Chapter Three: Don't Call Me ‘Ross’
My feet planted themselves firmly on the carpeted ground, “moving” a word that had been extracted from my vocabulary. I was by no means scared—I didn’t get scared. Well, not anymore, at least. It wasn’t a matter of fear, but rather a lack of desire to enter. Going into the room that was lined with books from wall to wall and would serve as my prison for the next week didn’t seem too enticing as I stood before it.
“Ms. Ross, is that you?” Mrs. Meriwether’s voice called, much resembling that of a correction officer’s, only gruffer.
“Yup,” I said, a mask of confidence replacing my apprehensive emotions so well that it was almost alarming. My feet betrayed me, allowing me to walk into the dungeon of literacy. “Oh, and, Brenda, please don’t call me ‘Ms. Ross.’ I prefer Olivia, Livy, Liv, Olive, or Liver,” I told her, grimacing at the sight of the woman who would act as my warden.
As old people went, Brenda wasn’t exactly the type that could enter a cuteness competition with a corpse and win. In fact, she was pretty damn ugly. Her white hair specked with strands of gray was tied into a bun that practically gave her a facelift it was so tight. Two piercing eyes of darkness were somewhat hidden behind large-framed glasses, never blinking. A mole the size of a basketball sat right above her weakly tinted lips of crimson, and wrinkles were rumpled in every visible region of her aging skin.
She had one of those demeanors that just screamed, “I HATE KIDS!!!” which was something I never understood about people who pursued careers involving children. As librarians went, I had to give her props for knowing her Shakespeare and Robert Frost, but, as a person, I wasn’t too sure she knew what the word “friendly” meant, which was also ironic, considering her profession and all.
“I will call you what I want, Ms. Ross,” she emphasized her chosen name for me, “and you will only refer to me as Mrs. Meriwether. Are we understood?”
“Yeah, sure thing, Brenda.” I wasn’t the type of student to use a teacher’s first name when they weren’t around—I much preferred calling it to them to their face. The reaction was much more rewarding, and I chose to live life under the belief that consequences were fictitious.
“Ms. Ross—”
“Olivia,” I corrected with an innocent smile.
She exhaled deeply, probably taking a note from a past anger-management class, before continuing. “This will be a very long week for the both of us if you don’t behave. So, it would behoove you to drop the attitude.”
“Attitude? Why, Brenda, I would never address you with this ‘attitude’ that you speak of; I respect you too much.” The last few words were hard to get out, but I managed. She glared at me, pointing a gnarly finger to the back of the library.
“Did you retrieve your work from the office before you came down?” she deployed her eye accessory so it balanced on the edge of her nose.
“Why yes, yes, I did!” sarcasm oozed from my mouth. I couldn’t help it, really.
“Go to the back of the room and get to work; at lunch you are allowed a thirty minute break, and then expected to return to your studies.”
“That I am,” I nodded. “Well, see ya at lunch, Brenda!” my voice echoed around the empty room as I gradually made my way to the back.
As mission control centers went, this one wasn’t too bad. There was a barricade of books blocking me from Brenda the Big Bad Beast, a few tables, some seats, a couch, and two beanbag chairs. I had survived in harsher conditions many a time, so was pleasantly surprised with how I would have to live over the next few days. It could’ve been worse.
And, as if my thoughts were an omen for the extremely near future, a figure dropped down to one of the beanbags, staring up mischievously at me.
“Hey,” the suave phrase exited from the individual’s parted lips.
My mouth hung open in shock, as I contemplated how to talk to the person before me. “What the hell are you doing here?” I hissed, my mind wired to stay quiet in the environment in which I was being held captive.
“Well, hello to you too, Ms. Ross,” he smirked.
“It’s Olivia, not Ms. Freaking Ross!” I softly raged.
“Then I suppose that would be your mother’s name?”
“Actually, her name’s Elle, Elle Ross,” I crossed my arms over my chest. “My mother aside, you never answered my first question!”
