ONE --- Isla
Splat.
A spot of water droplet grazes my head, running down the black thin strands of hair beside my cheek and landing on the floor with a soft slap.
I stare at the ground, confused.
When was rain ever brown?
Kneeling down, I use my fingers to swipe up a bit of that swirly liquid and bring it close to my nose, sniffing it.
Chocolate.
I stuff my fingers inside my mouth and glance up. Millions of thick, gooey blobs fall down the earth, coating everywhere with a layer of sugary goodness. My nerves chill as icy drops rain down the crown of my head and I laugh, straining my eyes to look up as the chocolate drips down to bleach my hair a light caramel brown.
I wiggle around in happiness, arms waving in a monkey dance and I sigh in joy. I open my mouth and stick out my tongue, eyes crossing as a single drop of desire-filled chocolate lands on my tongue.
“RINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRING-”
I groan and flip around, half of my blanket falling to the ground as I slam my hand repeatedly over my phone. The alarm doesn’t stop, because my phone’s touch screen has the sensitivity of a dead jellyfish, and I glare through my eye boogers until I could tap my phone to silent. I hoist myself into a sitting position, eyes slowly drawing close.
SLEEP. My body is screaming at me. I’m not used to disobeying my body. It’s summer now, but it always feels like I’m freezing to death whenever I wake up. I drag myself out of bed, crawl on the floor over to my closet and grab the first thing I saw.
A blue skirt with fabric swirls.
And.
Denim.
Shorts.
I blink.
Do not get me wrong, denim-loving cowboys. I have nothing against denim shorts. But according to my superstitious beliefs, if I had picked two pieces of clothing that are worn over the same counterpart, something terrible would happen. Something so terrible that it shakes your entire world upside-down until everything you’ve carefully set up for years will be farted upon and thrown away.
I’m not sure when I came up with that belief. It has always been there. And I’m not making this up. The last time this happened, I got a broken leg and a dead bird under my butt. I don’t ever want to look into the eyes of an unalive animal again.
I sniff and threw the shorts to the back of my closet, trying to be positive. I close my eyes.
I am going to die.
OhmygodimgonnadieimgonnadienonononohelpmepositivethoughtsthinkpositiveIslaapplesbannasshoescurtainswindowsnotecardsglasspapercalendars-
I bombard my brain with mental images of yellow backpacks as I quickly change out of my pyjamas and ran downstairs.
“STOP EATING! WE’RE GONNA BE LATE!” I screech at my older brother, Jackson, who is spreading butter on a slice of bread on the kitchen table, looking very relaxed. He is listening to music, I think. Actually, he’s probably not. Sometimes he just has Airpods in his ears to block out what I’m saying. So rude.
He rolls his eyes and ignores me. I scowl at him and turn to Mommy. “Can you please tell him to stop acting like a halfwitted nincompoop and actually drive me to school like he promised?” I whine, batting my eyelashes. I sound like a baby, but it works on Mommy.
Mommy gave her coffee a small sip and nods at Jackson. “She’s right. Leave, kids. I need to meditate.” He snorts and stuffs the entire slice of bread inside his mouth, then throws his backpack over his shoulder and opens the front door.
I skip over in front of Jackson, humming a song on the way. The sun smiles against my skin and I smile back. I’m not going to let anything ruin my day. Not even some dumbass clothing goddess.
I stare out the window of Jackson’s car, taking in everything I saw. We’re driving around the school’s parking lot, trying to find a spot to park.
My eyes catch sight of a huge green poster that reads: Welcome Back to RiverGreen High! We have a giant ass high school, and I don’t know half of the people in my grade. Literally, turn around from your table during lunchtime and prepare to be ambushed by a sea of foreign faces.
Our car is heading towards an empty space next to a shiny black sports motorcycle, the ones you’d usually see on TV. I have this hate for sports motorcycles because they are always so fucking loud?? Sometimes I’m just walking down the street and suddenly I’ll feel the crazy wind and a deafening sound for half a second, then I turn around and all I see is a fancy motorcycle speeding for its death. Hot motorcycles are all attention seekers. Some hot jock probably owns it.
The car slows and I step out before it stops. The sound of high school and young stupid people fills my ears as I step into this pathetic underfunded junkyard excuse of a school. I check the locker number I wrote in my palm.
“IZZYYYYYYYAAAAAYAAAAAAAA-” a small whirlwind of blonde hair ran up to me, knocking me into a locker. I hug Skylar back until I can feel her bones breaking from my love, jumping and laughing with our arms around each other.
“Where’s Layla?” I ask after we got over our five minutes celebration and Jackson went to wander off with his friends. Layla is the third member of our crazed besties group, the extremely sporty, swearing, and soccer-obsessed basketball-hating one. I am the think too much, word vomit and love-hate life one, and Skylar is the art explosion of creativity. We are the living stereotypes of atypical besties in a 90s romcom, and we love it. We even have matching names to seal the package.
“Bathroom. Apparently, she got her period today and she didn’t realize until a bit dripped onto her leg. You know how she is with periods. She tore my hair out.” She points at a little bald spot on the scalp above her ear.
