I was woken up by my phone ringing the next morning.

“Did I really forget to turn off my alarm now that I was officially on holiday?”

After yesterday I just wanted to stay in bed for the day.

Standing up, I headed to where the ringing was coming from. To my surprise, when I grabbed it, I saw my friend’s name flashing on the screen.

Looking at the clock, it wasn’t even eight in the morning. Was something wrong?

“Hello, Paul? Is everything ok?” I asked fearfully.

“Where are you?” he simply answered.

“I’m… in my room. Why?”

“Why?” he asked back, clearly annoyed. “Didn’t we agree we were going fishing today?”

“Oh, that!” I laughed, relieved. “Sorry, I forgot.”

“And that is funny, how?”

“Oh no, that’s not why I’m laughing. I thought something had happened to you.”

“Well, you could say that. Anyway, are you coming or what?”

“Hmm, well, I’m already awake. Might as well.”

“If that’s the case, get yourself over here already,” he said before hanging up.

Like I’ve said to that girl, I found fishing pretty boring. Anything requiring me to stay put was. That was why I skipped classes whenever I could. Still, this was better than me sulking in my room all day because I had my mum scolding me for two hours since I apparently wasn’t that good of a host to the guests. How was I supposed to not look bored if I was painfully so? And why did I have to be nice to a guy who couldn’t keep his hands to himself? Even dad was glaring at him, and he was always very composed in those events. Receiving guests, I mean. Anyway, enough about that. I was getting bored of just sitting there while holding the fishing rod, so I decided to start a conversation with Paul.

“So, what have you been up to lately?”

“Not much. And please, don’t talk so loudly. You will scare the fish,” he said without so much as moving a muscle. Wasn’t it for the fact he was breathing, you could mistake him for a statue of a fisherman.

“Rude. If I’m so much of a bother, why do you even bring me?”

“Hmm… force of habit? I could ask you the same about you coming.”

“As if you could survive the boredom without me,” I joked.

“Shh! Not so loud.”

Not knowing what to talk about next, I looked around.

The fishing pond was a really nice place to be, I noticed. There were some picnic benches surrounding the water with trees providing shade and there was also the sound of birds and cicadas. It all felt very… summery if that’s a word. I thought it would be nice to gather my friends around here. If I still had any, that was. I still greeted them in the street, but apart from Paul, I hadn’t spent time with any of them for a long time. They didn’t even come to my birthdays anymore.

Damn it, I’m getting myself depressed again.

“Are those tables a new addition?” I asked, this time whispering.

“What are you talking about? When we were kids, we would eat while sitting there.”

“Is that so?”

“A-yep.”

He had better memory of those days than I did, so I suppose that really was how it went.

It wasn’t that I didn’t treasure those times, it’s just that I was always rushing around. Everything about those memories was a blur to me. It could be argued I was very much the same today, but I liked to think I had gotten better. Even if just a little.

Although, If I had to say, I feel like I was a lot happier back in my childhood. Maybe because things at home weren’t so complicated and what were now acquaintances were at the time close friends? Save for Paul, but he was like a cousin or something, and he used to babysit me, despite being just three years older.

Ah! I’m doing it again.

“Anyway,” I continued. “What is it that happened to you?”

“What?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as he finally looked in my direction since we arrived. If he reacted, I had struck something worthwhile.

“On the phone. You said something had happened. Well, what was it?”

He fell silent for a moment and went back to looking towards the water. By the way he shifted his body, I knew it was something embarrassing. At least I hoped so. I needed a bit of a laugh at that moment.

“Well,” he stuttered. “That is why I asked you to come. I need your help with something.”

“My help? This must be good!” I said, getting giddy.

“Well… you’re a girl, right?”

“Took you long enough to notice,” I retorted, laughing.

“Don’t make me whack you.”

“Sorry, sorry,” I said, covering my head with my free hand. “Please continue.”

“Well, the thing is… I need your help choosing a gift.”

These words got my gears turning. Even with my bad memory, I knew Paul long enough to know some things about him as facts.

First, he was an only child. Second, his parents celebrated their birthdays in the same month, and those were still far away… At least I thought so… No, it was definitely sometime in November or October. Finally, it couldn’t be my birthday. I, at the very least, knew when my birthday was. With all that excluded, it had to be some girl he didn’t know very well. A classmate or a crush perhaps?

Interesting.

“For a female friend of yours?”

“Not quite… Not a friend. My girlfriend.”

“Your what!?” I shouted.

In a blink of an eye, I received a proper whack to the back of my head, where I wasn’t covering. The funny part… “funny”, was that the not so loud he shouted, was made whispering. That’s a pro fisherman for you. Even when screaming, he did so in a hushed tone.

