Hello, Again

Chapter 1

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Hello, Again

Chapter 1

But a heart can't be helped

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Amelia Barnett was welcomed to this world with very little fanfare and equally scanty historical significance. She wasn't the product of a great love story, nor a child born amid, or even despite, great strife. She made her debut in this world in a little grey room on a mild October afternoon at the local nursing home of Surrey, and her arrival was remarked upon with a sigh (her mother), a perfunctory smile (the nurse), a laugh that struggled to win distinction as either absolutely ecstatic or downright nervous (her father), and barely registered cooing and a flutter of wings (the pigeon that sat outside the window, startled by the untimely cry of the newborn). Hence, Amelia Barnett made the very important transition from a Would-Be to a Being as made by 353,000 babies across the globe each day.

After a battle between Susan and Dorothy and Martha and the 'quaint and lady like' Julia, Amelia emerged victorious as the name that would be bestowed upon this very important Being. The mother of this Being, being 'forward' and very taken by the Modern Heroine, the Agathas and Olivias and Sylvias of the world, was intent on seeing her new-born Being receive a name of the very best lineage of ownership, but her husband had other ideas. He was a Practical Man, a man of square spectacles and trimmed moustaches and a very unimpressive but thoroughly practical chin who wanted his (his!) little Being to have her feet on the ground and a solid head that could handle basic calculations and maybe a little cooking and a comfortable job (preferably with the local hospital) and what if she didn't even like reading all that much, and such sound (if baseless) logic easily dominated over the beautiful, melancholy, whispers-on-the-wind names of the mother's choosing. In a twist of fate, however (or nothing but random chance) the Father agreed upon Amelia (Like his Grandmother), as did the Mother (like Amelia Earhart!) and the Being gained her nomenclatorial identity, for all official and metaphorical purposes.

Little Amelia was a (slightly) plump little girl with light(ish) brown hair and dark(ish) brown eyes. These features were complimented with rosy lips, dimpled chin and of course, teeth within (much like all the other 353,000 compatriots of hers). As a toddler, Amelia distinguished herself by learning to read a month sooner than the neighbour's Timothy (a whole two months older!) and scribbled over enough of her father's newspapers to convince her mother that Amelia would most definitely become a writer. This favour was short lived, however, as within a few years, the Not-So-Little Amelia started to favour Numbers, labouring over her Tables and attempting Long Division and her father beamed with pride as she attempted three figure multiplications all by herself

And then, as Amelia turned 12, something...changed.

The cute, not-so-plump child transitioned into a plump, not-so-cute teenager and the sky turned darker and the world a little colder and all of a sudden, Amelia was aware, aware of the bumps on her nose and her unruly eyebrows and her slightly crooked teeth and her horribly inadequate chest. She became aware of the girth of her waist and how her skin was so pink and peeling and how the boys from St. Anthony's passed over her entirely and spoke to her best friend Bethany and everybody basically let her know that she didn't matter very much.

That was more than a decade ago.

The now adult Amelia was markedly different. Her hair hung to the middle of her back, wavy and brown and unremarkably voluminous. Her eyes were set farther apart than her mother's, but larger as well, framed with thin but long eyelashes that brushed her cheeks when she blinked. She was taller than average, walked a great deal, and all in all, passably pretty.