“Skylar.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re bald because you were obsessed with bleaching that specific spot of hair over and over again in Grade 8 and your hair fell out.”
Skylar glares at me. “That’s not true! I literally just saw this bald spot! Anyways,” she gets out her brown paper lunch baggie from her backpack and hands me a cupcake. It looks gorgeous, with white cream shaped into an intricate star and little rainbow sprinkles put together into a miniature painting of Van Gogh. “You want one?”
“Sure.” I grab one and use my hand to shield the icing, admiring her artwork.
“Aren’t you going to eat it?”
“Last time you gave me a cupcake I got diarrhea for 3 days.”
“Girl, I don’t think that was me. You mixed pepper with ice cream then ate three bowls.”
“Firstly, I’ve done that so many times before and I’ve never gotten diarrhea??! Secondly, everyone that ate your cupcake got diarrhea and because you baked 200 cupcakes and gave it to everyone and EVERYONE got diarrhea and oh my god I still remember running to the toilet then every stall was full and the sound of chunky liquid erupting from numerous buttholes was like some synchronized orchestra--”
BANG--
My Ted Talk cuts off when my face slams into a wall.
In this split second, I am in control of everything and nothing.
For example. The pain in my nose is suddenly very prominent. My arteries are throbbing, and I glare down at my nose. Stop.
Secondly, that downward pitting feeling that I get when I ride roller coasters overwhelms all my other senses. I try to wiggle around, but nothing moves.
I am falling backwards in slow motion. Like a K-drama protagonist in front of a car.
Step 1 of getting out of a weird situation? Examine your surroundings.
I can’t really see anything though. A slow-mo side eye (the clothing goddess is definitely responsible for the sloth-esque movements) tells me a blurred sea of faces and the silhouette of Skylar’s very pale hair.
I do see my arms in front of me. One of my arms has a hand that is holding a cupcake with mushed icing and lopsided Van Gogh. I cannot tell which arm it is. I’m pretty sure that I’ve also lost my left-right ability.
They’re not moving. My arms, I mean. My arms are not moving.
Am I frozen in fright?
I am frozen in fright.
Brace for impact, my body reminds me.
Okay. I will brace for impact mentally. Since I can’t move.
Wait.
WAIT.
If I am falling backwards in slow motion. If I cannot move my arms or legs or anything that can change this situation and no my eyeballs do not count, this means.
This means that I will smash onto the floor. Crack my skull. Shatter my spine.
And DIE.
I am too young to die. I am definitely too young to die. I’m like, what, seventeen? The average life expectancy in the US is 80. The average life expectancy of a Chinese female is 77. If I die now I will be in the 1 percentile of stupid early deaths. I REFUSE.
Plus I didn’t get to do a grad trip with my friends yet! And my family will be lonely and sad. And oh my God Ateen is having a comeback in two days I didn’t even finish my new episode I spent 200 on eBay but the clothes didn’t come yet I’m going to die single MY CHAT HISTORY IS STILL READABLE AND GLARING IN MY PHONE WAITING TO MURDER MY REPUTATION AFTER MY DEATH-
A hand grabs my wrist and pulls me back to reality.
Honestly, I don’t recall walls having hands, especially ones smelling this good, but this saved me, so whatever. I pat the wall in thanks and glance up, holding up my mushed cupcake in gratitude.
My heart stops.
Chocolate brown eyes stare back. The lashes surrounding the eyes are long, thick, something I’ve tried to achieve with mascara so many times and failed. His nose is a mere centimeter away from mine, and I could feel his breath against my skin as he breathes gently. My gaze drops down to his lips, darkish red and slightly open, his white teeth just visible.
His tongue peeks out to wet his lips, and his Adam’s apple bobs.
He has one hand on my wrist and another circling around my waist, securing me. I can feel the warmth of his arm against my skirt, almost searingly. I take a deep breath, feeling the need to calm down, and my chest accidentally brushes against him. I jolt away.
The boy releases his hold on me, and I stumble backwards slightly. Skylar grabs my arm before I fall again. His eyes flicker away, and a flurry of emotions tumbles in my stomach. I can still feel the heat of his arm tingling against my back.
Oh. My. Baby. Jesus. I boob-attacked him. I cover my boobs in awkwardness. Before I could suck up my embarrassment and apologize, he walks away without another comment.
I pout. I didn’t even get to thank him. And he probably has a lopsided Van Gogh stamped on his shirt.
Skylar sighs. “Is it just me, or did you fall into a rom-com situation? An adorable cutie in the arms of an attractive hottie, both love at first sight!” She gasps and puts a hand on her chest. “I don’t think love at first sight is that popular anymore, but ahhh!”
“I walked into him then smashed my cupcake onto him then fell then he grabbed me then I boob attacked him without saying thank you or apologizing.” I said, frowning. “I don’t think he had a very good impression of me. What’s my next class again?”
“...English. Really, girl? We’ve been in the same class for three years.”
The rest of the day went by like clouds on a sunny day. Reoccuring and nothing out of the blue.
Until the afternoon.
