Your Inaccessible Light

“Hey momma,” I grin when the front door opens that evening.

“Hi,” she mumbles, kicking off her shoes and dropping down to the couch, the usual vacant look in her eyes. The dark circles under her eyes tell me she’s tired, although that’s nothing new. All my mum ever does aside from work is sleep. As soon as she wakes up, she just wants to go back to sleep again. In a way I understand; she’s sad, and being asleep is the only break she gets from the sadness. At the same time, it makes me angry, because maybe this wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for her.

“How was your first day?” I ask, referring to her new job. My mum works for a big electrical company. They have offices all across the country and she got transferred here, hence why we moved. She works long hours, although I think that’s more to do with her wanting to avoid being in the house, rather than excessive workload.

“Okay.”

“That’s good. I’m making lasagne for dinner,” I tell her.

She nods. I attempt to make small talk for a while but we then fall into the inevitable silence as usual. I serve up two plates of food, leaving a third in the microwave for when my father gets home later on. Usually I would have put the television on to break the silence, but it has not been set up yet, so we have no choice but to endure the silence. After dinner, I go upstairs to my room and continue to unpack boxes. I find the box full of all my posters and stick them up on the wall, and empty my books onto the shelf. The place still doesn’t feel any more like home though. I don’t know what exactly I was expecting when I moved here but I’m somehow disappointed anyway. I stupidly hoped that leaving might make the problems go away, but in fact, everything is exactly the same. Sometimes I wonder if things will ever go back to normal. Sometimes I wonder if we were ever normal at all.

When morning comes, I shower and get ready before beginning the thirty minute walk to school. I meet Amber in the parking lot as we agreed the day before.

“Hey girl, how are you?” she asks, a cheerful smile on her face.

“I’m good thanks, you?”

“Yeah I’m good.” We make our way through the parking lot as she quizzes me on what it’s like in Georgia. Amber is funny and sweet, but not patronisingly sweet, and already I am growing fond of her. She leads me past the basketball courts to get to the West Building entrance, but a group of people in the distance catch my eye. I narrow my eyes, realising that among the group are Ronnie and Max.

“Is that Ronnie’s band?” I ask Amber. She turns round, following my gaze until her eyes land on the group.

“Yeah,” she nods, “That’s Bryan Money with the blonde hair, but everyone calls him Monte. He’s the guitarist. The guy that looks like Slash, that’s Robert Ortiz the drummer. The guy next to him is Omar Espinosa, the other guitarist. Obviously you know Max Green; he’s the bassist, and Ronnie’s the singer.”

“That explains a lot,” I smirk.

“What do you mean?”

“Lead singers tend to be arrogant,” I grin before turning away and pulling open the door to the West Building.

I have English second lesson. Ronnie is in my class. I’m more excited about that than I should be. I sit in the seat between Amber and a girl with long black hair who Amber tells me is called Cara. The class quickly fills up, but of course, the last person to enter is Ronnie. I get the impression he doesn’t like turning up to class on time.

“You’re late Mr. Radke,” the teacher states.

“So?” he shrugs, rolling his eyes.

“So, I’ll have to log that on the system.”

“Good for you,” Ronnie grins, walking towards where Cara is sitting. “Move,” he tells her. Cara looks up nervously, gathering her things together. I frown and suddenly I feel irritated. Ronnie seems to have this authority over every other person in the school. He talks to people like they’re below him and I don’t like it. It’s as though everyone is scared of him, but I’m not. From what I’ve seen so far, I can imagine it’s best not to get on Ronnie’s bad side, but my impulsiveness gets the better of me.

“Ronnie,” I frown, gently pushing him away, “Go and sit over there.”

“I want this seat,” he mutters. Cara stands up, but there is no way I’m letting Ronnie have his way. “Cara sit down,” I instruct, “Ronnie, you’re a big boy, I’m sure you can cope over there.” I know the whole class is staring at me wide-eyed and in shock, but for some reason all I can see is Ronnie and his chocolate brown eyes burning with rage as he stares down at me in disbelief.

“Thank you,” Cara whispers, offering me a nervous smile. Ronnie turns away from Cara, but instead of going over to the empty seat, he stops in front of my desk, glaring down at me.

“You better watch yourself darlin’. You don’t think I’ll let you get away with that, do you?” he hisses with unmistakable venom to his tone. He smirks before going to sit in the seat I told him to, leaving my heart racing, not because of fear of course; I seem to be immune from fear for the most part. Maybe it’s more to do with the adrenaline coursing through my veins, or maybe it’s Ronnie’s piercing brown eyes that almost had me hypnotised, or maybe it’s just because it’s Ronnie, and that’s what Ronnie does to people.