Attention
It was part of Adela’s morning routine to splash her face with water as soon as she managed to tear herself away from the solace of her bed. Not only did it wash the sleep out of her eyes but there was something refreshing about the feel of the cool water running down her face.
She raised her head to stare at her eyes through her reflection in the mirror. Her mismatched pupils were a trait she was born with. Some would consider the feature to be a unique gift. To Adela, they were a curse. The contrasting green against blue always drew attention to her. Some attention was positive, some attention was negative, but attention was still attention; it was always unwanted.
After a number of unforgettable experiences left her wanting to disappear off the face of the earth, she did whatever it took to blend in and go unnoticed. Brown contact lenses seemed to be the most successful strategy. Brown was plain and was far less romanticised than the catlike green and icy blue she was stuck with.
After slipping the lenses in and covering her body in clothing which consisted mainly of blacks and neutral tones, she trudged down the hall to the kitchen. One glance from her mother and she could already feel the familiar disapproval which usually worked its way into her daily routine.
“Still trying to fit in, I see,”
Peering into the fridge, she mumbled back loud enough for her mother to hear. “The more I blend in, the better,”
“I just don’t understand why you’re so ashamed to embrace your--”
“I’m not ashamed, alright,” She snapped moodily. “I just hate the attention,”
“You didn’t use to. You use to love being the centre of attention,” Her mother muttered as she took a sip of her coffee and stared at the screen of her phone.
“Yes, but that was before--” Adela stopped. She still couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
“Honey, come on. That was years ago,”
Pulling the front door open, she paused and stared her dead in the eye with a scowl. “And the damage was lasting,” She swept out the door leaving it to fall closed.
“You didn’t even eat anything,” Her mother called out after her.
“Not hungry,”
She rarely ever was.
The first two periods seemed to drag on endlessly.
Adela sat in the back corner of the room jotting down notes that were meant to be helpful but weren’t. There was no denying the fact that she was failing majorly in school, particularly in English. Sure, she was able to grasp the art of grammar, punctuation, and had an extensive vocabulary. She just couldn’t for the life of her write a decent essay. She was a very silently creative person so her skills only really came in handy during fictional writing tasks; any other form, she was clueless.
“Monty, are you listening?”
No one really called her by her name. At school and everywhere else she was known as Monty. It came from her surname; Montrose. From what she could remember her father was really the only person who ever called her by her name, but that was years ago. Monty was just a nickname that stuck.
“Yes, miss,”
Her teacher looked at her over the rim of her glasses. “So I can expect to see your homework on my desk tomorrow?”
“You can,” She nodded. “I doubt it’ll help, though,” She added under her breath.
As soon as the bell rang for interval, she packed up and ready to leave with the rest of the class. Only instead of going to the cafeteria, she moved in the opposite direction and made her way to the library; her haven.
Not a lot of people she shared classes with ventured to the library at their own free will which is why it was so perfect for her. She could find the silent intellectuals there, and they were far more tolerable.
The silence is what she enjoyed most as she wandered down the aisles, running her fingers over the worn spines of the books, a sure sign they had been well loved. The distant chattering of the students down at the cafeteria reminded her of just how alone she was when all that could be heard was her own breath. For once, that was comforting.
She took her usual seat on the sofa in the corner of the library where the historical fiction was located. Directly behind her was a wide floor to ceiling window which gave her warmth and light.
From her duffel, she pulled out her sketchbook and pencils and placed the classic novels she carried around with her on the cushion beside her.
Silence and solitude was bliss.
After reading peacefully for a few minutes, the previous feeling of taking comfort in the sound of her own breath disappeared when another joined hers. She could see the shadows of a man’s shoes beneath the shelves in front of her.
Wanting to avoid interaction, she froze and held her breath in the hopes that she would go unnoticed.
She watched the shadows with wide eyes as they crept closer until the full form was revealed. He stood before her, leaning against the end of the bookshelf with arms folded. Her eyes trailed up slowly, and she could only stare back at him as he stared at her.
“What are you doing here?” Mr Clarke, her English teacher, asked. His tone was suspecting, and his gaze was calculating.
Lowering her eyes slightly to settle on something beyond his, she answered quietly. “Just reading, sir,”
“Why aren’t you in the cafeteria eating with everyone else?”
“Not hungry,” She mumbled, giving the same curt response she had given her mother. “And I prefer the quiet,” She added in a whisper looking down at the carpet under his shoes briefly.
His stance changed and he gave the smallest of smiles. “I have to agree with you on that one,” He pushed away from the shelf and took a step closer. “Who wants to sit in a crowded hall with a bunch of rowdy teenagers anyway?”
