Outer Space / Carry On | Michael Clifford AU

6.

As I got closer, I realised Michael wasn't staring up at the sky. His face pointed towards the sun but his eyes were closed. They were still closed when he lifted his headphones and tilted his face from the sun towards me.

As if by magic, his pink lips parted and out fell the words, "Hi Alice... in Wonderland."

I opened my mouth to object to the stupid nickname but then paused. "How'd you know it was me?"

His eyes opened. Woah. Had they always been that colour? I imagined the exact blue-green hue swirled onto a paint palette. I suddenly wanted to paint everything that colour.

"Because they'd - " Michael waved his hand (thankfully pulling me back up to the surface from potentially drowning in his eyes) around the courtyard, towards the tables where the rest of the student body sit at lunch time. " - rather talk about me than to me."

"And you just let them..." it came out more like a question than a statement. I settled down onto a patch of grass next to him. "Don't any of the rumours bother you?"

He shrugged, "As long as people are fuelling lies, no one comes looking for the truth."

It was the kind of statement that would make Kelsey feel uneasy. She'd ask a million questions trying to get to the bottom of exactly what he meant. I wasn't sure what to think.

"So, were you really home-schooled before this?"

Michael laughed, "No, I wasn't. I went to a school almost identical to this one. Full of shiny, rich kids."

"And you don't think you're one of them?" He didn't look like one, even though he was wearing the uniform all the other boys wore. He shook his head.

"You don't think you are either. Otherwise you wouldn't be here talking to me."

"Well," I swallowed. "I thought one of us better break the silence between us."

The corner of his lips twitched with the beginnings of a smile. "You were waiting for me to talk to you?"

The way he said it made me feel like I'd suddenly became one of my old paintings and I'd sprouted an extra head. He sounded surprised, or maybe amused. "I wasn't waiting," I tried to sound a little defiant, scared I was coming off like some rich girl with a penchant for mysterious boys. Like Eloise. "I was just... curious."

My insides twisted. That definitely made me sound like Eloise. I looked at the grass so I didn't have to look at Michael. Ashton and Spanner aside, I'd pretty much been on a boycott since Mum died. A boy boycott, that is. Not intentionally, of course, but the boys around here were... boring. They all laughed at the same dumb jokes and thought pink was a girls colour and generally acted like cavemen.

Finally, a smile escaped and broke out across Michael's whole face. I felt like I'd been sling-shotted into space. "Curiouser and curiouser."

I couldn't help it. I laughed. "What's with you and Alice in Wonderland?"

Michael shrugged again. His shoulders moved stiffly beneath the navy blue blazer, like his was trying to shrug right out of it. "Guess I can relate to falling down a rabbit hole."

He started packing up his stuff; shoved his headphones and iPhone into his laptop bag and slung it around his shoulder. He was up on his feet before I even realised. See, he was magic. I squinted a little, painting phoenix wings into his back, and orange flames weaving through his blue hair.  

"See you around, Alice," Michael with a nod, the flames and wings disintegrating into dust. I watched him head off towards the library, leaving me alone on his patch of grass.

As soon as he was out of sight, I started walking towards my English class.

I painted all through English. Not the kind of painting other people could see, mind-painting, I guess. I'd never told Charlie about the mind-painting, just incase it was a sign that I was going crazy or something. Sometimes I'd paint stuff in my head just to get it out, other times I'd practice an idea in my head until I had a chance to get it out onto paper or canvas.

I was still painting in last period. I had general science and the teacher was talking about natural disasters, while I was surpassing the richter scale with the internal earthquake that rattled through me.

There was something about the painting that kept shaking me. It was a self-portrait. Me, with tiny stick like limbs and an overflowing potato sack as a dress. I'd just finished mind-painting on my second head (neither one had eyes, obviously.)

There was a giant pimple on one of the foreheads which seemed totally ridiculous but also totally relevant because my actual, existing face that was sitting in science had a giant pimple on it's forehead. 

That's when I realised it wasn't the portrait that shook me like an earthquake.

It's that I felt like Michael had been looking at the portrait version of me. Like I was nothing but this twiggy girl with two heads and a pimple so big, it might at well elect a president and become it's own country.

And the magnitude of the whole thing was even greater because I was perplexed yet frustrated with myself for being bothered that Michael might think I was a twiggy girl with two heads and a country-sized pimple.

Since when did I care how I looked to Michael? Or anyone for that matter. When I was little my Mum used to tell me only fragile girls got to be princesses, because the strong ones didn't need a prince to save them.

Maybe that's why I liked painting girls with lion heads or eagle wings. It was my way of making everyone stronger.

I let out a breathy sigh so loud, Kaitlyn Quinn turned around at me. Then I tore up the self portrait in my head and closed my imagination for the rest of the day. By the time school finished, I had written an entire list of baby names for my Dad and Joan.

just wanted to reinforce that alice is not depressed or crazy or anything, she does however have a wild imagination and understandably, she's out of sorts sometimes as she continues to deal with the death of her mum (who you'll still continue to learn more about as the story progresses)

this is a happy story - while still touching on some difficult subjects - and there's a lot of cute interactions between her and michael to come.