans with a worn hole in the knee and it exposed her pale, pasty skin beneath the denim, and she had dropped another kernel of popcorn into her mouth and had started chewing when I stood up, just as another couple with intertwined fingers evaded me and their footsteps were faint thumps underneath me. I was going to try to slip pass them—all of them, the girls on the couch and Sarah-Anne and Orion, if he was even still here—and then maybe I would call Mikayla, remind me of when she called me after she was arrested two months ago, and ask her to pick me. Then I would scrub off the eye make-up that was dusted around my brown orbs, smoking at the corners, and eyeliner darkening my waterline, and then swipe away the M.A.C. foundation from my cheeks and forehead, and become Amanda again, slip on a pair of black leggings and a Batman sweatshirt because Amanda dressed to be comfortable, not attractive. Mandy was brought down just like Amanda was, but not by Roxanne, but by Amanda’s mistake and her past.

But that was all before Sarah-Anne noticed me from across the room just as she began to chew on a popcorn kernel.

The white popcorn kernel, tinged slightly with the yellowish hue of butter on the course side where you could still see the dark golden of the kernel beneath the white, had just passed the wearing dark red lipstick on her lips when her eyes caught a glimpse of me as I stood up, running the palms of my hands down the denim that concealed my thighs, and accidentally averted my gaze away from the entrance, where a bunch of obviously high school freshmen walked through the doorframe and their eyes were outlined with dark and shimmering eyeliner, and turned it to Sarah-Anne, who swallowed her popcorn, almost hesitantly, and then she waved with her free hand, the tips of her fingers faintly buttery from the popcorn. Then she turned, her eyes searching for something for a moment before she finally settled on a potted house place with large, dark green leaves that brushed against elbows and waists as they sidestepped the plant, and she dumped her handful of popcorn into the dirt and clapped her hands together as she jogged across the room, the unzipped sides of her jacket flapping at her sides as she skipped over abandoned bottles and fuming cigarettes, stubbing the toe of her combat boots into one as she abruptly stopped in front of a couple, both were eyes rimmed with eyeliner, and his hand smacking against her barely concealed butt, and Sarah-Anne waited behind them as they headed for the stairs, glancing down at the ground and stubbing the cigarette. She was rolling her eyes when she looked up and walked around the backside of the guy, and stepped in front of me, and I wasn’t sure what she would say or if she would say anything at all. I almost felt like for a moment that she would hit me for something I felt guilty of, but had no idea what for.