The Yellow Umbrella

Autumn (Mia)

Sometimes I felt trapped in my thoughts.

Well, I used to. When I was younger, it was a problem.

I would want that last cookie, I would want the brown haired doll not the blonde, I would not want to be touched like that. But I didn't have a voice. So I was left with my thoughts bouncing off the walls of my brain. Maybe that's why I functioned so perfunctorily at times.

I used to let my thoughts pile up, eventually they would all catch up and I would explode, going off on anyone nearby. So now, I just said them as they popped up because there was nothing worse than feeling trapped.

So that depressingly grey Tuesday in English honors, I tried to force myself to like White Bread. That started with calling him by his name. When Brandon flirted with me I just wanted to rip the hair out of my skull. But I had a role, a place in this weird society we called high school. The bell rang and Jake walked in, Brandon's flirting was absolutely relentless. I looked at Jake cooly, his eyes didn't meet mine, I didn't want to look at Brandon's pervy expressions, so I turned my attention to my notebook and scribbled J's in loose cursive so you couldn't really tell what I was writing. Then I added a few M's. I liked that his initials were JM and mine were MJ. I was pretty sure I had read somewhere before that people in asylums drew the same thing over and over again because they were so trapped in their thoughts. But the doodle started to invade my math homework, so I set my pencil down.

"So, Mia?" Brandon asked in a kinda irritated way.

I jumped.

"Game tomorrow, wanna be my cheerleader?" He almost barked.

Absolutely barbaric.

"Not interested." I mumbled and shifted my focus to an empty page in my notebook.

I changed my mind, forcing myself to like him was impossible.

Also maybe I was kinda in the wrong to be annoyed that he was flirting with me. I will admit, I did lead him on at times. You can't blame me, I needed something to play with in this hick town or else I would've carved my eyes.

Then from two seats away, I heard something fall. Turning around, I realized it was less of a something more of a someone.

Jake.

He was laying on his side, his cheeks turning a faint pink. I turned back to my notebook and went back to doodling, smiling to myself a little. I had known Jake for three years and occasionally, he would do something dorkily adorable. I remembered this one time he was reading a short story in creative writing and he tripped on the pedestal. Not only did he knock over the teacher's water all over the desk, but he also tore his sweater almost up to his nipple. It was the joke of the day. It made me like him more. It was the little things that gave Jake character.

Even though we barely spoke, I always found him so interesting, like a diary with a lock on it. Jake never talked, to like anyone. Except for some guy named Wyatt. Other than that, I had only ever seen Jake talk to the video teachers. Not to mention, everyone called him Joke and he always looked kinda angry. Like he was trapped too. I was scared though, that if I tried to talk to him, he wouldn't say anything. And I hated that, that what someone said or didn't say could make me want to hurl up some butterflies.

"Whatever," Brandon scoffed, turning to Jake, "Hey loser, you're supposed to sit in the chair."

The class laughed like the savages they were and pulled out their phones to take pictures. Like routine, my smile instantly contorted back to disinterest.

Over the years, I had come to conclude that Wonder Bre- I mean Brandon did not cope well with embarrassment, so his natural instincts were to pass it onto someone else. For some reason, the easy target here was Jake. I think maybe Brandon wasn't hugged enough as a kid. Just a theory.