Eccentrically

The stars were never meant to shine this bright.

As I stared from the vast opening of the window, I wondered if life was really supposed to be this unexpected. I’ve always thought that life hated me because I was never blessed with the voice of an angel, much less of a confident lioness. Nor was I the beauty whom everyone stared at from the back of their heads. I was a plain jane: always prim and proper, quiet and barely aggressive. And as I ponder at this late night sky, I wonder if there was anyone out there who could find and love me inside this almost-always deserted library.

“What are you looking out there?”

I turned to see Elijah, carrying all the children's books up the stairs. He stopped on his tracks and smiled, now on his way towards me. There was a certain aura that he gave off that told me that it was alright, that ‘these things’, it didn’t matter. Everything was OK. “Oh,” My voice sounded plain. “It’s nothing.” I quickly replied, shoving Stephen King’s The Shining back inside the shelf along with his other numerous novels.

“Let me see.” Eli peered out from the window, his neck-length hair brushing towards my cheeks. They felt soft – something that I didn’t quite expect with any boy’s hair. “It’s really,” he tried to sound amazed, like what all the critiques do when they’re about to rave about a certain book. “pretty.”

My eyes went straight back to the view of the stars. “Yes,” I agreed as I saw the brilliant little dots on the sky, twinkling with vibrancy. “It is.”

From beside me, there was Eli. I’ve always wanted to be this close to him ever since the day he walked alongside me. Now, it’s been a week since the day. And I feel rather remorse with the idea that I may never find true love if it’s not with him. But then, I remembered how he always felt sorry for me. Like the other day over at Mesopotatoes when he ordered for the two of us because I was dead shy on ordering on my own, or the time when he had to defend me when I accidentally shoved a stack of books towards a grungy old man.

I am hopeless. How could someone great like Eli would ever want to spend time with a wallflower like me? Chances are he hates me already.

We stayed at that very moment for another few seconds before I heard Mrs. J calling out to us. I can’t say if I was either pleased with the fact that she finally broke our silence or desolated with the sudden realization that this beautiful moment may never happen again. “Eli! Grace!” she blasted. “It’s time to close this shindig down.”

“Coming!” Eli replied back; possibly glad that he finally had an excuse to get away from me. “We should go now.” he turned, reaching out his hand in gesture.

No, I don’t need pity.

“Okay.”

After cleaning the place up, organizing all the books back into their proper homes and fixing all the library card applications, we finally reached the end of the door. I reached my hand out to the side of the power switch and turned all the main system connections off. Mrs. J felt exhausted, her back down the whole time we walked to the front gate of the library, crossing past the garden while Eli stretched his back for another night well done. He was often proud of himself.

I wish I was.

“Thanks for helping me close, kids!” Mrs. J suppressed a yawn as she raised her left hand up to emphasize her point. “My backaches are killin’ me.” she smiled, patting our backs for a good work.

I smiled, Eli did too.

“No prob.” Eli responded smoothly, adjusting the straps of his backpack in a smile. “I’ve always liked doing boring work. I think I’m meant to be a secretary when I grow-up. Y’know, taking all those calls and thanking God for a Friday, those kinds of things,” What’s he talking about?

Mrs. J laughed. I covered my disappointment in a grin. How could anyone want to live a boring life? I know I don’t.

“Are you sure?”

“About what?”

“Being boring. You like doing those things?”

“Well, yeah. Don’t you find those cool? I mean you seem like the type.”

“No, not really,”

Did he just say that I’m a secretarial type?

“Well I do. I guess we’re different.”

“Yeah, I guess you do.”

“Fine,”

“Okay.”

Eli and I looked at each other. His eyes portrayed confusion, for short: ‘Is this girl going crazy?’ while mine was a mix of anger and probably frustration. Of course I have to admit the truth. I had no idea of what I was saying. This in fact shocked me because I gave up on all means of control; it’s my instincts going crazy. The two of us stared at each other for a brief moment. No one said anything. No one broke the staggering glare from the two of us.

So instead of saying goodbye to both of them, I ran past him in a stride to the parking lot. I opened the car as quickly as I was to escape my humiliation from a second ago. My hand quickly shuffled to the wheel, the other to close the door. My heart raced as I saw Mrs. J and Eli from the side mirror still laying their eyes on me. But I didn’t care.

For once I didn’t look back.

The ride supposedly back home was painfully excruciating. I kept on debating if I should go home, or if I should go back to the library to say sorry, or if I should just go ahead and hit my car on the dam to see if I will die of drowning. Sadly, I didn’t push through with any of my past ideas. I’m such a coward. Instead I drove to Highark Hill which was plainly a hill that overlooked Hunterville.

Home was, well, simply a house where I stayed in. It’s a lie when people say that the home is where the heart is. Though I live in a high-end compound which rich benefactors at every corner of the street, I still feel as if I’m as low as an earthworm on the ground. It never mattered to me. My parents were hitting it off over at London while I stayed looming inside the house.

So it wasn’t an option to go back home and just try to force myself to sleep.

In the end, I opted to sit on the roof of my car. The breeze was cool, something odd during the humid summer weather. I sipped the latte that I bought just a couple of minutes ago from Mesopotatoes on my way here. As I stared at the blinking lights, I noticed how the city lights were alive and unceasing. I checked the time on my watch, it was only 10:09 PM. The night was barely even starting.

At least I had the million of twinkling dots from above to keep me company.