Winter Wakes

Be it elementary, middle, or high school I had always had a problem with pre-school jitters before my first day at any one of the institutes. It was the usual: how scary is it going to be? Am I going to be able to make friends? Will I get lost? Are my teachers going to be nice? Will the food taste like complete and utter shit?

A new school had always been a horrifying concept to me, and usually it came around much faster than I had planned. It was always overwhelming, and took me at least a week to completely chill out and even begin to adapt to my new surroundings. I absolutely dreaded the first day/week when beginning a new level of education.

Putting my car in park at Brown University I found myself facing the worst case of new-school-anxiety (as I had deemed it) of any I had experienced. This wasn’t the small case of butterflies I had felt when I walked along the sidewalk of my high school my first day of ninth grade, oh lord, I’d kill for it to be that feeling. This was I-want-to-puke-possibly-bordering-on-hyperventilation anxiety. My fingers seemed incapable of prying themselves from the steering wheel.

“I forget, did we come here for you to stare in awe at the pretty buildings or did my mother get you a scholarship for you to, I don’t know, attend classes?” Simon growled.

Let’s raise the anxiety level a notch. Dead guy behind me who is physically abusive, Ivy League college scholarship for a reason I have yet to discover from his mother who happens to be the dean, and new, horrifying surroundings. Wonderful start to my new college life.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” My voice was barely above a whisper as I watched other students walking by my car on their way to classes. “Simon this is a fucking Ivy League school. Do you not get that? This would make or break my future; if I fuck it up here I might as well get a job at the damn McDonald’s drive thru!”

Perhaps I was exaggerating, perhaps I wasn’t. But this was truly groundbreaking. Actually whether I failed here or not my future was cemented in Walton’s Funeral Home. I could possibly get away, and do something different with an education from Brown’s, but I’d always planned on returning to the funeral home. My major had been Business, so it was a perfect set up for inheriting my father’s place of work. I wouldn’t have minded it at all since I already knew all the ins-and-outs of the trade. I knew how to deal with the people; I knew the setup of a wake, a service. The stuff certainly seemed like common sense to me.

So you ask, just why did you accept this offer if you already know what your future has in store for you? Because maybe deep down I’ve got things aside from that I want to do. Stuff I wouldn’t admit to my father, or to anyone else. Maybe I have dreams that are set apart from the plan that’s been so painstakingly laid out for me. This was certainly a chance to break the mold. For one you needed no Ivy League degree to manage a funeral home that smelled of moth-balls and old people. Secondly, my major upon entry here had been changed. But the change had not been done by me. My schedule had been pre-determined; the major switch was none of my control.

The majority of my problem at the moment came from the issue of my new major. It was a field I hadn’t thought of when I started my first semester at Liston Campus. Everything was going according to plan then. But now I was horrified, because that slight glimmer of a desire I had muted at that point was now glaring with blinding light in my face.

“You stupid, stupid, girl. Your major is in Theatre, how much easier could you ask for? You can’t do it? Since when did it seem like a choice; I’d just like to know. You, you ridiculous brat, are going to get out of this damn car and go to your first class,” Simon said, supremely angry. “If you’re not out of this car and walking within five seconds you will regret it.”

Ah. And there was motivation. I grabbed my bag from my passenger seat before quickly throwing myself out of my car and onto the pavement at a steady walk.

“Such a fast reaction,” My dead stalker mused behind me.

“Yeah well I’d rather not have your invisible foot stuck up my ass,” I tightened my white scarf around my neck against the cold. “And quick question: How the hell am I supposed to know where I’m going?”

“Just follow the sidewalk down two sets of stairs; it’ll be the first building on your right. Any other questions while you’re at it?”

“Only one. Why in gods name is my major Theatre?”

“Would you have preferred the Department of Political Sciences?”

I paused, “Touché.”

Something scoffed behind me. I assumed it was him. I pulled the bill of my black and white hounds tooth fiddler’s cap down a little. Yes, quite a long name simply for a hat, I know. Looking a head I realized I had a bit of a walk until the second set of stairs. Ivy League, with a decent sized campus. Lovely.

“Okay that totally wasn’t the last question,” I admitted. “You make it seem like there were only two options for my major anyways. Just why is that?”

The silence that followed made me think I wasn’t going to get an answer. Knowing him I wasn’t, although I may get a shove down that next flight of stairs for being exceedingly inquisitive or something like that.

“Because there WERE only two openings in the entire school,” The reply came with a curiously cautious tone.