Adela was out of her comfort zone. She was alone with a man who she didn’t speak to outside of class and unsure of how to maintain a simple conversation without coming off entirely socially awkward. She was never a huge chatter at the best of times, so she was feeling very much out of her element.
Nodding her head, she forced a small smile, hoping, wishing he would put her out of her misery and leave her be.
If he could sense her discomfort, he sure didn’t act on it. In fact, he did the exact opposite and took another closer to glance down at the book in her hands.
“What are you reading?” Marking her spot with her thumb, she closed the book and flashed him the cover. “Sense and Sensibility. That’s a great read,”
She looked up at him surprised. “You’ve read it?”
He sent her a comical grin. “I’m an English teacher, it’s a classic Jane Austen novel. The two sort of go hand in hand,” She smiled again, but this time it wasn’t completely forced. “So is that a favourite?” He asked and took a seat at the table fit for two beside the sofa.
She shook her head and glanced down at the book in her hands. “I honestly couldn’t name a favourite. All of her novels are equally as moving,”
His brows rose in what she presumed to be disbelief. “You’ve read them all? Every single one?”
She nodded shyly. “Yes. More than once,”
For a moment neither of them said anything. Her gaze wandered everywhere but at him while his was focused intently on her.
“You’re in my class, aren’t you?” She snapped her head to him and nodded slowly. “Though so,”
Adela wasn’t sure how to feel about that. She took comfort in knowing she had succeeded in blending in, but now she worried that if one person had noticed her, even in the slightest, that others had as well.
He seemed to be enjoying her discomfort judging by the way his mouth quirked up slightly. “You’re a quiet one,” After another minute of rather uncomfortable silence he decided to put her out of her misery. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your book then,” He stood. “I’ll see you in class,”
With a quick and polite tip of his head he disappeared back down the same aisle he had come from. She went back to her book and flicked back to the page she was on but was still vaguely aware of his presence and footsteps as he wandered around searching for something.
Minutes before the bell rang she heard the heavy wooden doors to the library open and swing closed. She took that as her cue to pack up her things and mentally prepare for her next class.
Suddenly she was dreading her last period of the day. After that brief moment of light and uncomfortable conversation with her teacher she knew it was more than likely that he would start calling on her in class; something she hated.
The bell rang, and she cursed under breath before making her way to her third period.
Andrew Clarke’s last period class of the day was by far the worst group of students to teach. They were loud, they were rude, and they didn’t seem to give a damn about their education. Half the time he gave up as it seemed pointless to even try some days. An old saying came to mind and felt all too relevant to his students. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” He could pretty much drown them, and they still wouldn’t budge.
The final warning bell rang and, last minute, of course, they stumbled in with their collective cliques. He watched from his desk as the girl he’d spoken to in the library wandered in last, behind everyone else and all alone.
He didn’t even know her name. He didn’t know a lot of his student’s names. There were hundreds of names to remember, and they were just that; names and numbers. It was his job to teach them, not bond with them.
But this girl intrigued him. He’d barely paid any attention to her and only knew her as the quiet kid in the back. He never expected someone like her to be hiding classics like those in that bag of hers. He didn’t think anyone nowadays had read or even knew the titles. Finally, he had a student, one student who had the knowledge and shared the same interests as he did for literature.
He took attendance once everybody had settled in. He called out their surnames without looking up and waited for their verbal confirmations as always.
“Montrose,”
“Here,”
His head snapped up upon hearing and actually recognising the timid voice. The girl from the library. Her hand was partially raised in the air as if she’d had experience with not being verbally acknowledged during roll call.
Her face was calm, but her eyes screamed panic as if she were expecting something humiliating to happen. Glancing down at her desk he noticed the mess of books. There were the two novels he’d spied earlier with what looked like a sketchbook piled to the side, and at the centre of the mess was her workbook. He scanned the rest of the desks in his class and took note that not a single other student had a book of any sort in front of them.
He turned his attention back to the roll.
For the remainder of the period, he left the class to themselves with the idea they’d get some silent reading done; he knew they wouldn’t. He spent the uninterrupted time check-marking the papers from last weeks test. Surprisingly, despite their lack of effort most of them managed to scrape by. But there was one in particular that stood out to him now.
The big red ‘F’ at the top of the page surprised him. It was Adela’s paper. Just by looking at her she seemed bright and knowledgeable; the books in her hands and on her desk only proved her intellect. So why was her grade so low?
He looked up to see her nose buried in her book again, occasionally taking a moment to write something down.
