Chapter 14 (post two)

Pre-read note: I find that this chapter is quite a jump from the last, and through editing I plan on changing that. The is supposed to be cheesy romantic, but if it doesn't make sense, or makes you want to vomit, let me know. Thanks. :)

Chapter fourteen, section two:

My classes passed slowly. I noticed Cara, Chantel and Amy all ignored me. I kept trying to tell myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I kept feeling like it wasn’t true. I had smiled, I had encouraged it.

I tried to catch up with some other people, but most of the people I usually hung out with were Amy’s friends, and they had a million excuses not to talk to me.

I walked back to the residence by myself. The walls seemed extra blank, the floor extra cold. I changed out of my uniform and into my sweats, and then headed to the roof top. The sky was clouding over and threatening rain, but I didn’t mind. The sun would have just been mocking me anyways.

The space on the roof was empty, but comforting. I sat on some metal box that was only a few feet high, facing the school grounds below. There was something about sitting by myself looking down on everyone else that gave me a sense of space, as well as a bit of a thrill. No one knew where I was, no one could find me. I’d brought my cell outside this time, though, in case Jake called, so I wouldn’t miss it like the other day.

I fought the urge to go back downstairs and demand to talk to Amy, or anyone for that matter. It wouldn’t make a difference anyways. Amy was still too angry to see reason, and her loyal friends would stick by her.

I now understood what it was like to be on the other side of the popular group. Before, I had always just been in the middle somewhere, never friends with them nor disliked by them. I knew their names, and maybe they knew mine too, but I didn’t talk to them unless I had to. Here, I had been on the inside for the first time, and I could now see its downfalls. Popularity is a tough, fragile thing. Only the top people have the least bit of stability, and that was only if they had people who would be on their side whatever may come.

My phone rang then, while I was watching people and psychoanalysing teenage popularity. I answered it, my fingers crossed hoping it was Jake; my toes crossed hoping it was Amy.

“Hello?”

“Hey, New Wings, it’s Jake.”

My face instantly lit into a smile. “Hey, how are you?”

“I’m good. I was just calling because I realized I never took you to buy shampoo or soap. I meant to take you the other day, but I couldn’t get a hold of you.”

“Oh! I’m sorry about that; I didn’t have my phone on me. But I when I went shopping with some friends the other day, I got some.”

“Oh, good! I’m glad you’re making friends already, too.”

“Oh, yeah,” I lied. “There are so many nice people here.” He didn’t need to know that no one was currently talking to me, he seemed too happy.

“Does that mean you are busy today?”

“I’m free, actually.”

He said he’d drop by, and I told him I was on the roof.  I hung up, my mood suddenly lighter.

When Jake arrived, I slid over and made space for him beside me. I could feel the warmth of his body as our hips touched, and although there was more than enough room for me to slide down further, I didn’t. He didn’t seem to mind.

We talked about nothing, but that nothing was what made my day. I couldn’t feel sad when I was sitting beside him, there was no possible way. He had a spark in his eyes and a catching smile that you couldn’t ignore. When he was happy, you were too.

We discussed friends, school, life. He answered my questions.

“Why is this world without art?” “They don’t think it is necessary, and it’s too costly to produce too much of too many products.”

“Why do they not have more colours in different products?” “Products can be more easily made and distributed if they only come in limited colours, and most of the time black, gray or white are the more versatile and easy colours to make a product.”

“Why is this society so concerned with money and profit?” The response came sarcastically, “What society isn’t?”

As I thought about this, we sat in silence. By now the sun was getting low in the sky.

“We are going to miss the sunset at the beach.” I pointed out.

“I don’t mind,” he said and then he mumbled something under his breath.

“What did you say?”

“Just that, it doesn’t really matter where I see it,” slowly came his answer, “It’s just, nice, you know, to see it with someone.”

I watched his face, but it was unmoving. His eyes were set on the distance, his grin crooked, and even when he turned and caught my eye, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He didn’t turn away, he just kept watching me. I smiled with embarrassment.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”

He looked out over the grounds again. There was no one around; everyone must have been in the cafeteria eating dinner by now. The sun kept sinking lower, the clouds sitting on top.

“I can’t tell what you’re thinking, either,” he said.

I watched the light dance around the sky, a watercolour painting, with thick lines defining the clouds and the water washing them all together, and said, “I wonder if the clouds wish they could sink with the sun, travel to the other side of the earth.”

