I've always known that the crisp air and changing colors of the leaves in fall represent a new beginning. Unsurprisingly, there's also likely a sociological basis for loving autumn because some people see it as a comforting time. If my thoughts can be fair enough, I always think of snuggling up in a chunky woolen sweater and lounging by a crackling fire. But that's unfortunate, I have school.
November, autumn.
I somehow like it because I believe it presents a new chapter and probably a consoling moment but then I hate because it is a bit cold not like winter but still the air is cold with low temperatures and many plants definitely stops making food.
There are days a person wakes up with a bizarre type of energy.
Positive energy.
And so me today.
Despite waking up late, I still managed taking time to pull myself into a somehow real lady figure. I also had time to drive Lodzin to his school since the both of us had slept in and he missed his school bus.
It happened that yesterday after getting home at around 9 p.m from Tif's, Lodzin was waiting for me in the living room. My heart constricted when it dawned on me that I've been spending a lot more time with my friends and when I wasn't with them, I was in my room reading.
Once I had stormed in the living room freezing from the cold outside, a shrieking sound had startled me and I stood on the doorway deadpanned. And then an ear splitting squeal sliced through my ears, from my brother definitely. He jumped and clamped his feeble legs around my waist. He then buried his head in the crook of my neck muffling something along the lines of 'miss you and sleep in your room' . That's how he ended up in my room. We joked, played games and watched Tom and Jerry for something like 26 minutes before sleep took advantage of him. I know my sleeping styles are a whole different level of worse, but hey, we managed a night without strangling or suffocating each other.
After dropping him at school I got back, stripped and walked into the shower. It was freezing of course but boy did I took a cold one? Shit I had no time for heating water, I had time for dressing. Three minutes is what it took me to clean myself and exactly forty five minutes is what it took me to dress. Damn, I usually do dress in fifteen, wait did I triple my norm? Of course yeah.
Have I told you that today is on Thursday, fucking Thursday and I have not caught even a glimpse of those blue eyes I've come to like so bad? Yesterday I knew he had no exams but he didn't show up. Okay that's what I can at least say since I didn't catch a sight of him on the peripheries of Hudson high.
He hadn't texted and I being the Tleigh kellane I really am, I don't find it necessary to start a conversation, it's so not logic to me. You gotta be kidding me, Even the person who makes all your emotions go haywire? The person who you like with and without your senses? Shut up stupid subconscious, I grit.
It's not ego, but I hadn't texted nor called either. Was I really that bad? What if something had happened to him? I pushed the thought away quickly as soon as it had come.
So a thought had passed me this morning, after taking a shower, I'd towel dried my body but I left my hair wet. I slipped Ballice's plain black t-shirt over my body pulling my lower lip into my mouth seductively, like a she devil I never was.
He'd asked for my picture the last time we talked, oh yeah. And so that's what led me to the act. So I set my camera on delay capture, five seconds to be exact. I softened my eyes, narrowing them a bit my lower lip still pulled into my mouth and my upper teeth grazing the outline of my lower lip. I had hang my head lazily pulling my dripping wet hair to my right side. I was braless of course. I had perched my butt a little higher after throwing one leg over the wood popping out on the lower base of my drawer. Now the other leg was straight, no bends. I took the photo. Oh God, did I look like a freaking seductress? My eyes shone bright with a hue of new spring and flecks of mischievousness all at once. But a new green glint playing in them. I've never appreciated myself. I even looked a little bit taller showing much of leg. My nipples perked through his t-shirt and they were so visible. Especially the right one where my wet hair had drenched that part of the T-shirt.
"Oh Tleigh when did you learn to be this evil?" I had asked myself giggling like a schoolgirl as I typed the words, Morning my jerk, I miss you😜, underneath it and then pressed the send button.
Trust me when I say he was ignoring my presence on purpose, not even my presence, my existence sounds a lot better. Albeit, thirty seconds had not passed before my phone flashed while I was drying my hair. I knew it was him and I even confirmed it. Take that for ignoring me on intent, I hang up. Promptly it flashed again, this time I strode towards my desk after muting my ringtone. I packed my hair into a tight half ponytail leaving the rest flowing down my back after drying it.
After 45 minutes I was on my mirror wearing my favourite jeans. It's a high waist denim. I had a white cotton crop top and a down trench coat from triple F.A.T goose draped over my shoulders. I finished the look with high black boots stopping just below my knees. They were wedgy thus making me a tad bit taller. They're my favorite too with a leather like bowtie on their sides where they stop. I didn't button the trench coat up, I just left it open. Everything underneath the trenchcoat was tight but not suffocatingly tight, I mean comfortable tight. Like my crop top which was stopping where the waistline of my trousers started. I had worked on my makeup. I can say I looked elegant really. Puckering my glossy pink lips, I took one appreciative last glance on my mirror admiring my small curves then left the house my boot clinking all the way to my lawn.
I hopped on my bike, my first destination being at one place at the moment, the cell. I had wanted to pay Maya a surprise morning visit. I checked on my phone, it was 8: 57 a.m. I didn't flinch, it's final highschool exams period, no pressure. The teachers are treating us so soft. Well they should, this is our last days, they'll never see us there again!
Okay, the school curriculum had been changed in Hudson last year. This period is supposed to be the first semester but badly enough, it's the second semester in hudson. But the system is only affecting the Juniors and the seniors. The freshmen and the sophomores are in their first semester. We spent the whole of our first semester in junior at home after the school was burnt down by I don't know who. That's how we ended up with this peculiar confusion.
