Time Lifts the Light

The blonde girl gasped and turned around in her plastic chair. She grabbed at her chest and glared at the shaggy-headed boy behind her.

"Mikey, you horny son of a bitch!" she yelled, climbing up over her chair. She slid over the shaggy boy's desk, her hands still pressed to her chest. The boy winced as the blonde girl landed heavily in his lap, straddling his waist. Her grey pleated skirt fanned out across his legs.

"Fix it!" she ordered, narrowing her eyes.

She was a very pretty girl, if in an unconventional way. Her soft, round features made her look sweet and good-natured, but her attitude was tough. The school's required uniform didn't sit primly on her frame - like it did with other girls. She had dared to wear a bright pink long-sleeved shirt under the standard button-up, breaking the dress code that James Monroe High had specifically described in its pamphlet. She wore a studded belt on her hips as well, turning the school-girl uniform into a sort of rebellious statement. She had a certain tomboy-like femininity in the way she held herself. It was rugged, yet confident.

The boy who, apparently, was named Mikey, laughed and shook his head. The sleeves of his white dress-shirt were pushed up to his elbows and the top three buttons were undone, revealing a black Led Zeppelin shirt underneath. His red and white striped tie hung loosely around his neck. He smiled at the girl and revealed a wide grin that seemed almost too big for his face.

I turned toward the front of the classroom, trying to hide the fact that I was spying on them. The door of the classroom opened and closed loudly. A boy wearing ragged sneakers in place of the issued black dress shoes and an odd black hat with ear-flaps entered the classroom. He sniffed and walked over towards the blonde girl and Mikey.

"Mike," he nodded. "Hey Kim."
"D.B.," the blonde girl said, grabbing his hand and smiling flirtatiously. She got up off of Mikey's lap and sat down on the flat surface of his desk. "I need your help."
"I told you. I don't know the answers to the-"
"No, no, not that," she said, shaking her head. "I need you to fix my bra."

Mikey shoved a knuckle into his mouth to keep from snickering.

The boy looked slightly amused. "How about you ask your boyfriend to do that, huh?"
"I would," she said coldly, looking directly at Mikey. "If I had one."
"Kim!" Mikey groaned. "Come on!"

She turned away from him and back to the boy in the hat.

"So how about it, D.B.?" she crooned. "Please?"
He laughed. "Sorry, Kim. I don't think Mikey would like that too much."

He walked across the room, trying not to laugh, and sat down at his desk. Kim gave up on him and turned once more to Mikey.

"Please, Mike?" she asked, pushing out her bottom lip.
"I barely know how to take a girl's bra off, Kimmy. Let alone put one back on," he said, shrugging.

He received a slap on the head from Kim as she got up to leave the classroom.

"I'm going to the bathroom," she announced angrily to the teacher, who was playing Minesweeper at his desk. He jumped in surprise as she slammed the door.

She only had about thirty seconds before the bell rang. It was definitely not enough time to go to the bathroom, readjust her bra, and get back... But I didn't think she really cared too much.

To busy myself, I tried to decipher the drawings on the surface of my desk. There was something that looked like a beaver, but maybe it was a dog with an oddly shaped tail. "Punk is not dead" was etched into the wood and colored in with a red pencil. Someone had scribbled a heart with the initials A.W. and R.P. inside it on the lower left-hand corner. A girl with ridiculously bubbly handwriting had written "Ez Sullivan is sexy!" in large print in the middle, and another girl had responded by writing "OMG YES" underneath it.

I absentmindedly rubbed at a swear word pencilled in near the edge of the desk as the bell rang shrilly. The blonde girl, Kim, still hadn't returned from the bathroom.

The teacher, who my schedule claimed was Mr. Pullman, sighed and got up from his desk. He rummaged through some papers and pulled out a clipboard.

"Abraham, Thomas," he called.

The boy with greasy black hair sitting in front of me grunted in reply. He was using scissors to scratch his name into the front of his binder.

Mr. Pullman didn't look up from the clipboard. "Bones, Hannah," he called.

"Here," a small blonde girl said from the front of the room.

"Brent, Georgia."
"Right here."
"Douglas, Michael."

The shaggy-headed boy who had unhooked Kim's bra stuck out his tongue and blew a loud raspberry. There were a few twitters of laughter. Mr. Pullman sighed and checked his name off of the list.

More names were rattled off, but I took no interest in any of them until Mr. Pullman called for:

"Hawkins, Daniel."

The boy who Kim had called D.B. stuck his hand in the air and waved once to Mr. Pullman.

"Please remove your hat, Daniel," he asked tonelessly. "We've been over this before."
"M'kay. Sorry."

The boy reached up and tugged his knitted hat off. It was then that I realized who he was. It was the same brownish-blonde hair. The same ski-sloped nose. The same distinct voice.

It was the boy who had been in my room last night.

"Hutchinson? Hutchinson? Is there an Indigo Hutchinson here?"

Mr. Pullman's voice filtered into my head. I snapped out of whatever daze I'd entered into and barked, "What?" a little too loudly.

I heard some snickers from my classmates and I turned to the front, my eyes wide with embarrassment. Daniel Hawkins shot a casual look my way. I could see a white scar shining through his dark eyebrow. It was the same scar.

Mr. Pullman went through the rest of the list, marking "Marcolini, Kimberly" as tardy when she arrived, bra fixed, at "Zimmerman, Gregory's" name.

"Miss... Hutchinson," Mr. Pullman said, pausing to read my name from the role. "You're new to school, are you not?"
"I am," I muttered, dreading what was coming next.

It was my first day at James Monroe Private High School, and I'd started about three weeks into the semester. If we had moved three weeks earlier, I wouldn't have drawn so much attention.

"Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?"

I shot him a silent look of panic, hoping to communicate on some sort of higher level. He just smiled.

I sighed and walked up to the front of the classroom. Daniel Hawkins was staring at me with intensely dark eyes.

"I...I..." I stuttered, distracted. "I'm Indigo."

Sarcastically, Mikey Douglas began to clap. Kim Marcolini turned around and smacked his ear.

"Um. I moved to Colorado from New Mexico about last week. My dad transferred jobs and so... Here I am." I looked up at Mr. Pullman and shrugged. "That's it."

"Wonderful! Wonderful!" he cried. "Let's all give Ms. Hutchinson a hand!"

The class clapped half-heartedly as I walked back to my seat. The rest of the hour passed by slowly. Mr. Pullman talked about ionic bonds somewhere in the distance as I watched Daniel Hawkins from across the room, consumed by the mystery of the boy.

He hadn't seemed to recognize me at all.