Haley rolled over and shut off her alarm. Rubbing her eyes tiredly, she sat and slumped over her legs. Sleep still clung to the edge of her sight and she remained there, staring at nothing. Eventually, she shoved the blankets away and climbed out of her bed. Half-heartedly she made her bed.
As she passed her balcony on route to her closet, she paused. Jace's doors were open collecting the cool morning air, but he was still asleep. He lay on his stomach, his face smashed into his pillows, mouth open.
In sleep he didn't seem like the flirty player, instead, he looked like a normal teenager who was drooling on his pillow. With a sleepy smile, Haley snatched the hacky sack from the desk. She walked onto her balcony, the chill morning air sending goose bumps down her bare arms. From where she stood she could hear the discordant symphony of car doors slamming and the start of engines. White puffy clouds meandered across the sky as if they were early sunbathers ready to take in the heat.
Haley bit her lip as she pulled her arm back and aimed. The hacky sack sailed through the air and hit Jace's bare shoulder. He frowned in his sleep. When Haley thought she would have to go looking for another projectile, he stirred and opened his eyes. Wiping at his mouth, Jace rubbed his eyes and stretched.
"Hey."
Haley head cocked in question.
"Thanks for being my alarm."
The hacky sack arced towards her. Jace's aim was so perfect all she had to do was open her hands and it fell right into them. She shrugged.
"I figured without a phone you didn't have one."
Haley was turning away when Jace called out again.
"Thanks."
She smiled and headed inside. The expression lasted through getting ready but didn't make it past that. She was walking into the kitchen when the look slowly diminished. Her parents were on opposite sides, facing away but still talking.
"No, I told you what it's like right now," her father said his voice tense.
The emotions were echoed in his stiff posture and the grip he had on his coffee cup.
"I know that, I haven't forgotten but we need to find time to discuss this," her mother said.
She was searching for something but Haley had the feeling it was only so she could avoid facing her husband. Her father turned around.
"Tess, I-" he stopped talking when he noticed Haley in the doorway. "Morning, kiddo."
The tone was a forced cheerfulness and Haley felt something crawling inside her chest and squeezing her heart. Her mother spun around, a smile appear where nothing but frustration and weariness had been before.
"Hi, sweetheart," she said.
There was tension that passed between her parents without a word or glance being given. From behind Haley, Matt appeared. He quickly surveyed the scene. It was as if his presence snapped the electoral charge that was filling the air. Both parents twisted away, busying themselves with coffee and phones. Inside Haley, she felt as if a dam of emotions was cracking but she took in a breath, plugging holes and patching the breaks as best she could.
"You need breakfast?" Matt asked her.
"No." The thought of food made her stomach roil. The thought of trying to move around the unspoken words in the kitchen was unbearable.
Without saying anything to her parents, she spun away and headed for the front door. Matt waited a beat to glance at his parents before following her out. Haley jumped into the truck and pulled the door closed. Matt climbed in and they left the driveway, the house falling away in the review mirror.
Haley focused on the houses, lawns, and neighborhoods whizzing by. She let herself think of nothing but the blurs. Anything that wasn't the mounting list of things there were being bottled up. Matt said nothing and his silence was just another thing that had Haley scrambling to find other forms of distraction.
The longer they drove the more she could feel her thoughts making it past her defenses. Eventually, she was unable to stop it and her mind became trapped in a tornado of images she couldn't escape. When it felt like she was going to snap under the force of it, Matt glanced at her.
"Hey," he said. His tone almost sounded comforting like he could sense what she was feeling and wanted to pull her free.
It was all Haley needed, an anchor to hold onto amidst the storm.
"What's going on, Matt?"
Why her voice sounded so small she didn't know. Maybe she was scared to hear the answer. Maybe she didn't want to hear the answer. When the answer came it was worse than she had imagined.
"What do you mean?"
She turned to him then, needing to see if he was joking. His face was devoid of humor and his eyes stayed fixed on the road.
"Mom and dad," she said.
"What about them, Hales?"
His gaze darted to her for a second then resumed his study of the street. In that moment he looked unconcerned. But Haley wondered if there something more, something he was trying to contain, just like she was trying to contain.
"Why are they fighting? What's going on? Am I the only one seeing something?"
Matt gave a careless shrug. "Work is hectic. They are just dealing with a lot."
Haley waited a beat, letting those words be the reassurance she needed to hear. The reassurance she wanted to accept. But it didn't happen. The strain she felt taking over the house and slowly separating the family inside was real.
"Really? That's the only explanation?" she said, looking away from him. "Is that why you keep working more and more shifts?"
Matt's fingers twitched on the steering wheel but didn't look at her.
