Sleeping On Daisies

II: Isaiah Shores

Isaiah is—was—my best friend. 

We dated. It didn’t work out. We broke up. Now we barely say anything to each other, only frantic waves and small exchanges of words. Our conversations are dull. We acknowledge each other once every blue moon, like when we see each other around the school, or like this morning—when he saw me struggling with my locker, in dire need of help.

As I stand in the breakfast line with Clair, I can’t help but to study him from afar. He sits at the farthest lunch table in the cafeteria, near the row of awning windows designed in case of an emergency evacuation.

A throng of boys —some his friends, some strangers—surrounds him, sitting on top and on the bench of the mobile tables.

Isaiah sits in the center of them all, freestyling. 

“You’re wishing you could be over there, aren’t you?” I turn and meet Clair’s face. She’s wearing that smirk again.

I nod. “A little...yeah.” 

Who am I kidding?

If the lunchroom wasn’t separated like it was now — boys on one side, girls on the other— I would’ve been his number one fan, sitting in front of him before his mouth even opened.

But it was all a fairytale that would never come true. We were separated by a black cordon of thick long rope, stretching from one end of the lunchroom to the other. 

“I wouldn’t be too disappointed,” Clair says, guiding my gaze towards where hers is. 

A girl is over there now, sitting in front of him. She gawks at him with admiration, her elbows and arms supporting her chin.

My heart thumps rapidly.

Clair grabs a hold of my forearm. “Calm down.”

“I am calm,” I lie through my teeth. I glance down at my hands and realize that all blood has drained from my knuckles.

Crap.

 “I can explain,” I began to say, turning towards Clair.

She’s wearing a smug smile now. Her lips peels back against her gums and her small overbite reveals itself. Her teeth are perfect. She’s perfect. All her small features—from her roundish-almond eyes, to her golden-brown skin—are perfect. I envy her: for being blatantly confident enough to trim her hair into a short pixie cut, and for looking utterly attractive with it. 

“Well?” She says, after nudging me with her right shoulder. “Are you going to speak, or at least, move?”

It is only now that I notice the huge gap between me and the other girls ahead of me in the line. I hastily close the distance.

“Now was that so hard?”

“Quit it, Clair.”

“What? You can’t take a little teasing?”

“No,” I say; my tone stern, teeth gritted. She was becoming a nuisance. “Isaiah was probably watching me this whole time.” 

“No, sweetie,” she confirms. “He wasn’t.”

I avert my eyes over my left shoulder and a pang of hurt jabs at my chest. Clair’s right—he’s not looking at me, probably never was looking at me. I don’t exist to him. He’s focused on the girl. 

He’s focused on her. 

I refuse to stare at him any longer. I turn around and move the line forward, quelling the urge to never glance back. How did she even get past the deans without notice? Anyone who’s caught on the opposite end of the rope is immediately escorted out of the cafeteria. She’s supposed to be getting escorted out of the cafeteria—for not only breaking the rules, but for being a whore.

“Who is she?” I demand.

“One of the Owen sisters.”

My teeth grits, again. “Owen sisters?”

“Foreign exchangers,” Clair informs me. “They’re from Bordeaux, France.” 

She says this in a playful accent. I cringe. 

“Foreign exchangers from France?” I repeat, my throat suddenly tight.   

How could I even compete with that?

If whats-her-face over there is already captivating Isaiah, then her having a sister will just add onto the list of reasons he ignores me.

We reach the front of the line. Clair walks ahead of me and grabs us two trays. She hands one to me. I am perplexed at first until she leans over my shoulder, whispering in my ear:

 “Wake up. He’s looking.” 

This tiny piece of information is enough to make me overload my tray with unnecessary things, like excessive napkins and plastic utensils. At the moment, it doesn’t matter. Isaiah Shores is staring at me. I want to show him that I don’t care. I don’t care about the burning sensation in my gut right now, or the thought of him possibly missing me the same way I miss him. He could flirt with me vicariously through her all he wants—I don’t care. 

“I don’t care,” I finally manage to say aloud. To Clair.

She laughs. “Why, of course you don’t, sweetie.”

I step on her oxford flats, driving the heels of mines into the bones of her big toe. Clair yelps in agony, dropping her tray onto the ground.

“Shit, Sydney!”

Earlier, the nuances of conversations going on at the same time was enough to drown out a single voice. Now, the sound of Clair’s voice seem to resonate back and forth between the walls, ceiling, and hard surfaced floor. Her voice became a flutter echo—a distinctive ringing sound in everyone’s ear. The entirety of the cafeteria hall is silent because of this. 

My cheeks fills with blood.

“Hey,” I hear a deep, baritone male voice shout from afar. “What are you doing over here!”

It’s her—she’s busted.

“Come with me young lady,” says another voice, one of a female dean.

I watch as she latches onto Clair’s right arm. My body is stiffened from the neck down. I can’t save her—not even if I really, really wanted to. She wasn’t supposed to curse. Her use of profanity was enough to disturb the cafeteria hall. It will be referred as insubordination, as juvenile delinquency, because profanity is prohibited in this building. 

She wasn’t supposed to curse.

The two deans escort her and Clair out.