Realize Your Potential (H.S)

Chapter Forty-Five

That night I lay in my bed, staring up at the ceiling as I study it's popcorn like texture. I try to find different shapes within its bumps, losing them the moment my eyes shift towards another area.

Styles' copy of The Bell Jar is laying across my stomach, the weight of it seemingly heavier than usual.

Ever since Styles asked me if I had finished it I haven't been able to stop wondering why. Why had he been pushing me to read through the book lately when I've had it since Christmas time? There seems to be an odd amount of urgency behind his desire for me to finish reading through it, but his reason why is left untold.

Instead, I know that I'll just have to read through the rest of the book in order to find out. Or hopefully find out. Maybe he just wants me to read through it so he can stop worrying about how I might react to his little comments and windows into his mind. Or maybe he just wants the copy back.

However, the latter option doesn't really seem like it would be all that crucial so I rule it out altogether.

I really need to just read the book. All this wondering and analyzing is only going to get me nowhere, while the answers to my questions could be currently laying on my stomach.

Nodding to myself, I pick up the book and open up the place where I left off, where a note from Styles is already waiting for me.

He underlined a specific sentence in black in that read: I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, 'This is what it is to be happy.'

Reading the line over causes a smile to break on my face before I shift my eyes over to the note that he has left behind.

In the margin he has written: Happiness comes and goes, but today I am happy.

I swallow hard as I stare at his handwriting, It's the first one of Styles' comments I've found that dives even a little beneath the surface. The first window into the connection that he may have with the main character's suicidal thoughts. And the thing that sticks out in my mind, is it may not be the last comment of its kind.

The thought causes me to sit up now, placing the book on my bed and scooting it as far away as possible until it's almost off the bed. Suddenly my desire to read Styles' copy is faltering more and more.

~

The following day I arrive at the fine arts building well before our scheduled rehearsal for the evening. However, due to not wanting to waste my dad's gas by driving back and forth from school to home, I decide to just spend the next few hours working on homework.

As I walk down the hallway to the main lobby, I can hear familiar English accents coming from the rehearsal room, but I choose not to even look in its direction. Instead, I just keep walking as I hear someone begin playing something on one of the electric pianos. Seeing as I've never heard any of the boys ever playing the piano in one of their songs, I grow a little confused, but don't allow it to slow my stride.

I sit at the single table provided in the lobby and lay out all of my books and papers as I begin to sort through some of my homework. I manage to get decently lost in my work until I hear a door open from down the hall at least twenty minutes later. Then I hear the same four voices fill the hall as well as Gideon's as they make their way towards the lobby. As they finally reach where I'm sitting, I look up to find them all gathering around the grand piano that the department keeps in the lobby for the students to use as they please.

"How about we try it out here? This piano is much nicer than the electric ones in the rehearsal room," Gideon says, giving the piano a gentle pat.

"How 'bout it, Styles?" Louis asks.