“Gee! You didn’t have to hit me so hard,” I whined.

“Sorry, sorry. I’ll buy you some ice cream later,” he said regretfully.

“Make it two,” I retorted.

“Don’t push it.”

“One for the whack, the other for my help, you jerk.”

“Oh… ok… thanks,” he said, sheepishly.

He went back to looking forward and I kept rubbing where I was hit. It wasn’t hurting that bad, I just had enough slaps on the head on the previous day.

“Still, I might not be your best choice. I mean, I don’t even know her. Or do I?”

“No, probably not. Does Claire ring any bell?”

“Hmm, can’t say it does, but it’s a nice name.”

“Thanks.”

“How is she?”

“How is she?” he echoed.

“Yeah, how is she?” I echoed back. “You know, is she nice? Is she pretty? How old is she? That kind of stuff.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to talk about that,” he said, looking away.

“Oh, come on! Don’t be shy now! You brough it up, now tell me everything there is to know!”

“Shut up. I’ll introduce you to her someday, so just wait until then. And for god’s sake, don’t be so noisy,” he said annoyed.

“Well, should I shut up, or should I be quieter? Which one is it?”

A sigh left his mouth.

“Do as you like, just… stop scaring the fish,” he grumbled in defeat.

◊◊◊

The day after confirming I had graduated to high school officially marked the beginning of my summer holidays. So, what were my plans? Besides my new part-time job, I would just laze around like I did every summer break. Since I’m always worrying about something, whenever I could, I liked to just do nothing and enjoy a little peace of mind before I started to fret about something new. Or old, really. The difference between this summer and all other fifteen was that, starting that year, I got to make some money. I was finally old enough for a proper part-time. In the previous years I tried my hand at babysitting, but I soon found out I sucked at taking care of kids. Kids were too full of energy and talkative for me. Maybe if my neighbours had the shy type of kids, I could have managed it, but I had no such luck. I had also tried lawn mowing and newspaper delivery. I could do without the sun and heat battering me, so that was also short lived.

This year I’d be working in a restaurant, as a waitress. The pay wasn’t very promising, but at least I could keep the tips. Now, why did I want to be working instead of having fun? Well, I just knew that, since I didn’t have any friends—or the skills to make them—I would just stay at home doing nothing all day besides the chores. This way at least I could save up some money for the uniform the school decided to implement the usage starting next year without my father having to pay up for everything I’d need. Who knew? I could make a friend at work or meet some nice guy.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

As if, right?

To be honest, I was more interested in the part where I had to talk with other people. Since I always got super nervous when talking with someone, this job could help me with that. I really hated that side of me that didn’t want to deal with others. I was sick of always being and feeling alone and still keeping my distance from people. I wanted to change. As far as I knew, the restaurant didn’t really have much of a clientele, so it wouldn’t be so much of a shock to suddenly having to socialize. At least I hoped so.

Was this a good idea after all?

“Click… clack”.

The sound of the front door opening and shutting snapped me out of my spiral of self-doubt. Getting out of my room, I went to meet my dad who had gone straight to the kitchen.

“Hi dad.”

“Hey there. Oh!” he exclaimed as he noticed me. “Is that your uniform? It looks good on you!”

“Oh erm… yeah, thanks,” I stuttered.

For the latter half of the day, I had been wearing it. The uniform for my job was a simple white shirt and black dress pants and waistcoat. Since I was a girl, I didn’t have to wear a bow tie, but depending on how my female co-workers were dressed, I’d decide if I wore it or not. The restaurant prided itself for being more on the fancy side. Unfortunately for them, only old people, or some guy trying to impress a girl would go there, so it was more appearance than substance. But that is something you wouldn’t hear me say out loud, and one of the reasons I chose to apply to work there, so that’s that. Anyway, this uniform made it obvious how curveless I was.

“I still think I look weird,” I muttered.

“Nonsense. It makes you look very elegant. And mature.”

“Yeah, a bit too elegant if you ask me,” I said waving my hands parallel to my body.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. Your mother was also like that at your age. You will see that by the end of high school, you will be just like her.”

“I wonder about that…”

For a moment, silence fell between us. It happened every time mum came up in conversations. My father always got sad when I asked about her, and so I never really voiced my curiosities. And believe me, I had many, since she passed away when I was five. Besides him, the only source of information I had was my grandma, but she had passed away only a few months and even when she talked about her daughter, it was always in a critical way.

“Anyway,” he said, breaking the silence. “When is it that you start today?”

“I have to be there at seven.”

“Seven? What about your dinner?”

“They say I’m free to go home after ten thirty. I’ll be fine.”

