Our home's entrance boomed through the air as I slammed it shut and hastened toward my room.
“Where are your manners, Russell?” my mum’s thin voice said finding it’s way to the staircase where I was – a few steps left before getting to my room.
“Sorry mum, evening!” I shouted back as I hastened to my room, locked myself in and slumped on my bed and ended up regretting it as a loose sock with blotches of different colours bounced off my bed and tried suffocating me with it's densely chummy stench as it landed directly on my nostrils.
My throat went dry and itchy instantly, my head was heating up really fast as the hazy memories hidden behind time's facade of last winter began to unveil itself. I took an half empty bottle of water that I had left on my table last night and poured into a cup.
"This should calm me down" I muttered to anyone who could hear me but that turned out to be just me; only me could hear me. I lifted up the cup to drink but it slipped off my grip and made a mess on the floor.
Shame on me.
My problems were bigger than a thirst. I grew more uneasy as dribbles of sweat escaped my forehead. My armpits were tingling too. My hands were clammy and my feet were steamy and moist in my oven-like sneakers.
I was being delirious and it was all about the “Belgian dude”!
**
I stretched my hand out for the umpteenth time and hit the snooze button as I rolled off my bed and fell on the tiles. My cheeks got plastered to the tiles and I woke up with a jolt as the coldness slapped my cheek bone. I opened my eyes slowly to prevent the sudden influx of the sun's ray with a lazy groan followed by a big yawn.
I got up slowly and took a glance at my mirror – bed hair, crumpled pyjamas with a tissue role flying loosely with the breeze from my pocket. I lazily yanked it off, ran my palm through my face then took a peep at the time. I had 15 minutes before I could officially be declared “late” for school.
I tore my pyjamas off my body like a crazed fellow, there was almost no time for a bath not to talk of a lovely jog on Vine Fairway.
I was certain I would have outran a speedster in a "race to the bathroom" with the speed at which I dashed into my noble bathroom for a cold bath.
I hurried out of the bathroom, gave my hair a few swishes with my towel, wore a long sleeved, black T-shirt that had white spots accompanied with a tiger-skin coloured vest as well as a dark trouser with a gold chain hanging from the pocket.
I dashed out of my room after wearing a perfume, took the car key to my Hyundai Elantra which I had carelessly thrown at the dining table. I snatched three huge Belgian Style Waffles and packed them up carefully to eat on my way to school.
“The waffles didn’t really have to come from Belgium did they?” I hissed at myself thinking of the guy Amaya was ranting about.
There was no reason why I should have hated the Belgian but I couldn't help it. Jealousy?
I had less than three minutes left to get to school so with quick short strides and a few long jumps, I got to my car.
Mason and Madison had already gone already with my parents although I was to bring them back.
I was home… alone (obviously). The gardener and maids weren't around yet so I had no worries of a snitch telling on how late I woke.
**
It was a horrible way to start the day in school. I mean first of all, I got there fifteen minutes late thanks to the occasional hold ups on the road and a look at my class schedules told me that I had history class with no other than Amaya.
I decided to stick to the only plan I had and that was behaving like she never existed apparently oblivious that the future had a different plan; one that could do nothing but make us have contact with one another.
I packed my car in haste, dropped my key a few times before hurrying up to the school's buildings. I slowly opened the back door and walked into the familiar long hall – the longest in Starglint. The hall was silent, everything was in place, the hall's aura was too perfect but for a defective florescent bulb that had been that way for as long as I’d been in Starglint and the impeccable aura made me apprehensive but I had a much more bigger problem at hand.
I got to the American Chestnut coloured classroom door, had turned the door knob and was already sneaking in before I heard collected voice speak loudly:
"You're around now Harvey, I kept a seat for you beside me"
It was Amaya, my heart almost cut off from the veins and arteries running into it as she blew up my cover and I could tell, although, my eyes were shut that Miss. Griffins, our history teacher had caught me and she had her attention well fixed on me.
I felt like a bacteria being watched beneath a microscope as I turned to look at Miss. Griffins.
"Mr. Rhett, this is the third time you're missing my class in a row, explain yourself" She said very crossed as her hands went akimbo.
"Uhmm... I didn't miss your class ma'am. I just arrived late and it's because of the traffic on Clover Brown Lane".
"I already marked the attendance and that means you're absent. You have detention for an hour after school". She replied trying hard to keep her anger to herself. She really should've blown up.
I took that all in slowly as I had a seat beside Amaya - it was the only one left in the classroom.
I was definitely going to incur my parents' wrath if I stayed an hour more in school because I wouldn't pick up Maisie and Madison and that will make me grounded. If I tried skipping school, I'll get suspended then grounded too. There was nothing I could do.
**
The lecture to me was like trying to fill up a sieve, I didn’t understand as much as anything Miss. Griffins said, it wasn't like I was even listening at all.
Then, the loud, familiar footsteps of the principal coming stripped Miss. Griffins of all the attention. The principal got to our door, paused for a second then opened it.
"Miss. Amaya Hillevi, I suppose you got the school's letter requesting you to spare your time in taking our new student, Uhm, Maisie Illeana who was transferred from a school in Bulgaria. She's in my office now and we expect you to be there in... Three minutes"
He said as he took a long look at his wristwatch.
"Now let's continue..."
Were the last words I heard Mrs. Griffins say as my mind wandered out of reach of reality or life itself. She was here!
There was no dude from Belgium, there was MAISIE ILLEANA from Bulgaria! And Amaya was to be her... Guide.
