Silent Dreams

School was a dizzy blur. It made my head hurt, the lobes of my brain throb. Not because the work was hard, but because it was too hard to concentrate when you had such heavy burdens loading themselves upon your shoulders. The same lyrics of the same song played out in my head throughout the day, to the point where I was almost annoying myself. But it still soothed me somehow. Music is like my pacifier.

By the end of the day I was laying against my desk, reading the book that I had open under me, my hair splaying out against the pages. Frankenstein. We were supposed to be reading 1984, but I found that incredibly boring. I’m sure that it had some meaning and relevance, but was it really worth it? I didn’t think so. I didn’t have the patience for it. Or, more importantly, the energy.

My teacher had already asked me to take my head off my desk, but I couldn’t seem to lift it. I tried to give off the vibe that I was, in fact, too completely empty of anything to be able to support myself sitting up in the chair. I think he understood, since he had left me alone. My head had hurt so badly that I even took my hair out of its ponytail and it was now everywhere.

I then became fixated on the clock. Only a few minutes left. Two minutes, one minute, and then the bell. That helped my headache, a lot. I stood with the rest of the class and pulled the sweatshirt that had been hanging on the back of my chair on, gathering my books. I made my way to my locker, packing up what I needed for homework and whatnot, into my backpack. My friends were elsewhere – they had joined the afterschool fashion club. Stupid sweethearts. What a waste of time.

I sighed and threw the bag on my back, descending toward a more populated area of the hallway, then down a set of stairs and out the door. Luckily, everyone ignored me that day. It was always a relief to me to be ignored, and only a hassle to socialize. I felt my stomach burn as I made eye contact with some redheaded girl, and found myself walking even faster out of the school parking lot.

There he was. Angelboy. I felt my neck, then face heat up as I slowed down. We hadn’t even looked at each other, I’d only seen him from behind, and I already felt paralyzed. He was everything I wanted, or maybe, he was everything I wanted to be. The way he dressed was how I wanted to dress, but didn’t have the guts to. I couldn’t even admit to myself, at that point, exactly how beautiful his face was. What if he was an asshole? I couldn’t fall in love with an asshole’s face. I wouldn’t let myself. I just wanted to be him. I wanted to be his friend. I had to talk to him.

I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be an asshole. When we were little, he was that sweet little boy that everyone is always shocked to find. Innocent and shit. He would actually kiss my knee when I’d scrape it. He’d given me flowers the afternoon after I got baptized. I’m pretty sure he picked them from my dad’s garden, but my dad wouldn’t have cared. The worst part is, I think I threw them away – I hated boys as a child. And now he dressed too weirdly, brooded too much, to be a dick. I hoped.

We walked parallel to one another, on either side of the street, and I was basically staring at him. He hadn’t even glanced at me, which was impressive, being that he must have felt my eyes on him. I decided I’d wait to see if he was going to turn a side-road or anything before I’d talk to him. I didn’t want our conversation to have to be cut off. Or, maybe I just needed an excuse to let my nerves tell me what to do.

Finally, I realized he wasn’t going to turn any time soon. It had been 15 minutes. I felt a jolt in my chest as I tried to muster up the strength to spit out his name – but then it sunk. Nothing had come out. I stopped on the road and refused to move until it came out – “Gerard!”

He stopped and turned around and smiled at me. “Bryony.”