“But it takes half an hour to get there and another to come back!” he said worried. “Won’t you at least eat something before going?”

That’s how dad was. I’m just speculating, but since he was a single father, he took upon himself to be a whole parenting unit. He was caring to the point of being super annoying. This, to me, was one of those times. And like any of those times, I just decided to go with the flow. It was less bothersome.

“Oh, alright,” I sighed. “Just don’t make it too heavy. I don’t want to fall asleep on my way there.”

I’m ashamed to say that all my dad’s worries ended up being justified. Just not in the way he had feared.

Unfortunately, I ended up throwing up the food he so caringly prepared for me. I messed up some orders, got a bit yelled at by the manager and having to kinda interrupt our clients’ conversations to take their orders was very awkward. It was bad. I kept telling myself it would be ok. That it would be easier down the line. Honestly, I didn’t really believe that. By the end of my shift the same manager who yelled at me said I didn’t do so bad for someone with no experience, but even that had a caveat. My mind was too much of a mess at that moment, but it was something in line with me either not messing up so much by the end of the week, or simply quitting. I just didn’t know what to do. Would I be able to even make it to the end of the week? And if I did it, would I be able to do it until the end of summer?

Should I just give up?

I was realizing that night was one I wouldn’t get any sleep. I arrived home, went straight to bed without bothering to even change out of my uniform. I was tearing up, I was hungry and tired and also, I needed a bath.

I looked at the clock. A quarter to midnight. Maybe dad had left some leftovers in the fridge, I hoped. Would me taking a bath wake him up though? I really didn’t want to be explaining myself to him. I guessed I would just have to make do with feeling icky with sweat.

I had just closed the fridge, disappointed to find no food ready to just be heated and eaten, when I heard his steps down the stairs. Soon enough, there he was, rubbing his eyes.

“Hey. Had a rough first day?”

“Dad, please… I really don’t want to talk about it,” I whimpered, tears ready to start flowing again.

“Ok,” he simply said.

He walked by me, towards the fridge.

“I’m making me a sandwich. Should I also make one for you?”

“Yeah… I’d like that.”

“Ok,” he stated with a slight smile. “Why don’t you take a shower in the meantime? You are still in your work clothes after all.”

I just nodded and left the kitchen, straight to the bathroom. I had to admit, he could be overbearing sometimes, but in times like this he actually knew how to deal with me.

After the bath and putting on my pyjama, I went back to the kitchen, only to find a plate with two sandwiches. I looked into the sink. Empty, just like I had thought. Had he eaten, there would be one empty there. He really had only left the bed because he was worried about me.

I smiled slightly.

“Thanks dad.”

◊◊◊

Once again, I was making my way to school. It was hard to believe my summer holiday was already over. Most of it went like a blur to me. One moment I was at the pool or taking a stroll through the woods, the other, I was shutting up my alarm clock by the third time this morning. And then being yelled out of bed by mum. It was funny how hard it was to get up for school compared to any other day. To me, it really was a waste of time to be shut inside a building in such a beautiful day. Yup, such a waste.

To my surprise, arriving to the classroom was more entertaining than I thought it would. The reason it was so was because the person with whom I would be sharing my desk that day was, apparently, fast asleep while everyone else was talking and introducing to each other making a ruckus. It was a girl, very slim, very pale—something I found very odd after seeing everyone at least slightly sun-kissed—and with long black hair. I couldn’t tell for sure due to how hunched over she was, but I thought she was taller than me. She also wore glasses, but right now she was holding them precariously on her hand, since she had her face resting on her folded arms. As I leaned towards her to see if she was just faking it, I could hear a light snoring sound. I kinda wanted to immediately mess with her somehow but found it would be better not to. It was my first day, so I should stay in my best behaviour. Key word was “should”.

“Alright, class settle down. Settle down, I said!” shouted the teacher as he came in. “This is high school! Start to behave like it!”

Five seconds in, and I already knew he would be a stick in the mud. And our math teacher to boot. He was grey haired, tall, and slim. Kinda reminded me of Mr. Scrooge from the Christmas movies. Only, the one from the movies ended up being nice and I seriously doubted we would see that transformation from this one.

“Oh well, who cares?” I said to myself as I turned my eyes to my desk mate. Should I wake her? I questioned myself.

I knew that just a while ago I wanted to prank her but, seeing how she was sleeping made me feel a bit bad. Just a tiny bit, though. And at least I would do it gently. That teacher on the other hand would probably just whack her awake.

“Hey,” I whispered as I shook her shoulder. “Sorry but you need to wake up.”

