The Yellow Umbrella

Summer (Mia)

Three years ago... 

I hated New Jersey. I guess it was kinda near the city, but it wasn't like I could just hop on the subway and be in Manhattan. Philly was a good hour drive and New York City was almost a two hour train ride. I felt absolutely sick. I missed home. I missed riding the subway to school every morning, I missed going to the deli on the corner for lunch, I even missed the homeless people and their desperate antics to make money. There was absolutely nothing that made me jump for joy in bumblefuck New Jersey.

On my first day of school, I was absolutely drowning in dread.

My new high school was basically a hick fest, promoting only Future Farmers of America bullshit and tractor pulling. There was no place for me; no art club, no quiet little room in the library, hell they didn't even let me leave campus during lunch. Once I was there, I was trapped. Yet the school had to have three greenhouses and two goats.

It was a shit hole.

And my first day started with the worst class in human existence, Algebra. Now I would have been more excited to start if it wasn't already June. Seriously who starts school in June? It was already hard enough going to a place where you knew no one, but trying to make friends in under two weeks? That was near impossible. All I wanted was someone there to hold my hand. My mom told me to grow up. So, I decided as I walked down the muggy hallway lined with tacky blue lockers, I would not make any friends, not date a soul, not say a word.

Except not saying a word was particularly hard for me because I always spoke my mind, no matter how nervous or out of place it was. I hated having my thoughts bubble up inside me.

But I was determined to try.

When I got to the classroom, there was no teacher. It was like a zoo, some students were sitting on desks playing catch with, what I'm guessing, was a ball of aluminum foil from a lunch eaten early. In the corner, a group of eccentrically dressed students were singing (theater kids). I saw a few decently dressed girls in the middle quietly on their phones. A safe group to sit near, but probably boring as hell. Then, my eyes fell on him.

He was devastatingly handsome.

His dark mousy brown hair was tousled to near perfection, unintentional I think. He was wearing a black t-shirt with a band logo I had never heard of, black fitted jeans, and beat up Chuck Taylors. In a room full of girls in summertime pastels and guys in colorful polos, he stuck out like his thick eyebrows against his pale skin. But what really caught my attention were his eyes; they were brooding. His face was contorted into deep concentration, trying to ignore the havoc around him.

Something different, someone different.

I walked around a group of catty looking girls taking selfies and found myself walking towards the empty seat in front of him. On the outside, I attempted to look suave, you know, the mysterious new girl. But inside, I was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. Was he saving that seat for someone? Was it for his girlfriend? Boyfriend? I took a deep breath and continued to walk towards the boy. He looked up from the book he was reading and our eyes locked. The Odyssey, he liked classics. I bet he listened to records, wrote on a typewriter, and owned a dozen vintage band t-shirts.

I whipped my curly hair over my shoulder and prayed, prayed to whatever god that was possibly existent or listening, that my red mane wouldn't scare him away. I noticed that morning when I checked into the main office that most of the girls wore tight ponytails or ironed their hair stick straight. I was an outlier.

He stared back at me, and my panic peaked. I took a deep breath, I always said what I thought no matter how many titanium butterflies fluttered in my stomach.