Out of all the passing slackers in his class, the only one that actually cared and tried was failing. It was disheartening.
When the bell rang, she hurried to pack her things away. He called out to her. “Adela,” When she didn’t respond, he tried again, but still she ignored him. Maybe she didn’t hear him.
“Miss Montrose,” Her head whipped in the direction of her name, and she almost got trampled down by the students clambering to get out the door. “Can I speak to you for a minute, please?”
The look of panic flashed in her eyes again, but she complied nevertheless.
He leaned against the front of his desk. “Did you not hear me calling?” He asked when she was stood in front of him. Her brows crinkled together in confusion. “I called your name twice, Adela,”
She looked down at her fingers. “Sorry. Most people just call me Monty.”
“Okay, well, I was just looking over your grade,” The look of recognition and disappointment was etched into her expression like she knew what he was about to say. “and I gotta say it’s not looking too flash,”
“I know,” Her focused stayed fixed on her hands. “I’m sorry,”
Mr Clarke crossed his arms and switched the leg he was leaning on. “What is it your struggling with? I’d be happy to give you extra help if you wanted to get your grades up,”
That alone set off alarm bells in her head straight away. She’d heard of teachers taking ‘favours’ from students to bump up their grades. Mr Clarke didn’t exactly seem like that kind of person but then again, did she even really know him? With her history, it was her first response to assume the worst and think he’d take advantage of her weaknesses.
Her eyes widened a fraction at the implication, and she took a step back. He seemed to notice her reaction and help up his hands, exposing his palms to her in a display of peace.
“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. If it would help, I could assign a tutor to you if you’d be more comfortable with that,” He offered.
It did nothing to calm her nerves, but she did feel infinitesimally relieved to know he wasn’t looking to take advantage of her. She’d trained herself to read sincerity and deceit markers for the sake of her safety, and most people weren’t that good at lying to the level of being able to fool her. Mr Clarke was genuine.
“Thank you, but I’m fine,”
“Adela, you’re failing this class. You need a way to get your grades up,”
Her eyes fell closed as she tried to suppress certain memories. “Please, just call me Monty,” She almost begged. “No one’s called me that in years,”
He felt his lips quirking up. “Well, I like Adela,”
She flicked her eyes up to him with furrowed brows. “Why haven’t you offered anyone else help?”
“Because I can’t help them if they’re not willing to put in the effort,” He explained softly. “They have to want to learn. You are about the only one in here that seems to try and want to succeed,”
This situation was almost worse than if she was being cajoled into favours for grades. She could never bring herself to accept help that was being offered to her even when she knew it would benefit her to take it.
So she stayed silent and cast her eyes anxiously around the room. “Sir, I need to get going,”
He straightened up. “Right. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Just as she was about to step out the door he called out. “The offer’s always there if you happen to change your mind,”
Forcing a polite smile that didn’t reach his eyes she tipped her head and left.
Something told him she wouldn’t be taking him up on his offer any time soon.
Her fingers scraped along the floor, clawing at the carpet as she dragged herself across her bedroom to her bathroom. The lump in her throat seemed to grow bigger by the second, constricting her breathing. Her vision was blurry and no matter how many times she tried to blink away the moisture more would just bubble up.
She felt her way along the tiled floor and pulled herself up to lean against the bathtub. There was a folded washcloth that she knew was sitting on the counter next to the sink and she reached up and pulled it onto her lap.
It had been a while since she felt the need to break the head of her razor and she was proud of the length of time she had resisted. But at this very moment, she deemed it absolutely necessary.
With the heel of her foot, she stamped down on the little rod of plastic until the small piece of silver metal fell out. Her wailing had been getting louder and her breathing short, rapid, and heavy. She turned her body around, so she was looking into the tub and stuffed the cloth into her mouth, clamping down on it with her teeth to muffle the sound.
There was a sliver of moonlight seeping through the bathroom window that found the little piece of metal in her fingers and reflected the silver glint. Her face slowly, ever so slowly, lost the tremored as her shaky fingers dragged the metal across the narrow patch of already scarred skin on her wrist.
It only took a few clean swipes for her to achieve her aim. A trail of scarlet dripped off her skin and onto the white porcelain. Her heart slowed, and she hung her forearm over the edge of the bath. She spat the now damp cloth from her mouth and let out an unsteady breath, and the blade slipped out of her grasp and fell onto the tub floor with a clink.
She squeezed her eyes shut to block out the memories appearing to her in a sequence of flashing images. They were memories she wished she could just erase rather than have to relive them when they decided to invade her dreams.
These weren’t dreams, and they weren’t nightmares; they were worse than that. These were night terrors.
