Not for All the Pearls in the Sea

I was staring at a blank page that was to be my assignment. I knew that if I failed, I would get my ass kicked – verbally. I sighed, putting my writing materials back into my bag, I knew if I was going to do it, I needed to be in the right frame of mind, and I wasn’t now.

I turned on the radio; the sound broke the eerie silence, waking me to a new day, one that promised everything to be better than the last. I turned to my mirror, surrounded by white timber with dainty pink and green flowers painted on it. I rubbed my hands over my face, digging my nails into my neck. I opened the draws that had seized from usage that ended years before my breasts burst into existence. I looked down at my old butterfly clips and mum’s old pearls. ‘Just to be a child,’ I thought, ‘to be innocent as one of them, to play and scream and run around without our shirts on, and get away with adults laughing and looking at us with adoration; it would be like coming into the sun after years of being underground.’ I knew better than to dream of my childhood taking a second chance to steal centre stage.

I looked out the door for my parents’ cars; dad was at work, he taught at the local Sunday school in the western side that we were warned to stay away from; and mum, she was a doctor, always coming home with some new strain of a flu, coughing and calling in sick for a few days. Those few days, in which she never spent a second with me, only ordering me to make her a cup of soup and leave time for it to cool down. Both were gone, nowhere to be seen where the snazzy business car mum owned, and the truck that dad spent countless hours tinkering with. But nonetheless, they weren’t there.

I suddenly had a rush of immaturity rush over my being, taking me by surprise. I slipped out of my flannelette chequered pyjamas, and into my favourite pink bra, the one that was the oldest and the comfiest. And I love it. I hooked my thumbs around the elastic of my silky boxer shorts and pulled them to my ankles. Once again, I checked for the suspicious cars that belonged to anyone who might live in this household. I opened my door, it creaked in response; I poked my head into the hall, making a conscious caution to step over the rug that ran down the middle of the long hall, so I didn’t fall over and have my blue and yellow striped undies in the air, while my head was planted in the carpet. I padded down the hall, skidding as the carpet slipped around on the timber flooring, until I reached my parents room. I looked down at the pearls I had in my hand, my nails digging into my soft skin as I made my escape. I stepped over the baskets of clean, folded clothes that were to be put away; I wasn’t going to kid anyone who came into our little house, it was no where near perfection that my mother had dreamt off her whole life.

I stepped around the king bed, sitting in the middle of their homey room, to reach mum’s cupboard of all her summer dresses, the ones that she wore when she was younger, and had a life outside of a building of coughing and sneezing humans. The ones she couldn’t bring herself to throw out, the ones she said I would get when I am older. I slipped the brass key into the lock and tugged at the handles. I watched as the doors swung open at the squished space off all her fashion sense bursting out, bailing on each other after all those years. I pulled out a yellow one, almost beige; it looked old, but had such a modern feel to it. I slipped it over my head, after tugging the seized zip as far as I could before it reached breaking point. I slid my torso into its fitting shape, and looked in the mirror closely. I put the pearls around my neck, letting it fall into the hollow of my neck like a dead weight, something so cold but that holds so much beauty and value, something priceless. Suddenly, my lips brought no attention to themselves, but my almond coloured eyes hauled a crowd from an empty theatre. I was proud, its bleached sandy colour brought out a whole new flourish of colour’s not seen before in my skin, or my eyes. My lips seemed to glow with a newfound redness and my eyelashes stronger and more prominent.

I traced my high cheek bones, not before noticing my legs looked thinner and more shaped; this dress was like stepping out from beneath the earth, and finally growing up to see the beauty in myself. I was still sitting, contemplating why my hair still had not changed, when the doorbell intruded all my thoughts. I got to my feet slowly, running my fingertips gently over the round spheres around my neck. The doorbell rang through the comfortable silence again, impatiently, making me storm out of the room, and down the stairs.

I flew at the handle, giving an impression of a viper to the waiting guest. Who actually did leap back a fair bit, may I add.

“Wow, Lexi, settle down…” he looked from my bare feet to my shoulders, and continued to see my glimmering eyes. “Wow, Alexia Price, you look stunning!”

I smiled in gratitude, and opened my mouth to thank him, but I hadn’t tested that my voice existed, with there being no one home and all…

I must have looked astounded when no voice came from my vocal chords, because he was soon behind me, pushing on the back of the dress and telling me to sit down.