So, as I pulled up in the garage, I could smell the pungent odour of problems brewing. Everywhere was unusually silent and as I got out of the car and slammed it's door, birds on the roof flew away in a rowdy flurry. Scared-y cats! Or do we still say bats?As I walked to the front door, I caught a face at the window peeking at me. It was Mason looking at me from above with eyes that screamed “doom!”. I rolled my eyes at him, got to the door and let myself in.**My dad wasn't back yet and that'd have been a good thing if mum wasn't going to snitch on me. She was still telling me about the things I should've done so that I could've gotten to school on time to prevent having detention but the sole thing I could conceive as she "ranted on" was... MAISIE!.
"I still don't get how you could've ever been with her bro" Sal said as he stuck his thumbs in the straps of his bag leaving room between his elbow and his abdomen. He kicked an empty can off the walk way as Mer interlocked her arms into his and caused a few bumps as she skipped a few times along with us.I sincerely didn't know either how I'd gotten together with Amaya. I never loved her because she'd always been way too fussy and awfully picky. She did almost whatever made her comfortable not minding others and that didn't still stop her from being a wimp. She was pained, pained that I wasn’t “hers” anymore and every single day made reality hit her more – she’d never get a chance with me, again. I was certain that I was accurate with my hypothesis because we'd grown almost together. We attended the same elementary school, high school and now, college.
A really long passage with small apartments, the size of two cubicles merged. From the petite or let's say trivial terrace, the third room on your left.Firmly held by old, red bricks bountifully garnished with cracks on its surface, a pallid ash gray door stood and on its other side, all her worth outside her homeland were kept. ALL.And there, behind the door with drapes drawn to prevent the incurs of the sun during the day- Just like a vamp will do, a small, portable plasma TV hung to the thinned walls, a stein with red, small cheap wine filled the air and a few inches from the cold dark walls, the soft thud of her heart reminded her that she was living as she lay on her single bed, curled up from the world outside and only peeking to know what was going out there through her TV.Life hadn't been always bad, in fact, it looked like it'd stored up the bad mo
The aura at home was so crisp and tense we could have an entrancing banquet of it and there will still be an ample amount of the "meal" left for Maisie. Our emotions flared when my mother began telling my dad how irresponsible I’d been by not picking up Mason and Madison and how I’d gotten detention. My mother had broken our deal, she’d snitched on me although she told me she wasn’t going to mention it, she broke my trust!I didn't plan on telling my parents that Maisie was coming over to hide till God-knows-when because she was wanted for the demise of a bully who'd come after her and even if I there was a slim chance of that happening before, it had been washed away.For the first time in a long time I was scared... No, panicking. The person I loved with all my life was wanted for murder, the person I had dated was probably assisting the pol
Simple smiles, a trivial pressure of bliss that wedged our lips apart and exposed our dentition. Loud, gaudy, unrefined mirths that sent echoes down the lonely but well-lit street.We couldn't help ourselves, we chuckled, grinned, burst out and even howled without the slightest caution that we were in Fairford Overlook, a residential estate and were expected to be calm and perhaps, be sipping a warm cup of coffee that wet night or reading a bedtime story.It was still raining heavily – hitting the road, our hair and rooftops too like it was in a feud but we didn't give a care in the world, we were soaked, we were drenched, we were wanted by the police and we didn’t have a plan then but we were happy, exceedingly happy!That moment was enchanting, flawless and magical - from the incessant rain that seemed to mat down my dark hair, through the gentle
Rows of lockers on both sides of the long corridor thinned out of my view as I raced with feet hastier than Iris', the goddess of the rainbow, swift-footed messenger of the gods. Their colours fizzled out - Magenta, hue of a perfect green lawn, a spotless blue sky and the golden shade of the sun.I went left, turned right and shot down the longer hallway that had two defective bulbs that flickered inversely to each other. I passed by exquisite and identical hazel coloured doors with brass doorknobs. I knew what was on the other side of those doors and I had been in most - Ruddy carpets, plastered cerulean and white snowy ceilings, air conditioners airing at their topmost potentials, black lounge chairs on one side and a tablet-armed chair on the other side of a desk messed with crisp, white papers.I got out of the building easier than I thought I would. I felt like I was running into a booby trap. I retrieved my four
A 2020 Kia Forte was approaching us with headlamps fully blasting with white bright lights although it was midday at an insane speed. It suddenly swerved to it's left - out of it's Lane onto ours and multiplied it's velocity by infinity.It didn't make any sense and the once pinpoint light that fought through the country road's brown dust as it grew to become a blinding illumination didn't help.The Lotus Evoras were well behind us and I thought for a crack second that we were victorious just before the Kia Forte and our Land Rover rammed severely into each other.At that instant every darn thing slowed down - the pieces of the windscreen that shattered, the deafening and unending alarms of the two cars, the suffocating, pallid airbags, the resonant high-pitched shriek of Maisie as a thin but very acute piece of the windscreen tore her face - closely beneath her left eye, a bleeding knee, a broken shoulder, two destroyed v
Two red and white ambulances whose loud unrelenting engines and sirens tore apart the natural serenity a cold, wet night brought along rushed with a mad haste into NYC teaching hospital with his emergency horns blaring deafeningly like it would knock off death till they got to the hospital.As the rescue vans pulled up in front of the cream and pink building, four storeys tall, splendidly constructed and very very well illuminated hospital that was kept in solitary from the hustle and bustle of the outside world, seven nurses of different ranks hurried out to meet the casualties of a ghastly motor accident; a first-aid kit held tightly in one of them's hand.Stretchers came along less than thirty seconds after. Every living organism was in an hysteria as they all worked hand in hand to save the lives of the badly battered victims. The only substances that paid no attention were the yellow and pitch Begonia flowers that danced with th