I realized how strange this sounded out loud, and I laughed. He joined in, but said, “If you were the sun, and I was the clouds, I would follow.”

This threw me aback. I think it did for him too, as though the words had just fallen out, because his eyes set back on the sun and his face returned to its unreadable state.

I whispered slowly, “If I was the sun, and you were the clouds, I don’t think I would set.”

He didn’t respond, he didn’t even look at me, but I suddenly felt his hand wrap around mine. I placed my head carefully on his shoulder, and when he didn’t protest, we watched the world sink in pinks and reds, our bodies intertwined.

Chapter 14 (post one)

Pre-note: This section is the being a s small conflict. Please let me know if you find it at all confusing. Also, I do so much telling instead of showing throughout New Wings... >.< The more I read back, the more I need to change! So much work! lol anyways...

Chapter fourteen, section one:

We settled into our usual half circle, close enough to the other lawn that we could watch easily, while far enough from the road that the occasional car wouldn’t disrupt conversation.

There was discussion about dresses and hair, although as soon as the football players walked out across the lawn, all eyes were on them. I watched them settle into their usual spot, their collars blowing the breeze. They were probably the best looking boys on the lawn, and I could easily see why they were the subject of the crushes. The one boy’s hair even fell in his eyes the same way Jake’s did, and the other wore the same brown flip-flops. The one with the hair falling in his face tucked it behind his ear and our eyes caught for a moment. He smiled, not breaking eye contact, and I smiled back. But just as suddenly as the moment had begun, it ended. I quickly turned away, feeling like a little child who has stolen from the cookie jar. This boy, 68 or 56 or something, was off bounds.

I couldn’t shake the guilt in my stomach. It mimicked something like hunger, and I realized that perhaps I should’ve grabbed a sandwich when everyone else had. At least then I would have a purpose, something to distract myself from what I had done. I quickly excused myself, and although the girls’ conversation had come to almost a halt, they didn’t say a word. I got up and began to walk towards the buildings.

My back was to the boys the whole time, so I missed some key things that I am sure occurred. I didn’t see the boy walk confidently across the road towards the group I’d just been sitting with, nor did I see a couple of his friends follow him. I didn’t see the joy spread across Chantel’s face as 56 came up to her, mentioning something about the football game, then asking her to the dance, all in one run-on sentence. I didn’t see Amy’s face brighten with anticipation as 68 came towards her, nor did I see it fall as he walked right on past the group.

The boy with the hair in his eyes tapped me on the back as I walked towards the cafeteria. I turned around, expecting it to be one of the girls, but froze when I saw who it was.

“Hey,” he said, smiling. “Where are you going?”

I could see he was joking around, making small talk, and I could hardly resist the urge to walk away. I hadn’t even seen Amy’s face at this point.

“I’m just going to the, uh, caf,” I said awkwardly, turning myself away from him and towards my destination.

“Are you going to the dance this Friday?”

“Um, yeah,” I said, trying to sound unwary already.

“Would you like to go with me?”

He seemed so confident, the way he knew what he wanted to say and just said, and so cute, the way he smiled at me. If it was back on earth, I would’ve jumped at the opportunity. However, here in Heaven, I had something in my gut saying no.

“Um, sorry, but I can’t,” I said quickly, and then turned, “See you around.”

He probably watched me as I speed-walked to the caf, but I never turned around. He was most likely shocked I’d turned him down, as I’m sure that didn’t occur often in these odd dating rituals. I made it to the caf and bought a sandwich with lots of time to spare before class, but I ate alone in the building. I was avoiding people, hoping the feeling in my stomach would go away. That feeling that I’d almost crossed some line, some deep rooted girl code in this world, and at the same time, almost betrayed my feelings for someone else.

Chapter 13 (post one)

 Pre-note: Another filler chapter! Mostly anyways. I have learned a lot in the past four months in my creative writing class, and looking back, find that most of this story is terrible. But I keep telling myself that I can make it better, that this is only the first draft and all it's for is getting ideas done. I really want to start writing again during the Christmas break! I am posting all this old work and I want to post NEW stuff! So if I start posting multiple sections a day, it's so that I can get to the point where I'm posting new writing. Anyways, enough rambling, here's so VERY rough writing:

Chapter thirteen, section one:

Monday morning they announced the dance that had been rumoured the week before. It was like a switch had been turned; the whole class instantly buzzed with anticipation. The teacher up front didn’t even try to calm everyone down, instead letting the class go early to lunch.