I screamed at him, “What is wrong with you, Aaron, are you mad? I believe you are, stop touching me, because in my mind that is all I can ever believe that you come to my house to do. You only seem to appear when my parents aren’t here, are you too scared to meet them? I am sure you have met my mum, she works at the clinic, the only one in this little hole of a town; and dad teaches kids who have lost their second chance. Surely you would dig deep enough in your heart to meet them. Wouldn’t you?” But sadly, I still hadn’t found my feet, or voice for that matter.

I nodded at him, and followed him into the tiny kitchen, normally only just big enough to accommodate two cooking people, and if they weren’t cooking, we were told to get out. I pointed to the cupboard which had our precious box of Lemsip (just a throat soother, for when you have a cold or a sore throat, for you people who don’t speak Aussie), and grabbed a mug while he boiled the tea pot. I smiled at him, for a best friend, he could be pretty loyal, but best friends wasn’t what either of us saw each other anymore. It was friends, friends with many benefits. Whenever I was feeling down, a kiss was said to have been the thing to cheer me up, well that isn’t what I had believed, but I had to agree. His ego was worn on his shirt like a badge, but only when it came to the ‘with benefits’ part. He could really be the best friend when it was just him and I, along with his loyalty.

He walked back to me, putting the warm mug into my hands and putting his hands on either side of my waist, steering my feet back up the stairs to my room. After more than ten years of knowing each other, and being best of friends, we were used to our abnormally messy rooms. He was so used to my ways he let me go in a few seconds before him, so I had time to push the embarrassing things under the bed and away from his watchful gaze. I let the door swing open and he came to sit on my bed, the springs groaned with his added weight to mine. He hummed a tune, a nameless tune to me.

I coughed a few times, letting the serum run down my throat, even though I decided it was the worst tasting mixture I had ever swallowed by my own will. He patted my back gently as I curled my legs underneath me, I looked to him, his eyes glimmered in the sunlight flowing in through my window, and his dark brown hair was glowing with strands of a candy red; something I had never noticed. I suddenly felt strange, sitting here, with him, with his hand on my back, with his eyes on me. It had never bothered me before.

He soon began to murmur words to his tune, uttering them to my body and charming my ears. I coughed a bit more and turned to him, looking in his aquatic eyes, “What’s your song called?” I said hoarsely.

He shuffled closer, nearing his head to my shoulder, “It’s called Crashing, its by that band we went south to see a few months ago.”

I laughed, I remembered that night. Even though it was an underage event, somehow Aaron had found a loot of alcohol, and travelling with his father, he let us have it. We ended up drunkenly making out, in the middle of the small barbeque area. I could only remember the bits that had occurred on tape, and waking up and feeling like I had been hit by a truck.

“Yeah…” I said, sighing collectively with him, “That was fun, even if I cant remember any more than what I was told!”

We both laughed, I had to put the mug down, for fear of wetting my bed, until he soberly kissed me. I was shocked, to say the least. He drew back and stared deep into my eyes.

“That is what I came here for–” he said, but me being me, I cut him off early.

“What? Just to kiss me?” I said like a fool. But it was actually a question, on my part anyway.

“– To tell you how I really do have feelings for you. I always have, well not always, but since I realised I thought of you in a best-friend sort of way, I realised it wasn’t just friends that I wanted to be.” He said, continuing from my interruption as if I had never said a word.

“Well, I don’t know what to say…” I said, speaking the utter truth.

“Say you like me too…”

I felt funny, sitting in my room with him, while he sat there, less than thirty centimetres away, saying how he loves me, all the while my parents aren’t home. I felt like a naughty child.

“Not for all the pearls in the sea, Aaron.” I said firmly, watching his gaze go from bashful to humiliated, but I wasn’t done yet, “I have been waiting since the day I met you, for you to say half of those words. I don’t like you now, I am sorry to say that; because, in the utterly true truth, I love you.” I stopped there, not that I could say much more with his lips clamped down on my own, red ones.

He looked playfully at me again, but instead of using the moment to his advantage in the whole hands-on play tactics, he used his words.

And even if your voice comes back again,
Maybe they'll be no one listening;
And even if you find the strength to stand,
It doesn't mean you won't go missing…
“I love you Alexia.”

“I know you do.” I said, and smiled, because it was true.