Have you ever gone through a day expecting the normal – normal teachers, normal classes, normal students, and normal events – but instead you got this overload of insanity thrown at you from all directions? Monday was one of those days.
I entered homeroom thinking of all me and Simone had planned for the next week. She would come over today to ‘keep me company’ as her mom had put it, for three nights, until I got used to my parents being away for the next two weeks. No one was supposed to know about it, for my own safety, but Simone and her parents obviously didn’t count. 7
It’s not like I’ve never spent a night at home alone – I think the legal age for that is 13, or maybe 14 – but it still felt like a big step. Nobody but me in this huge house for two whole weeks, it was a lot of responsibility. I have got to stop opening doors for strangers, now.
As soon as I step in the Essential Skills classroom, I could tell something was different. Then I noticed how the seating arrangement had changed. I saw a name on the board, ‘Ms. Golicci’. The name probably accompanied the skinny looking woman who was looking through a bunch of notes at the teacher’s desk. I saw the surprised expressions on all my classmates as they stood awkwardly at the front of the classroom waiting to be told where to sit down. Except for him.
He just strode in there like he owned the place, and sat down at the front row, and winked at Ms. Golicci His dark hair shone in the sunlight and he shifted his eyes over to me. That caught the teacher’s attention, and she looked at me too. Suddenly, I felt like I was in the center of the spotlight, on display for everyone. So I pulled on Simone’s arm, and we both sat down in the middle of the classroom.
Soon the entire class followed, and Ms Golicci strode to the front of the room, and looked at each of us, one by one, as if inspecting her new bunch of misfits.
“I will let you sit wherever you have chosen to for the day. Tomorrow, however, will be different. A lot will be changing. I understand your previous teacher allowed chitchat. No more of that. You will speak when you are spoken to.” Why did this remind me of misfit boarding schools? “And you will pay attention. I want all eyes on me, always.” She stretched the ‘always’ with a lot of emphasis. “We have a new assignment that is important, one that will take up your time, all day, and every day for an entire week. I must see full participation and commitment. Is that understood?” She peered at us over her half brimmed glasses.
“Yes.” I heard a few brave students utter.
“You will be given a partner, whom I will choose. This assignment is for the purpose of learning how to cooperate in difficult situations with strangers. Learning how to trust people; who to trust and who not to trust. Of course, in this class, you might think, who is there not to trust. But this assignment will show you that one must never simply trust anyone, trust must be earned. The only help I willing to give to you on this assignment is this one sentence: Keep your guard up. And so here it is.”
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Simone’s mad at me. It’s not even my fault. I tried everything, I swear. I don’t know what it is about her, Ms. Golicci, but I don’t like her. She’s a fake. That’s it. She isn’t real, and there’s nothing I hate more than a liar.
“Simone,” I saw her look up from her book. She always reads before class. “You are with Jane.” After writing something down on a piece of paper, she looked at them and laughed. “Would you care to move young ladies?” She said, almost spitefully, stopping the laughter abruptly.
I hated her.
“Lyna,” Pause. “You are with Nilou.” I looked around the class until I spotted her, she had fair hair, long and straight. She had brown eyes, just like me. I liked her. This was good. I got up and sat down beside her.
Then, I looked over and saw them. Noah and the new kid. Sitting together, they were partners. I kind of felt bad for Noah, he was so innocent and shy, and I couldn’t imagine anyone less opposite being his partner.
“You look alike.” I said when it finally dawned on me. “Are you guys cousins?” I asked.
“Nope, just siblings,” I looked at her, the shock evident in my eyes. Why hadn’t I known this? “Not a lot of people know. He stays out of the clear, and I used to go to a different school last year, for gifted.” She said, as if reading my mind.
