Shadows of the World

Lunch gave me absolutely no happiness. The five of us, our manicured little group, sat together outside against the school wall, eating our salad's and ham sandwiches and apples and Oreo cookies. I drank strawberry milk out of a carton, my one guilty pleasure, and found that even that could not erase the darkness from my mind. Carson Knight was sitting exactly where I had the most perfect view of him. He was sitting under a tree that was dropping its leaves into his hair and all around him, sitting like a bored angel, just fallen from heaven. I wondered why I'd never noticed him sitting there before, even though now I was pretty sure he was there every day. I cursed myself for feeling so drawn to him and so entraced by him. He only looked to his side, eating nothing. I watched his profile, and realized that he didn't even notice the leaves that were falling around him. Warmth spread through my stomach and up through my chest and all I could see were his green eyes and his smile...

I heard Jaime Robinson, who was a short brunette who sat on my left, ask, "So who wants to get manicures tonight?" I pulled myself back into my own reality, where my dream about Carson didn't exist. At least, where I pretended it didn't. I looked to Jaime who was scrutinizing her nails better than the ladies at the salon. She picked at her cuticles and scowled at them, making me turn away in annoyance. She could be so shallow sometimes. Okay, she was so shallow most of the time.

The general consensus of Jaime's enquiry was that we were all going to get manicures after school. I felt myself, as if someone else was pulling my strings, to answer that I would be going to. Shaking my head, I looked down at my chicken salad sandwich and tried to tug my mind and soul back into my body. I looked up and saw that Carson Knight had now changed his position, so that he was sitting against the tree, watching the leaves fall around him. A particularly strong gust of wind blew the leaves in his hair away, and he caught one that had dropped from the tree just as it was sailing towards him.

Why had I never noticed his beautifully strong hands or his slender, pale wrists? How could I never have seen that his hair, in the sunlight, had the slightest amount of chestnut to it? I saw his lips turn into a smile, a watered down version of the smile he'd given me in my dream last night. He let go of the leaves and caught new ones with such grace that this simple act made me want to cry. What was wrong with me? Just yesterday, I couldn't have even been bothered to see him. Now everything was different. Everything had changed. I leaned my head on the brick wall and closed my eyes, pushing out everything. I felt like I was falling into my head, letting everything else go-

"Clio? Are you all right?" The voice was clear and ringing and snapped me back to life. I lifted my head up and looked at Helena, who was eyeing me carefully.

I struggled for a smile. "Yeah, I'm fine," I told her. She didn't look convinced. "Honestly Helena, there's nothing to worry about." Still, she didn't look very convinced, but leaned back. She worried about me too much, I knew. However distracted I was feeling, I was technically all right. Well, at least, I thought I was. The bell sounded for the end of lunch and I meandered off to my next class, leaving my friends behind.

I looked at the notes for my next class, because we were having a quiz, and tried to implant words and their meanings into my mind. And that was the way I was the rest of the day, trying so hard to concentrate. In the end though, I kept wandering between reality and my fantasy, my dream. Everything was so blurry and confused, even more so than it usually was for me. I passed by all the regular, 'different' girls in school, the ones who wore crazy dresses and loud patterns and wild makeup. I knew they all snickered at my prim attire, but today, like most days, I didn't have the energy to care. I floated through the rest of the day and somehow, three hours later, I ended up in my car, driving out of the school, following the rest of my friends as we drove to the local salon for manicures.

My nails were in sorry condition, and it had been awhile since I'd had them done. I decided I'd go with French tips, that was always classic. It was busy in the salon though, which wasn't surprising for a friday afternoon, so I had to wait. I'd opted to be the last one to get mine done, if they all swore they'd wait for me. They did, so I sat in the waiting area, flipping through ancient hair style magazines that looked like they'd been published in the early 90s, or before. I stared at each one of them, wondering when it had ever been fashionable to have hair like that. I'd never seen pictures of my mom with hair that high on the ridiculous scale.

My stomach growled only fifteen minutes after we arrived and I glared down at it. Once I was hungry, there was no way I could make myself push away the feeling. I stood up and went over to Helena. "I'll be right back. I'm going to go to the coffee store next door and get a scone or something. Do you want anything?" I asked her.

She grinned at me. "Oh yes. Get me one of those delicious blueberry muffins with the little granule things on top. I love those," she replied.

I smiled the first real smile of the day. "I know you do. I'll be right back." I heard her laugh as I walked out of the store. My other friends, Ella, Jaime and Matilda would never want food from a coffeeshop. It was all pastry-ish breakfast carbs, things they'd crossed out of their diets ever since carbs had become the most evil things in the Universe. Helena reveled in them though, not caring one bit about what she ate. Me? Well, I wasn't the type that ate carelessly like Helena did, but I wasn't afraid of food the way my other friends were. I left the salon with my wallet and went next door to the Java Hut, our local coffeshop-slash-bakery.

