It was late. Not late in the after-dark, heat up your supper in the microwave way. The sun was still shining brightly outside, glistening off the old greying snow. The isolated hallway with its brick walls had no occupant; it stood alone, strong. The rooms attached to the hallway were empty, the students all off having lunch. Classes doors were closed firmly. The clock ticked slowly, their tired hands both sliding past the one.
Feet shuffled down the hallway. Their owner? a sixteen year old girl with things on her mind that shouldn't have mattered to a child who was entitled to a little naivite and innocence for her last teen years, although she would get none.
In her head were thoughts, images, dreams, despair. She had no one to help her sort through her nightmare, nobody who knew more than her.
With a sigh, she leaned her shoulder on the cold wall, sliding slowly down to the ground with a blank expression. She hated herself for being such an idiot. She had thought she was smarter than this; that anything making her miserable would've been a death or something like it, not, she hated to admit this, a boy.
Not just any boy. She wasn't a girl who pined for a boyfriend so she wouldn't be "alone". Nor was she a girl who frequently pined at all. It was just this one boy. The way he walked in the hallways, completely oblivious to anyone else. The way his face rested a short distance from the piano keys while he concentrated on a particular piece. The way he ignored anyone he wasn't talking to and gave his total attentions to the person in front of him. His voice over the radio during his show, and the way he danced in his seat and sung along during the songs.
She had thought she wasn't such a girl to smile whenever he passed by in the hallway. She didn't think she could be any more moronic, but was again proved mercilessly wrong; if she tried to talk or write while thinking about him, her brain would stop working. Sentances that once flowed freely were jumbled in her head, her hand, clutching at pencils, couldn't write a word.
She sat there, on the warming tiles. Her eyes gazed out in front of her without really seeing anything. Her hands tightly wrapped around a coiled notebook; hers. The air around her started to heat up. Without even a glance at her watch, she knew class would start soon. Kids two years younger than her plodded past, chattering like seagulls. She thought they would peck out her brain.
She pushed their voices violently out of her head. A few of the students glanced down at her, but none really paid any attention. A foot accidentally kicked her hand and she ignored the muttered apology. Her red and black covered notebook had spun out of her hands and lay across the hallway, open. She just closed her eyes and felt a tear run down her cheek. It slipped into her mouth and reminded her of the ocean.
The light behind her eyes was suddenly reduced. She wiped both eyes before opening them cautiously. The hazy outline of the person standing above her was impossible to identify, but she could tell it was a he, and he was reading her notebook.
She was more than startled and tried to get up. He was quicker and she froze when she saw it was -the- he; the not just any boy. He smiled nervously and passed her notebook back. She just stared.
"Sorry if you didn't want me to read.." he trailed off with a shrug.
"No, it's okay." She looked at her intertwined fingers. "Not like it's any good."
"What're you saying? It's incredible!"
She blushed, shaking her head in disbelief. He put his hand over hers.
"Really. Whichever guy you're writing about is very lucky."
She moved her hands. He took it as a signal and stood up. Watching him walk away, she thanked herself for not writing his name along with the short pieces about him. He moved towards the door to the radio show; to her, he moved in slow motion.
"Thanks," she blurted quickly, just as he was going through the doorway. He stopped and smiled.
"Maybe you could write something for me one day," he suggested with a wink, before he stepped through into the radio world.