"There's nothing wrong with working, Haley."
"Yeah, I'm sure that's why mom and dad have been working overtime every day for the past six months."
Matt said nothing and neither did Haley. Part of her felt like yelling at him, trying to make him feel some of what she did. Find out if he could feel what was going on. Another part of her wondered if she was alone in all of this. If he had he already left for college in his mind and this was no longer his problem. If he had he already left her.
Turning on the radio, Haley tried desperately to force her emotions into submission, hiding her thoughts behind lyrics and a pounding bass. By the time the car pulled into the school parking lot, she had won but the fight had left her tired. Matt parked and looked over to Haley as if he wanted to say something.
Before she could hear whatever half excuse, half dismissive comment about the current state of things he had, she was out of the car. The door banged shut behind her, leaving Matt's words trapped inside.
Barely seeing the world around her, Haley walked to her classroom. Very few seats were filled, most of the students still arriving or wasting away the time talking to friends. She moved to the back and slid into her usual seat. As students took up spots around her, she crossed her arms on her desk and buried her head in them. Their lively chatter acted as a deterrent to her own pushy thoughts.
When the bell rang, Haley forced herself to look up, though she felt hiding away was a better option. The door opened and Rachel hurried in, sending an apologetic smile to Ms. Henley. She walked to her seat with a gracefulness that Haley found herself hating.
The constant smile on her face looked relaxed and Haley wanted to steal her life. Steal the untroubled world she lived in. Steal the ease with which she did everything. Steal the sense of belonging that radiated off her.
"Before we get started class," Ms. Henley said, disturbing Haley's thoughts. "I want to hear how your author projects are coming along. So tell me, what are some interesting facts you've discovered over the last week?"
Rachel's hand rose and Ms. Henley nodded to her.
"Jane Austen wrote six novels but only four of them were published while she was still alive."
Ms. Henley smiled. "Good." Her gaze moved to the next raised hand.
"Charles Dickens," a guy at the front said, "always slept with his head pointing North because he believed it to help his writing."
This fact brought on a round of laughs. Ms. Henley's open expression silently encouraged someone else to speak.
"I discovered that Joy Marie is really odd." Smiles darted overs lips. "But the most interesting part of it is she's totally fine with being really odd."
A few chuckles followed the statement. As the class warmed up to sharing, the snippets of information came faster and more freely. Most students were doing classic authors, some well known best sellers. A name that Haley had been reading about the last week popped up.
"I learned that Beck Daniels is married to Elliot McKenzie," a girl said, "and actually the first book he wrote was with her. It was her fifth book and she wanted the dual points of view to be written by a girl and a guy. He even said she was the reason he wrote to begin with."
"Cece Mckenzie is said to plan for the zombie apocalypse when she can't write," another girl jumped in.
This sent the class laughing, but Haley didn't join in. Her mind was turning over the fact that Beck Daniels, one of the greatest writers of their time, was married to a woman who wrote young adult romance books. For some reason, she couldn't connect those two in her mind.
On top of that, she couldn't imagine someone like Beck ever needing anyone to help start his writing. He was born to write, it was evident in his work. She had read his book, A Novel Thought, countless times. Before Haley could be swept away by a topic that was safe to puzzle over, Ms. Henley drew the class's focus back to her.
"I'm happy to hear that you are enjoying the project. By this Friday I want to see a rough outline for the essay you'll be writing on them and an idea for the presentation you'll be giving. Now, let's move on."
*******************
The shade of Haley's lone tree did very little in cutting the sun's heat. She didn't seem to notice though or have any inclination of moving. Around her students were stretched out on the warm grass, their bare arms soaking in the rays. Laughter and shrieks punctured the air from time to time. Waves of chatter washed over the collection of friends.
Instead of her usual past time of observing her fellow peers, Haley was staring at her phone. On the screen Beck Daniels, a good looking blonde guy in his early twenties was talking to an interviewer. His face, though it wore a serious expression well was smiling.
"I'm serious," he said to the interviewer, his voice deep and smooth as glass. "Without El," he coughed into his hand, "I mean Elliot, my writing career would never have been what it is."
The interview leaned forward, intrigued. "Interesting and you have been married..."
"Two years now," Beck said, nodding his head and unable to hold back the happiness the statement brought him. "And she is still my inspiration. Without her, there would be no 'Beck Daniels' as people like to say it. People imagine life as a writer to be a solitary thing. I imagined it the same way before I met her. Now I find myself unable to write unless she's sitting across from me mumbling words under her breath. Without her there I know I would not create the same way. I rely on her, as she relies on me."