We streamed out of the school building. Stopping by the cafeteria, we grabbed sandwiches then walked to the front of the grounds, all the while discussing the dance.

One thousand boys; one thousand girls. The front lawn of the boys school, strung with lights and streamers. A huge sound system; a real DJ. Pulsing beats and new faces. The excitement was catching. After we settled into the grass, the chatter turned to boys. Eventually I couldn’t keep up, since they’d been studying these boys for years and I’d only first seen them last week, so I asked the girl beside me, who was sitting quietly without speaking a word, whether she’d run back to the residence with me so I could grab a book I’d forgotten.

She agreed, and as we walked, I got her to talk.

“What’s your name?” I asked, “I don’t remember being introduced.”

“Lulu,” she said, “And I don’t typically eat lunch with this group, that’s why we haven’t been introduced before. Usually I eat with a couple of my friends, but they both joined the volleyball club during lunch on Fridays, so I tagged along with Ella today.”

“That’s cool,” I said, “I’m no good at volleyball either.”

“Ha, neither am I! My arms get way too sore too fast!”

“Me too!” I laughed.

“You know you are really lucky to be hanging out with that group, being new here and everything.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They are the most popular group at our school, as well as some of the richest students. Amy’s dad is the mayor of the city, they are loaded.”

“That actually explains a lot.”

“Like all the brand name clothes, all the latest electronics, everything she could possibly want.”

I paused for a moment, and then worded carefully, “I was never popular at my old school, why would that want to hang out with me here?”

“I typically don’t get involved,” started Lulu, “But I’ll tell you this because I don’t normally hang out with this crowd. They like the fact that you are a little odd.”

“What?” I asked, slightly taken aback.

“No, no,” said Lulu quickly, “In a good way, a really good way. You don’t follow trends and dress they way everyone else does outside of class, but you do it nicely. They like the way you dress and the fact it’s not the same. You don’t wear your hair and makeup the way everyone else does either, but you still look really good every day.”

I blushed with all the compliments. “Really?”

“Yeah,” said Lulu, nodding, “It’s true.”

“Well, I don’t have much makeup or hair stuff because I haven’t gone shopping yet, that’s why I don’t get all nicely done for school like everyone else. And my clothes I picked out all at once, without really thinking, so I just throw things together sometimes.”

“Well, you do it well,” she said as we walked into the elevator, “What floor?”

“Six.”

The elevator zoomed us up to the sixth rec room floor, where Lulu waited as I ran into my room and grabbed my Physics book.

On the way back, we wandered through the garden, since Lulu was meeting her friends outside the gym just before lunch ended.

“Do you ever miss your family?” I asked her randomly.

“Sometimes,” she said. “Elementary school wasn’t a boarding school, so I used to spend a lot more time with them. But I go home every weekend, so it’s ok.”

We came to the doors of the gym, but no one was there yet. There was a bench under a tree nearby, so we headed over to it and sat down.

We chatted about school and family for a little longer. I was careful not to give much away, since I had been taught by Jake not to mention earth. When she asked where I was from, I said it was pretty far away and she wouldn’t have heard of it before, and then quickly changed the subject. She understood that Jake was my Guider, and I don’t think she understood that meant I had come from another world, but she didn’t ask about my family.

When her friends joined us, we walked back to the school building together, agreeing to hang out again sometime.

Chapter 12 (post two)

Pre-read note: This section is try and explain some things, except I don't know if I'm accomplishing that or confusing the reader. Something tells me that this will all be re-written, one day when I have the time. 

Chapter twelve, section two:

I immersed myself in Jake’s tour.

We took his sleek car around the city, from end of town to the others. We toured the neighbourhood where my school was, a suburb full of large cookie-cutter houses, then headed into the city itself. The place divided into districts, as I had noticed on my shopping trip the other day: shopping, business, dining and services.

Jake drove through all three, pointing out places that might interest me. I tried to remember where some of them were, such as the clothing store and drugstore from yesterday, as well as some interesting restaurants, although all the buildings were made of that same reflective gray material, which made them all look the same. We came to a building with red, stylized letters reading, “Sunrise Chinese,” and pulled into a driveway leading to a parking lot in the back.

 The place was modern and sleek, not a neighbourhood Chinese restaurant at all. The tables were tall, black, with matching chairs. Red lanterns hug above each, the only colour in the room. It was the most decorated place I’d been in, and although it was sparse and very modern, I liked it.

“This place is so cool,” I said to Jake.