Even though I did it gently, she still jolted awake. She looked around as she put her glasses on and looked at me. Her face was something between sleepy and stunned. That is, it was until she took a good look at me. It slowly became one that someone would make when trying to remember something. I was probably doing the same face because I was getting a déjà vu. Her face was vaguely familiar.

“Didn’t we meet at the math exam this summer?”

“Oh yeah, that’s why you look familiar!”

“Ms Abigail Gardener? Is there an Abigail Gardener?”

This last voice belonged to our teacher.

“Yes, yes!” I answered cheerfully, as usual. “That is me!”

“Pay attention when people call your name, miss Gardener!”

What was his problem? Was it really necessary to be like that? On the first day no less?

“S-sorry,” I whimpered, my voice starting to choke.

“Humph! And why are you wearing a blue cardigan instead of tan?”

Because the blue cardigans were the only one that fit me, those being for the junior high students. I couldn’t be blamed for the school not having prepared tan cardigans for shortcakes such as myself, could I?

I really disliked this old geezer. “Anyway,” I thought to shake my mind out of trepidations, before turning back to my previous conversation.

She now was wide awake, but then again, who wouldn’t be after all that shouting.

“I’m sorry, what were we talking about?” I whispered.

“Can’t this wait?” she said, her eyes to the front. “I’d really like to not get shouted at.”

That was a reasonable request. Unfortunately for her—or us, really—I wasn’t a reasonable person.

“Sorry, sorry. I just find it funny how we ended up in the same class. Even funnier the fact we now share the desk.”

“Yes, that is me,” she said raising her arm.

That made me remember something. Or rather; realise that I didn’t. Her name. And because I couldn’t be quiet for a second, I had just missed hearing it during roll call.

“Well, as I was saying—”

“Please Abigail, be quiet! You will get us in trouble!”

“Will you talk to me after?” I whispered in an almost begging tone.

“… Yeah, ok. Sure. Just… be quiet for now, ok?”

After the longest twenty minutes, which fell way worse than all those hours I spent fishing with Paul, we were finally allowed to leave class. Not before getting our ears chewed off by the teacher because no one came prepared to start the classes immediately. Well, no one except perhaps her. As we were walking around the corridor, she was shouldering a heavy bag in which I could see some notebooks with their covers peeking. I quickly formed the image she was very hardworking and responsible. Kinda made me wonder why she had to take the exam if that was the case. Was she perhaps a bit dumb despite her looks?

Oh, and she was actually a lot taller than me. My head was just about her shoulder height. Not that she was unusually tall. I was the one who was shorter than average. And no, I didn’t have a complex about it.

“So,” she began, sounding a tad annoyed. “What was it you wanted to talk about Abbigail?”

“Well, for starters… what’s your name?”

She stopped walking and turned to me.

“Didn’t you hear it in the classroom just now? Also, I distinctively remember you saying you wouldn’t forget it when we were checking our scores,” she said now sounding irritated.

“Did I? I’m so sorry.”

I truly didn’t remember saying that, but it was definitely something I would say.

The face I was making must have been enough to prove my feelings of guilt, as she simply shrugged before resuming our walk with a sigh.

“It’s Violet.”

“Nice to meet you again Violet. You can just call me Abby.”

“Hmm.”

Not much of a talker, are you?

Regardless of that, I pressed on.

“So… what did you do during summer?”

“Worked.”

“Worked? Didn’t you go out with your friends?”

“Don’t have any.”

All her answers were said in a very dry manner. It was as if she wanted to get done with our conversation as quickly as possible. She definitely did.

“How about I become your friend?” I gleefully suggested.

Again, we stopped as she faced me.

“I don’t even know you,” she said in a mix of confusion and annoyance.

“That’s ok! It will come with time!”

She was now just confused. It was as if she was listening to something completely alien. Truth be told, I almost burst some ribs trying not to laugh due to the face she was making. I did realize how childish and cringe my talk was, which made me a bit embarrassed, but her face was what really was getting to me. Still, I held it in. I felt that if I did so, all I had said would be in vain. That, and the fact she would probably come to hate me. I was fine with people finding me annoying, but the same didn’t apply to being hated. Although I was aware it was impossible to be liked by everyone.

“Do people really say such cliched things?” she grumbled as she resumed walking.

I dashed after her. As I took a peek at her face to see if she was mad, I had the surprise of seeing her glowing red and clearly trying to hide a smile. I couldn’t help but giggle. Hearing me, she turned her head to the opposite direction I was.

“What is it now?”

She sounded annoyed, but to me it sounded as embarrassment in disguise.

“Oh, nothing,” I replied amidst giggles.

Until the time for us to go home, we spent between classes and me nagging her during break times. Turns out the day was actually pretty good.