“Okay, now that you know who you will be working with. I would like to explain this project. You and your partner are strangers. Isn’t that right?” She said looking around for an answer. How did she know who everyone would consider a ‘stranger’. So superficial. “ This component is necessary to the success of this project. You and your partner will be spending every waking minute of the next few days with each other. At school, you must be at each other’s side the entire day. Are there any problems with that?” I wondered if I had Nilou in any of my other classes. Only one, wasn’t exactly sure how this would work.
“What if we don’t sit beside each other or if we have different classes?” Someone asked.
“During class, and while you are asleep; those are the two only times, you can be separated. Even between classes and after school, you must stick together like glue. I understand that you do not know your partner, but either they will gain your trust, and all is good, or you must find a way to keep your life secret for an entire week.”
“An entire week?” I heard half the class chant.
“Yes, an entire week.”
Then the class was filed with whispers of how unfair she was. I wish they would just accept it and move on. I wanted to know why we were doing this. “Shh.” She gave us a death glare. “I’m trying to answer questions.” Then she turned to Noah and said “yes?”
“What if we are absent? What happens then?”
“You will not take part in this project. However, to make it up, you will owe me a 5 page essay on the importance of trust and distrust. Which reminds me, I hope you all know that that is the purpose of this assignment. I want a full report every day about your partner and what you feel about them. Afterwards, at the end of the week, you must exchange what you have written.”
I sat down thinking I had it all good. Nilou was the best possible stranger I could work with. She was quiet, and shy, not nosy, but interested. I could definitely stand her for a week. I thought I was going to like this project, until I saw the three of them standing at her desk, looking at me and waiting for me to join them. I never noticed Nilou getting up, or Noah and his partner for that reason.
“Yes?” I said, hesitantly, as soon as I had reached them.
“There will be a change.” Her pointy noise and cat-like eyes sent a shiver down my spine. “Noah and Nilou will be absent, for three days in fact, and I have paired you with Noah’s partner.” She eyeballed him with force, jerking her head in his direction. The boy with the green eyes and the black hair. I had to spend an entire week with the boy with the green eyes and black hair. The boy I was told precisely to stay away from.
And amid all the aguish I felt on the surface when finally realizing what had happened, I felt a spark of excitement deep beneath. An excitement I knew I shouldn’t feel.
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They were young, but they weren’t my parents. The man was dark haired. He kept on pointing his long slender pointed finger at the woman’s face. It hurt to see the expression on his face. He was mad at her, but not enough to be mean. It looked like he just wanted to put up a fight, except he didn’t know who against.
If it hurt to look at the man’s face, it was agonizing to watch the woman. Silent tears slipped down her face. She had brown wavy hair that sank as low as her elbows. Her face was round, but simple. Simple eyebrows, simple clean brown eyes, and a simple smile. What threw me off most was that smile. I didn’t understand why she was smiling; it was an agonizing smile, yes, but all the same, a smile.
It was like my hearing had finally come back to me as I could hear the man screaming at her. It was muffled, but I got most of it.
“This, it’s all your fault. I can’t say how many times I told you to be careful. I thought we had an agreement. You knew what you were signing into.”
“It’s better this way.” She almost whispered.
“How is better this way?” He asked, aggravated. “Would you have liked to live with them? Hmm? Would you ever wish it upon yourself?”
“I don’t know.” She said, so soft, I almost didn’t hear it. She looked genuinely confused. “I haven’t experiences anything otherwise.” I didn’t understand what she meant, but something about the way she said it, so vulnerable and innocent, and the way, he had reacted, almost ashamed, told me it was bad.
That was all I remembered when the world became bright and I opened my eyes from another familiar dream. Wow. Haven’t had a dream in three years, and now I’m having two a week.
“Rise and shine, sweetheart.” My mom sang, before she danced to my second pair of curtains and summoned another huge ray of sunlight. “You have a big day of school ahead of you.” What am I, five?
“I’m getting up.” I mumbled. Sometimes I hated sunlight.
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I walked to Simone’s house to pick her up. She really had to tell me about the whole stay away from him business, and plus, it’s wasn’t my fault I was his partner. She had to understand that.