“Yeah, I come here all the time,” he replied.

As we flipped through menus, large, black and white things with more cheesy, stylized font, I said, “What do you recommend?”

“For vegetarian options....” he flipped the page, “The eggrolls, for sure, and the deep-fried tofu.”

“Those are not the healthiest options!” I laughed, “But, ok, I’ll try those,” I shut the folder and made room for it on the table-for-two. More quietly, so the people around us wouldn’t hear, I asked, “Since here, in this world, people aren’t hungry, how does it work with weight? Can you still lose or gain weight the same way?”

“No,” Jake said, folding his menu and placing it on top of mine, “It’s more of a... choice here.”

“You can choose?”

“If you want your body to be smaller or bigger, it will slowly adapt.” He tried to explain. “Since you are technically a spirit here, you are maluable and don’t apply to the basic rules of a physical body.”

“I think I understand...” I said, but before I could finish my thought our waiter appeared. I was surprised that he wasn’t Chinese or even Asian; he was an average, white man probably half a dozen years older than myself.

“Hi, can I take your orders?”

He took them down on a pad of paper, the disappeared into another room with our menus. It was getting busier as it approached 5:30pm. I wondered how this world worked, whether there were other countries, whether they were like the ones back home or if they were different too. I looked up a Jake, who was checking his phone, but stopped myself. The room was too crowded to ask openly about this world. Instead, I smiled and said, “What is choi meing?”

He described his order for me and my thoughts were pushed to the back of my mind.

When we finished dinner, it was seven, and although I told him that I was going to be late for the curfew, he said that students would often arrive late on Sundays and it was ok, because I was with him. And so we headed off to that the very first place he’d shown me last week: the beach.

Again, it was empty, not a soul for miles. When we pulled up, the clouds in the sky were blocking the moon and the stars, so the ocean looked like an angry blanket of gray.

Jake brought blankets, one to sit on and one for me, without a sweater since I hadn’t thought we were going to be out late.

We settled far from the water, half the blanket on the slope of the dunes and half on the flat of the beach. When we laid back, with the dunes propping us up to forty-five degree angles, I was disappointed in the cloud cover. The view would have been amazing if it was just stars and a moon, but instead it was mysterious black and gray sheets of untouchable fabric.

“Too bad about the clouds,” I whispered.

“They are neat, though, in their own way.”

As I watched them, I could see them move. It was only slightly noticeable at first, then they picked up, and I watched them drift across the sky. I offered some blanket to Jake, and when he refused, pulled it in closer around me.

“We should talk,” Jake said, watching my eyes drift open and closed, “So you don’t fall asleep.”

“Ok,” I said.

“You must have more questions.”

“I did have another...”

“Yeah?”

“Are there other countries?”

“Yes. This world is the same as yours geographically, and most continents are divided up the same way. China is in the same place. Many places are named for their Earth cities and states.”

“Where are we?”

“We are in North America, on the West coast.”

“Like, Canada?”

“North America applies to the geographical area of Mexico, the United States and Canada back on earth.”

“Oh. So what province are we in?”

“Calumbia.”

“With a c-a?”

“Yep.”

“Like California and British Columbia combined?”

“Yes.” He grinned.

I thought about it for a second, then laughed. “Really? Huh.”

The clouds were starting to clear a little; they were drifting apart and little gaps were opening, where the stars were poking out.

“About not gaining weight...”

“Yeah?” He looked me with his hands behind his head.

“How?”

“I know this is hard to understand, but remember, you aren’t you anymore. This body and this world aren’t actually physical; they’re not made up of particles or atoms. You are a spirit – you are maluable, like Playdoh.”

“So how can I change?”

“Just want it.”

“I’m wanting it; nothing is happening.”

“It takes more time than that, give it a couple weeks. But don’t turn into one of those stick figures; it’s not attractive.” He smiled a huge grin.

I laughed, “Yeah, I’ll try to resist!”

I paused, then asked, “Does that mean I can change into absolutely anything?”

“There’s limitations, but only the limitations your mind has.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t even understand it all, but basically, you don’t need to worry about turning purple or growing a tail.”

“And if I wanted a tail?” I respond with a grin.

“Sorry about that, then,” he laughed, “Maybe someday.”

We both turned back to the sky with smiles lingering on our cheeks.

“It’s late,” he said, glancing at his watch, “We should get going.”

“Five more minutes.”

He looked at the sky, saying, “Five more minutes,” as the clouds drifted apart and the moon began to shine through.