Positive energy. Now I'm riding my bike admiring the autumn. It is really a beautiful month. The colours are warm and vibrant wiping out the blanket of green from the departing season. The colours maybe warm but there's a cold sting on my cheeks. Along the way, I can see some of the deciduous trees shedding leaves, the leaves which have changed colour. Some have changed from green to yellow, others to brown_
....
Sitting in the corner of the chilled room, is Maya. I can see the sharp corners at each edge of the room. The walls, painted red many years ago, connecting each corner forming a perfectly shaped square room. The dull paint on each of the four walls carries a burden memories where psychotic women drawing closer and closer to their death had been scratching at the walls. Looking up from the rails to the other corner of the cell, I see many moths fluttering around to find the only hope and light that is left in the prison. And there is Maya giving me death glares from her seated position.
"Youuu!" She seethes dragging herself up from her seated position and flounces right towards me.
"Heeey Casanova, not that way!" I hold a hand up stopping her midway. " Can you at least say hello to your old friend?"
" You wish." She snorts.
" I missed you anyway, uhmmm what's new here? I see you have a bunch of friends over there." I point to the corner where I saw moths, "So it's clear you don't want me here, right?" I raise my perfectly drawn brow at her and I can see malice dripping off of her. Pure anger, hatred, pain and maybe a plot of revenge.
"Enjoy while it lasts mini Helinah, it surely will pay." She rolls her eyes this time. What will pay? Wait, did she just mentioned Helinah? My mother's name? I wasn't prepared for that. Everything stops. Even my heart stops beating for a moment and my mouth is agape now. "What now?" She muses shrugging her shoulders. She may remember her. She died in my freshman year and the whole school knew about it. After consoling myself that way, I bring my gaze back to her,
"Of course," I smile painfully. "Tell me Maya, why did you kidnap me?"
She scoffs, "Do you remember that day you humiliated me? I told you it wasn't over yet right?" The nerve of that gutsy smirk on her face. So just that? She should have just attacked me on the way home or anywhere and stone me. But she fucking had three goons for that matter.
"Hahaha." I crack sarcastically. "And here I thought you're a genius, just that?"
And then I see a cynical glint in her eyes. I don't like it. " Not just that, you were supposed to die. That way, I'll have that boy, Kenneth's."
I was supposed to die? Kenneth's?
Ballice damn!
" So you'd stopped chasing Jelton now you want Ballice?" Nevertheless I ask.
" I wasn't chasing Jelton, I wanted him to connect me with Bally, so---"
"Ballice." I correct her clenching my jaw. No one is supposed to call him that. It's just me. She throws her head back and laughs, really laughs? Maybe the cold cell has turned her into some lunatic? Batshit crazy.
"It's just a name." She snickers. "He refused, so I was scaring that Camille away as some type of revenge for Jelton. But that didn't stop them. They looked happy together and it killed me. We were always arguing when we were together." I bet I see pain striking through her eyes. Maybe it's just a figment of my imaginations. "But I'm telling you this, I'm coming for Ballice once I get out of here. I'm done with Jelton now, he visited me on Monday to warn me. That I should stay away from Ballice and you." And most especially, away from that Camille. It'll not happen, suit yourself. Damn, my parents had already bailed me out if not for your smartass brains. I'd rather take my exams in jail than missing them. I'm already two years older in highschool." She grimaces. And that actually got me there. I open my mouth.
"What are you? 19?" I ask boring holes on her brown eyes that now look dead.
"Twenty one shit!" She spits.
"No wonder," I look at her disgustedly taking a step back.
"No wonder what?" She questions rather too rudely.
"No wonder you have white hair and a wrinkled forehead." I quip amusedly.
" The nerve!" She hoots throwing me a glare. "How can you say that to me?" Fury is evidently sipping out of her. Yeah the nerve, I have hit the right one just to see her get riled up.
"Stop chasing at young boys, they'll never like a mother like you." I give her a dirty look and continue. "Ballice will never like you, but you can ask me ways which can make him do." I offer a small forced smile. And it's like her concentration picks. She draws closer to the rails curiosity masking her god-damned face.
"Which?" She all but asks.
I swallow. "One, he's not my boyfriend, two he hates long hair and for that case he likes short hair, and by that I mean short maybe two inch. And he doesn't like girls who wear make-up, he likes girls who wears long dresses, strictly long. With toms you can imagine. And last but not the least, he hates public attention, lastly, he likes low-key girls, those who doesn't talk and show too much, he likes the quite ones." When I finish I find her looking at me in horror.
"That is insane!" She blurts after finding her tongue.
"Tell me about it." I smirk. "And that's why he'll never like me." I add congratulating myself internally for making up such a big lie in my head.
"Sorry, but the guy looks at you like you're a newfound galaxy to explore. His eyes sparkle whenever he sees you, I'd learnt that but I bet I was mistaken." She pouts.
" You really were, we're nothing, he tolerates me because I'm friends with Cam who's literally Jelton's and you see Jelton is ---"
"Yeah I get." She says abruptly cutting me off. And then determination sparkles in her eyes. She fucking smiles nodding her head.
"Now am gonna leave, I have exams waiting for me." I say handing her a packet of Cheetos from my backpack. "Have this."
" Why?" She brings her eyes up to me. "Why are you doing this? I've been nothing but ruthless to you." Her voice comes out softer and low. I almost miss it.
"Because you're just human. We're all bound to make mistakes." I rattle pushing the Cheetos into her hand. I turn to leave but a voice stops me, her voice.
"Thanks for the information."
You really are stupid Maya Turner, aren't you? I smile deviously shaking my head as I pad along the cold and dark hallway with closed walls.
I take a look at my phone, 9:50 a.m. I smile. Time to make a show at school even though it's late. Revving up my machine, I leave, for Hudson, for Ballice, for my afternoon exam and for my friends absolutely.
Tbc...