The interview continued but Haley found she wasn't taking in what they were saying. Her thoughts were mulling over Beck's words. Even though he had said it, she doubted that it was true. How could someone with so much talent need to rely on someone else?
It was a sweet sentiment but Haley couldn't find herself believing it. With enough determination and willpower, anyone could do anything on their own. This was true for all things, much less writing. But as Haley looked at Beck's face there was a sincerity in his expression that put an edge of doubt into her mind.
Deciding it wasn't worth thinking over, Haley closed the interview and played her music instead. The slow build of the song carried her away and she focused on the campus. All the normal stereotypes were there waiting for her to study them.
She spotted Ty and Josie sitting at a table near Rachel, their expressions serious. Josie was nodding to something Ty was saying and Haley could only imagine it had something to do with some famous person or other.
When she looked to Jace, he wasn't smiling. Instead, his look was concentrated. The source of his focus was a slender girl with an auburn pixie cut. Her back was to Haley and she was leaning in as if telling him a secret.
For some reason, Haley wanted to know what she was saying. Her brain then reminded her of what Jace's reputation was and what the general vocabulary of girls talking to him had to be and decided she didn't want to know after all.
Looking at Rachel, she found her talking amiably with her friends. Nick sat beside her, his hand resting on her waist. Every so often, she would turn to him and smile. There was so much that was said in that single look that Haley forced herself to look away. She knew hating the perfect picture before her would not help when she needed to face Rachel every day after school.
The bell rang, stirring up the world. As Haley stood and stuffed her phone away, she noticed Isaac jogging in through the school gates. His blonde hair flopped about, unruly and not seeming inclined to be tamed.
Before her thoughts could find a new source to divert to, Haley shouldered her bag and made a quick getaway to the office. Inside was a quiet sanctuary. As Dana appeared from one of the offices, Haley flopped into a chair.
"How was lunch?" the woman asked, with a smile.
Haley wondered if she asked because she hoped the answer would eventually be more satisfying. Unfortunately, Haley didn't have a satisfactory answer to give.
"Fine," she said. Before she could ask what her tasks for the day would be, the counselor's door opened and Faith walked out. Her gaze landed on Haley and her eyes brightened.
"Just who I was looking for," she said.
Hoping it was for a job and not a talk, Haley sat up straighter.
"What can I help you with?"
Faith nodded to her office. "Come in for a second."
With an inward groan, Haley followed her guidance counselor. They both took seats and then looked at each other for a long moment. Finally, Faith put her clasped hands on the desk and spoke.
"How is the senior day project going?"
"Isn't Rachel giving you updates?"
"Yes, but I want to know how it's going for you."
Haley shrugged, her face lacking any sort of telling expression.
"Fine. I got a booth done and will finish up a second today."
"Are you working alone?" The question almost sounded accusatory, like Faith knew Haley would have found some way to wheedle out of working with someone else.
"No, I'm working with Isaac Thompson."
This made Faith brighten. "How is that going?"
Another shrug of unconcern was given. She didn't want to let her thoughts be taken away by Isaac. By his goofy smile. His enthusiasm over his dog's tricks. Or his terrible jokes that still managed to make her laugh. It wasn't worth it. She knew this.
"It's going fine."
Faith frowned but quickly cleared away the look. "Haley, you understand that you still have a year left here."
"Yeah, I'm aware." Faith opened her mouth but Haley stood, cutting her off. "Was that all because I know Dana will be needing me."
There was something in the woman's face that spoke of concern but Haley dismissed the notion. What was there to be concerned about? She was fine. She liked being by herself.
"Remember I put you on this project to help you, not to hinder you."
Haley nodded and walked out of the office, not believing it was helpful at all.
**********************************************************************
ہیلو Scooby dooby doo!
(Urdu)
(☝️Don't know why that's all floopy)
Shoot dang! Those thoughts sure are something! 👉🕳👈
What did you think of my cameos?
So this question is from MusicalBookworm03: what is your favorite shade of brown?
Trick question cause it seems like a boring question but ha! I have an answer. I like a good ground coffee bean brown as well a milk chocolate brown! The color goes well with my hair and skin complexion!
Random question! When you think of Joymoment what three words or three things come to mind?
When I think of you, my readers, I think: wonderful, supportive and surprising! You always find a way of making my day! Honestly, I don't think you understand the power you have over me!
I mean just look at Classified, never planned on writing that, but now it's up to fifty chapters and that's all because of you!! You hold the power. Oh dear, now I fear this will go to your head if it hasn't already!
Vote, comment, follow, the power is in your hands!
Yup, I've totally faced that with books before, don't get me started on Vanity Fair 🙄