“Oh, you mean what the hell I’m doing here?” he reiterated my previous query.
“Yes!” I exclaimed.
“Well, I overheard this dude named Harry mention something about you taking a vacation to the basement, so thought that I’d keep you company!” he expressed earnestly, his frame sprawled across the mushy furniture.
“Why?” I searched his for any traces of insincerity, but came up short.
“Because, Ross, I think we should get to know each other better,” he proposed.
“Do you?” I scoffed, scanning his appearance quickly.
Like the first day I had met him, he wore an aged, leather jacket, as if trying to prove all the clichés of “what it takes to be a bad boy” true. Scuffed up jeans paired with a white, ribbed tank top and black Converse completed the look. His shoe choice was the one thing that threw his outfit off for me. Generally, when I thought of the type of person that wore Converse, my mind instantly flew to me: the “weird” girl who liked to draw and hated school. A delinquent-wannabe who was strangely reappearing in my life wasn’t quite the first or five hundred and twelfth person I thought would wear Converse.
“Yeah, Ross, I do,” Luke said, his voice honest, not permitting me any reason to question it. His motives, though, were an entirely different matter.
“Well, the first thing you should know about me is that calling me ‘Ross’ won’t fulfill the bad boy façade that you’re trying to portray. Ross is my last name. I won’t respond to it,” I said directly. “Now, if you want to call me anything ranging from Olivia to Livers, then that’s a different story.”
“Livers, huh?” an edge of his mouth twitched up. “Who calls you that?”
“One of my best friends went through a phase a few years ago when that was the only thing he called me, actually,” I shared, thinking back to a time when Preston had decided upon the nickname. It was odd thing to call someone—the plural of a body part that aided in digestion—but I didn’t mind.
“He?” Luke questioned skeptically.
“Yeah, Preston Kent, one of my best friends,” I rolled my eyes, wondering why I was still talking to him oppose to taking a much needed nap. I had barely gotten any sleep the previous night, my mind unable to turn itself off at the appropriate time.
“Preston Kent…” his face scrunched up in a rather unattractive manner as I assumed he was raking his brain for how he knew the name.
Piper and Preston were what some would refer to as “popular”, for they both enjoyed communicating with people and were as social as mosquitos on a warm summer night (though, they didn’t spread malaria). People knew of them and liked their company. Preston was the clichéd athlete with blonde hair, and Piper was his ditzy sister, the only extra circular activity she did being the type involving getting a little too social with certain people. It amazed me, really, that they continued to associate themselves with me… After all, I was, and always would be, the “weird” girl.
“He’s that dick-head that banged my crazy ex-girlfriend!” Luke finally found his connection to Preston.
“Probably,” I muttered, deciding that I no longer wanted to converse with the boy who was oddly sitting in front of me.
I reached into my backpack of a charcoal color and withdrew my notebook. It was one of those things that I always kept with me. I had the type of relationship to the used booklet of papers that most teens had to their cellphones—it never left my side. Much like a phone, whenever I was feeling tense, anxious, or not in the mood to communicate verbally, I took it out.
After shuffling around in the depths of my bag for a pencil, I came up short, settling for a more permanent instrument: a pen. My fingers clutched around the writing implement, as I flipped to a random page in my book. I wasn’t one for order, so rarely opened to a sheet beside the one that I had last used.
I pressed the pen against the blankness of the paper, allowing my hand to conjure up whatever it was that I had inside of me. Art. It was a nice form of articulation. Though I had experimented with all different forms over the years, the two that really stuck with me were drawing and writing.
Most thought of writing as a simple tool to further oneself in life on an academic and literary standpoint, but, to me, it was so much more. The act of writing allowed me to express myself in a way that nothing, except maybe drawing, could. It was similiar drawing, only with words—the ability to create an image with letters and sentences. Art was amazing, the best part being that no one could tell you that what you were doing was wrong.