I wanted to curse myself the second I walked in. Carson Knight stood behind the counter, restocking the tea shelf. I even physically hit my forehead. How could I have never noticed that he worked here? Discounting the fact that I usually only came here in the mornings, if I had enough time to get a muffin for me and Helena, but honestly. I should have known better, felt it, had a premonision, anything! My heart wouldn't stop speeding up and skipping beats, even though I kept taking deep breaths to steady myself.

I watched him silently as he stocked. He stood up high on his tippy-toes and put a bag of tea leaves on the highest shelf. His long arm fumbled with the tea, and all I could think about was my dream, where he'd put one of his arms around my waist and another behind my head as he'd laid me down. His hand on my heart. My mind kept playing those images on replay, over and over again. But I was already here, and if I returned empty handed, Helena would wonder why I hadn't gotten anything. I could make up the excuse that I didn't have any money, but that was a lie. I always had money. I wasn't allowed out of the house without it. It was supposed to be a precautionary measure, if I ever was stuck somewhere, but usually it went to buying CDs and books during my secret Borders runs.

With a gulp, I stepped up to the counter. He didn't notice me. I still waited. Carson's back, clad in the same well-fitting black long sleeved teeshirt, stretched as he did. Finally, I tried a casual cough that sounded very forced. Abruptly, he stopped and turned around, flushing as he saw me. "Sorry, I didn't notice you."

My head reeled from the fact that he'd actually spoken and that I was possibly the only one in school who actually had ever heard him talk, and also from the fact that he hadn't yelled at me. He was even looking at me with a patient, serene expression. I cleared my throat and opened my mouth to attempt to form a coherent sentence.

"Yes um." Good start. "I would like, um, a let's see. Blueberry...thing with the things on top." Great. Just great. I was a total idiot.

Carson smiled awkwardly. "A blueberry muffin?" he asked and I nodded yes very quickly. "For here or to go?" he questioned.

"To go," I squeaked, slapping myself for being such an idiot. I watched as he carefully picked out the biggest and best looking muffin and put in a bag. He turned back to me then, the bag laying open on the counter. I was tempted to just take it and run.

"Will that be all?" he inquired, all business. I shook my head no just as quickly, but stayed silent. Carson stood, blinking beautifully at me. I stood, awkwardly, not saying a word. I was afraid of what would come out, besides the fact that I was really enjoying just staring at him. He looked like a little lost boy and I desperately wanted to show him the way. I felt myself get all warm and tingly. I almost opened my mouth to tell him how so beautiful he was, when he opened his mouth first. "What would you like?" he finally asked, slowly, as if I was stupid.

"Oh! Right," I said, very, very, very stupidly, so I was probably just enforcing his opinion of me. I wanted to hit myself, cry, or run away forever and never have to think about him, ever again. What was I thinking? Almost going to tell him how beautiful he was. Could I get any crazier? "A cranberry scone, please." This time, I didn't sound as squeaky, or as silly. I breathed a sigh of relief. I wanted to say, 'See? I can be normal!', but I figured that would just make me look a lot less normal. He nodded and picked out the best looking of the cranberry scones and put in the bag.

"Anything else?" he asked me and I made sure I answered on time this time.

"No. Thank you," I said, in a normal octave. He pushed some buttons on his cash register and then looked back up to me.

"That'll be four dollars, even," he said and I handed him a five. For just a second, our fingers touched and I felt a shock of eletricity run all the way up through my hand and up my arm. He put my money in the cash register and handed me a dollar bill, which I took, making sure I didn't touch him again. I picked up my bag and looked at him, realizing the smallest of encounters had honestly left me completely tingly.

"Thanks," I attempted to say, but I wasn't even sure it had left my mouth before I turned and left Java Hut, quickly. All I could see was our finger's entwining, him holding my hands, kissing my eyelashes. It was all too sweet to bear, but it could never be real. This whole silly meeting of him, finally hearing his voice had turned out to be just exactly what I'd knew but wished it hadn't. It just proved the fact that I was absolutely nothing, no one in his eyes. I was no different than any of the people that walked the school, no different than any of the people he mostly likely disdained.

Dissapointment crushed me, crushed me so hard I couldn't even breathe. I had to stop before I went back into the salon and tried to catch the breath that wouldn't come. All I could think about were his green eyes, all he could think about was stocking the tea just right. I was obsessed with his hands and his grace, he was just trying to get through his minimum wage job. He was so obviously special and different, and I was just the same, so normal, so average, so obvious. I put a hand to my head and leaned over my knees. I'd never felt so upset over a boy before. I tried telling myself that it would go away, but I couldn't convince myself to feel differently.

Closing my eyes, I willed him to come out here and somehow make conversation with me, willed him to find out what a good, interesting person I knew I could be. I willed him to take a chance on me. It was no use. After a few minutes, I stood back up and blinked back the tears that had never actually made their way down my face. I walked back into the salon where Helena was letting her nails dry. She smiled at me as I sat back down on the couch and took out my scone. I took a large bite and chewed, but it was no use. My apetite had left and the scone tasted like dirt.