I bit my lip; the stairs were getting dangerously close but my tongue had never been something I was capable of holding if curiosity was in control, “One of them being due to the fact you’re dead?”

I flit down the stairs as quickly as I could, hoping to avoid a shove or a kick from behind. Also the building was getting closer and the cold was nipping through my gloves, biting maliciously at my numbing fingers.

“Yes.”

The clacking of my black heels which my skinny jeans were tucked into quieted as I came to a halt in front of the Theatre department’s building. I turned to look at Simon for the first time that morning. I pushed a few of the dark brown strands of hair out of my eyes that the wind had blown out of the cache formed by my hat and scarf. There were visible signs of discomfort marring his face; lips turned down in an awkward frown, a paled complexion even for what I was used to (I didn’t know it was possible for ghosts to LOSE color), and his distinctly blue eyes. Those seemed to be the most tell-tale of all. The held pools of anxiousness, something I couldn’t understand for the life of me.

“I guess it’s safe to assume you weren’t the Theatre major,” I smiled a little in an attempt to lighten his mood. Angry Simon I could deal with. Violent Simon I could deal with. Awkward Simon who looks like he’s about to fall apart I could not deal with.

“You assumed right,” His eyes didn’t change, but one corner of his lips pulled up slightly. “For once.”

The hint of a smile wasn’t enough to relieve me though. His behavior made me feel as anxious as he seemed. I didn’t understand what was going on here, still. This made me all the more certain that whatever it was couldn’t be described as… Simple.

He heaved a sigh, rubbing his forehead before running his fingers through his white blonde curls, “Go. You have class. It’d be bad if you were late on your first day.”

“Eh?” I stared at him.

Typical Simon started to come back through as one of his eyebrows raised, “What? And try using words please. One syllable sounds aren’t exactly understandable.”

‘Eh’ had been the only thing I was capable of uttering out of confusion, and here’s why, “You said ‘Go. You have class.’ As in you’re not coming and I have to fend for myself with a bunch of Ivy League snobs.”

“Yes,” His eyebrow didn’t move. “You seemed to have gotten the message pretty clearly. Did you not understand something?”

“You’re not going with me.”

“Haven’t we already established that?”

“So where are you going?”

That was when the familiar flame of irritation lit up his eyes. Ah. I’d hit a cord again.

“I know I told you before, so this time try to get it through that thick skull of yours,” There was the dangerous tone I was accustomed to. “What I do is none of your business. Now go to your damn class before I’m tempted to snap your neck right here on the sidewalk.”

The lack of feeling in my fingers, nose, and the cold burning of my cheeks seemed far more than willing to comply with his order. I didn’t even try to utter a reply as I turned, entering the warmth of the building. I was confused, things weren’t as I had expected. But then again what about this situation could be dubbed as predictable? Simon’s strange behavior made it worse though.

I had thought with all the pushing the guy had done that he was planning on following me around campus and to my classes. My belief in that had strengthened when I’d received pre-chosen major and pre-planned classes. It seemed as though what he had wanted had everything to do with attaching himself to me like a shadow and attending my classes. Maybe it was something to do with a fellow student, or teacher. But now, I didn’t know why I was here going along with a schedule that seemed to hold no significance. What could have been so detrimental about my attendance here if he wasn’t going to follow me when it all felt like a huge, pointless setup?

I sighed in frustration as I stood in the lobby of the arts building, theatre building, whatever you wanted to call it. Deciding I should probably get my ass to class I was more than a little miffed to be met with another set of stairs, these going up. My willpower was burnt out because of the situation, but at least I’d killed the butterflies that had been flitting around my stomach all morning. After dragging myself up the stairs using the banister like a mountain climber uses a rope, I realized the second floor actually offered a bit of a decent view of this part of the campus. The bright, clear windows didn’t hinder the effects of the sun on the campus during this chilly morning. I noted a few late stragglers making their way into various buildings, some into the same one I now stood in.

But the one figure that caught my eye was the boy dressed in unconventionally light clothing for the biting cold temperatures of this season. The one in a simple pair of kakis and a white shirt walking alone on a path that dipped down a hill in two buildings across the area of the campus that slightly resembled a courtyard. His blonde hair seemed as unfazed by the biting breeze as he was, not getting tossed in the breeze although the bare branches around him trembled in its wake. His very words bit into my thoughts causing me to turn heel and take off at a swift pace in search of my classroom. The image of him walking alone down that path was stuck in my head though.

I shook my head, pulling the bill of my hat down once again.

“Just what are you hiding, Simon Dreyton?”