The Profile

Chapter 3

After dinner I head back up to my room where my phone still lays on my bed. I grab my backpack and toss it aside my phone as I start to rummage through binders, notebooks, and crushed papers. I find my statistics binder and pull it out with a yank. 

"I could grow a tree with all these stupid papers." I mumble to myself and start flipping through notes until I find where I left off on studying. All of the sudden my bed vibrates and I notice that someone's calling me. My IPhone reads "Mark" with a turtle emoji next to his name and on the screen a picture of him in costume for a show our college recently did. He's making a goofy face at the camera. 

Such a nerd. I answer.

"Yes Mark?"

"I'm going to kill myself."

"No way. You are not going to die and bail out on these exams. I'm just as stressed as you." He groans into the phone loudly, I already can tell he's not studying because Mark never studies. He made it all the way through high school without studying and somehow passed, so now he realizes he has to study because it's college, but doesn't know how.

"Come on, you'll be fine, you're smart and actually have the motivation to study. I on the other hand am hopeless and use my procrastination like it's my superpower." I can hear him run up the stairs and I put my phone on speaker so I can look through my notes.

"Well, maybe you should have tried to study a little bit harder in high school instead of trying to hook up with Maisey Lane almost every year." I joke, knowing that has nothing to do with the situation, but it's been a running joke for years so I use it appreciatively whenever I get the chance.

"Oh haha, very funny. I love it when you use that on me when it doesn't go with any context of the current situation. Bravo." He stretches the word "bravo" and claps through the phone. I smile.

"It's what I do best. Now I need to go or I'm never going to get this done. And you, go study right now and don't stop until you feel confident. I'll text you in the morning." I wait for his response before hanging up, he hesitates for a moment before saying,

"Jeez, fine mom. See you tomorrow." He hangs up.

I stare at my phone. Mom?  That's a new one. We call each other funny nicknames all the time, but "mom" almost puts a bad taste in my mouth. I ignore it, setting my phone on a shelf and go back to studying.

~~~~~~~

An hour and a half later, my eyes are dry and heavy as I slip downstairs to get some water in the kitchen. My mom is on the couch and my dad is on the love seat across from her. They both look up at me as I pass the living room.

"Hi sweetie, get a lot of studying done?" My mom says, turning from the T.V. that was playing Law and Order.  

"Yeah, I think I'm going to head to bed, I'm exhausted." I grab a pink plastic cup from the cupboard and go to the fridge with the automated water and ice to fill it up.

"Oh, before you do that, can you run out and grab the mail? I don't think I ever grabbed it yesterday and meant to do it today, but it went right over my head." My dad says throwing is arm up above his head.

"Yeah, sure." I set down my water and run to the front door, slipping on a pair of my sisters Nike slides. The door opens with a loud creak and I step out into the cold. Snow lightly falls onto Earth and as I leave the porch I am exposed to the gentle yet piercing December breeze. My muscles surprisingly relax, cooled after being inside the stuffy house. I walk on the cement and stop in the middle of my driveway.

Snow continues to fall, the first snowfall of the year in fact, and it gently hits the ground and vanishes within a blink of an eye. The only light casted is the streetlamp in front of our house shining a bright yellow on the ground and slightly onto the house. It's so peaceful, no noise except for the brisk wind winding through the trees. I think about what Abby said before dinner and my unsuccessful find for love. A wave of sudden hopelessness washes over me and I almost feel lost. I've been let down by every guy I've ever liked and never really liked the guys who had feelings for me. 

Will I ever find love?

I let out a deep sigh and look up at the sky, clouds covering the shining stars I always came outside to look at for hours in the summer. Now it's just black with freckles of snow kissing my pale face. I feel like the flames on that candle in the kitchen, threatening to be blown away with a single breath.