“…And his sister’s the hot blonde with the, uh, face, right? Ross? Livers? Uh, Olivia, are you even listening to me?” I heard Luke’s voice blare as background sound as I continued to guide my hand, forming an abstract shape with which the large booklet was filled.
“No,” I numbly answered, focusing all my attention back on my sketch.
“Olivia!” he said, louder than appropriate for the setting in which we were residing.
“Hmmm?” I glanced up momentarily only to get caught in his penetrating eyes of slate.
“I was talking and you weren’t listening to me,” he explained, his tone coming across as harsh and somewhat needy.
“Huh. It seems as though you aren’t used to the concept of being ignored, now are you?” I allowed my pupils to fall from the gaze, diverting to the rest of his face instead.
He was an definitely attractive guy—I wasn’t one to deny it. Sharp cheekbones shaped his slightly tanned face, but weren’t overly apparent. He wasn’t tan in the sense that it looked as though he had just gotten a new spray tan or even lay out in the sun for hours at a time, trying to gain the color, but, rather, a natural glow. He possessed eyelashes that most girls would kill to have, the dark hairs sweeping over his orbs of fascination as he blinked. I liked his face.
“No,” his clenched his teeth. I nodded simply, returning back to the lines and swirls that had occupied my thoughts prior to his interruption. “Olivia! Stop with the doodling! I’m trying to talk to you!” his voice was annoyed as he did the one possible thing that would cause me to lose all traces of calmness in an instant: he took my notebook.
“Give. That. Back. Now!” I said menacingly.
“What is it?” he began to flip through the countless pages of sketches and writings that filled the innards of it. “Is this, like, your diary?”
“No,” I snapped, trying to snatch the small book out of his hands, but to no avail. “Luke, give me that book, now!”
“So, you draw, huh?” he said, peering into the contents. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed with what lay within, but I needed it back. Using the cellphone analogy once again, if one were to take a teen’s phone without asking, her or his response would pretty much mirror mine in regards to the pad filled with the jumbled up incoherencies of my feelings.
“And write,” I grumbled, attempting to grab it back again.
“You write, huh? What?” his fingers kept a taut grip on the object.
“Words, poems, stories, phrases, quotes—anything! Give it back, now!” I said, crouching down so I was closer to him.
“Oh, you mean this thing?” he taunted, holding it out so it was mere millimeters from my face. I grasped at it, but he pulled it right back as an evil smirk concealed his facial features.
“Why are you even here?” I groaned.
“I said it before, and I’ll say it again: I think we should get to know each other better, Livers,” the smug look remained on his face.
“Why are you so set on getting ‘to know each other’?” I demanded, as a sigh escaped my mouth.
“Because my brother’s a murderer and your mom’s the prosecutor, so I figured I might as well become friends with you, her daughter, hoping that it’ll persuade her to doubt that he could actually kill someone,” he said casually, the reason coming across as absolutely absurd. My face involuntarily scrunched in confusion, his words not being able to swarm my mind properly. I had heard some pretty crazy shit over the year, but what he had just said had to be at the top of the list. Murderer, my ass…
“No, seriously, why?” I questioned once again.
“Are you implying that you don’t believe me?” he feigned shock.
“Yes.”
“Your choice,” he shrugged with another smirk.
“Answer the damn question!”
“I already did.” I glared at him, hoping it would, well, encourage him to continue. “I can’t.”
“And why not?” my eyes were glued to the book that was still set in his hand.
“Because I don’t really know why, Livers,” he responded simply.
“Whatever,” I muttered. “Now, can I have my notebook back?”
“No,” the word came across slyly. I was done with the game he was making it into, so reached into his hand, and pried his fingers open until my book was safely in my clasp once again.
“Rule number two when it comes to Olivia Ross: never, ever, ever take her notebook away,” I said, returning the small item that had caused all the trouble back into my backpack securely.
“And what would rule number one be?” one of his dark eyebrows rose in inquiry.
“Don’t call me ‘Ross’.”