To make up for it, I ended up telling her everything about my dream on the way to school. This wasn’t news though, as I always told her everything. Well, almost everything. I never did and don’t plan on telling her about the tiny electric shock I feel every time I see his black hair and green eyes. I think I haven’t told her because a) it’s not important – I mean, it doesn’t mean anything, right? b) she’ll make a bigger deal than it really is and c) she clearly told me to stay away from him, I don’t even know his name. Why does that piece of information always fail to make its way into my ears? Not that I even want to know. I don’t care.
But as we walked to school today, I could already feel myself growing distant. It was kind of like I was preparing myself for something even I didn’t know of, like I was severing my ties, gradually, to reduce to heart ache of loss. Except I wasn’t doing that, and I didn’t plan to, at least not consciously.
It took me a moment to recognize the Martin Van Buren double doors. Simone pushed me forward, and I finally found clear of the rhythmic steps we were taking to walk up the stairs leading me to the doors of our school. Oh gosh, here we go. Hello week of utter torture and confused feelings, welcome to my life.
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“Hey, are you drawing?” Noah had turned around in his seat during science, looking at my sketchbook, like a couple days ago. The difference was that this time I didn’t pull back and act all emotionally unstable.
“Yeah. I had one of those dreams again.” His face scrunched up, and he looked genuinely worried. But instead of the response that would have corresponded to his facial expression, he just said, “C’est la vie.”
“You’re lucky you don’t have to walk the three-legged race all day for an entire week with some random stranger. That’s for sure. I wish I was going away tomorrow.” I said, half just to steer the conversation away from my dream and half because I meant it.
And I really did mean it. I didn’t like this new kid. I was starting to hate him in fact, and maybe it’s out of spite, but I don’t want to spend every waking moment for the remainder of my newly begun week with him. The week which in fact should belong to Simone as my parents are leaving tonight. I desperately prayed for a miracle that would prevent this from happening. But nada, I was going through this week whether I liked it or not. I should have left with my parents I realized.
“Trust me, not exactly what I would call lucky. We’re going to one of my great aunt’s houses per due to these family meetings we’ve been having since we were-”
“-five.” I interrupted him. “Yeah, us too.” Suddenly, I looked up from my sketchbook, shocked and wondering how I knew that or even remembered that. I had been to one of those meetings before. I think. Or maybe I dreamed of it. No, that’s not it. I haven’t had a dream for five years minus this week. I must have experienced it. None of any of this made sense.
Sceptically, I asked, “how long do these ‘meetings’ last, exactly?” and he answered, already knowing that I knew, “two weeks.”
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He was at the door of my science class, just waiting for me to pack my bag, so we could walk together to Essential Skills. How had he even gotten here so fast? And why was he so readily available for this stupid assignment.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I looked up at him, but his eyes didn’t quiver. He was strictly looking forward. Well, that’s a good start, right? We greeted each other.
“Weird assignment, eh?” he asked.
“I’d think so.”
“So, you draw?”
“Yeah, how did you know?” How did he know? I haven’t even spoken to him, let alone shown him my art.
“Noah told me,” then he actually shifted his gaze towards me, “he was quite impressed.”
“I see.” I mumbled. Then, he stopped, and stood in front of me, in the middle of the hall, with about a foot distance in between us and grave expression.
“Listen, I know this is weird, but we need to get to know each other for this assignment, and for starters, we don’t know the slightest thing about each other. I’d really like to get to know you, Lyna, even if I hadn’t been assigned to.” My stomach clenched in itself when he said that, but instead of feeling that familiar warmth they say you feel when you like someone, I felt extra terrestrial, a watcher of my own life. His words felt like plastic, fake and indestructible. I managed to mumble an ‘okay’ before we got to class.
Fake and indestructible. Everyday it’s like I came up with a new impression of the boy with dark hair and green eyes. I should really ask for his name.