April 16
Thursday 215a.v
She was slowly making her way down Orchard Lane in Fairgarden, Minnesota, New-America, the midday sun blazing down on her tiny body in the chilly spring day, but she kept moving, her tiny hands clutched at the straps of her school-bag.
Subtly, she flinched with each slow step she took, eyebrow twitching in carefully concealed pain and a frown etched on the face that was half-covered by a curtain of messy golden brown bangs.
Fabricated birds sang above her head, thrilling their shrill off-tune melodies that almost tore at the insides of her ears, irritating her to no end.
Seriously, if people would go to such lengths as to recreate extinct species in laboratories, why couldn’t they make sure that they actually sounded right before releasing them? And if that was indeed impossible to accomplish, at least don’t release them whilst they still sound like (excuse to use an old expression) nails on a chalkboard, allowing them to torture the every-human with their ghastly tunes.
Finally, she reached Nr. 6, stepping up to the front door.
She flashed the light pink crystal lotus hanging from the zipper on her bag in front of the metal plate on the door where the handle would have been. A few seconds later, the plate ejected the handle. Cecilia waited for the handle to fall into place before she slowly reached out to grab it, allowing the metal to scan her fingerprints and waited for the edges of the handle to light up green, listened for the sound of the door unlocking before she pulled the door open.
She threw the bag to the floor after the shut the door behind her, bending down slowly, flinching slightly along the way in order to reach the laces on her black mid-high leather ankle-boots, rising up to kick them off her feet before she shed the black trench-coat, letting the garment drop haphazardly to the floor as she stalked further into the house, heading straight towards the door at the end of the short hallway in front of her.
She slowly pulled the bottom of her blouse up from the top of her skirt as she reached the door, stepping into the bathroom as she lifted it up even further, allowing her teeth to bite down on the fabric as she took her place in front of the mirror.
She wasn’t even shocked at what she saw.
The side of her rib-cage was fully visible, and a large, swollen, almost black bruise now stretched out over her pale skin, pounding something fierce and looking quite horrible, but Cecilia could say with utmost seriousness, that that was not the worst her body had been covered in.
She was proud to say that she only slightly flinched as she reached out to open the mirror-cabinet, pulling out the large jar of bruising-gel and twisting off the cap with a practiced flick of the wrist that sent the lid almost flying off.
The jar was almost half-empty, and it hadn’t been bought that long ago.
She hesitated before she put her fingers into the transparent, bright blue goo.
She’s never liked this particular part of her now reluctant almost routine.
She twitched at the uncomfortable sensation of the gel reacting to the moisture and heat from her fingers, the unpleasant tingles immediately spreading out over her whole hand, making it all the more urgent in her mind to slowly press the goo coated fingers against her bruised skin.
She’s too used to doing this, she didn’t even flinch at the pressure.
Slowly, she spread the gel over the entirety of the bruise, moving her fingers with frightening ease until each spot was completely covered, moistened by the blue substance and glistening in the light of the bathroom lamp.
As soon as she was done, she washed her hands of the remainder of the goo, letting out a relieved sigh as the tingles finally released from where they weren’t needed.
She finished her task by covering the bruised area in gauze and bio-tape, securing the treatment and making sure that the goo would not be disturbed during the 12 hours needed for the gel to work its magic.
She released her blouse from between her teeth, and when she did, the faces of the people who gave her the bruise flashed through her head.
She shook her head frantically, turning on the tap to splash water into her face, taking a few breaths as she brazed her weight against the sink as she almost glared at her reflection in the mirror, hating herself for being so weak.
“Get a grip, Cecilia,” she whispered into the silence of the bathroom.
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The hunger was building in her stomach and Cecilia couldn’t handle it, with the kitchen so close, it was there her feet steered her as she readjusted her blouse over her torso.
She’d skipped lunch that day, not because she’d wanted to but because her lunch-box had been rendered absolutely useless after it had been stolen as she’d walked through the hallway that morning and been made to watch as it was chucked straight into the concrete wall, sending its contents flying everywhere.
And so, currently, she was running on the fumes from her small breakfast.
She walked over to the other side of the room and put her hand on the wall, pressing down a little and immediately, the wall caved in with her touch and slid aside to reveal the staircase leading down to the basement. Stepping down, Cecilia was soon walking through the large hidden room that now made up her mother's expansive pantry.
She slowly walked through the many over-stacked shelves, looking over tinned cans, bags of bread, jars of different types of jams, bags of flour, sugar, many other baking ingredients, dried fruits, pickled vegetables, and that was just to name a few of the things her mother had in there.
Cecilia honestly didn’t know how much stuff her mother had in there.
Eventually, she hit what she personally considered a jackpot.
At the end of a shelf, almost hidden from sight, was a surprisingly sizable stash of one-minute-meal packs, the foil wrappings glistening in the weak lighting of the basement. Her mother didn’t like those things, didn’t think they were healthy, but she bought them for the many, many days Cecilia found herself alone at home when the bakery called.
Cecilia sorted through the multiple packs, looking at the colored labels. She might be hungry, but she’s surprisingly picky about her foods, not in the sense of health, but in the sense of what she craves at different times.
Right now, it was comfort food time.
Finally, she found a few red and yellow packs, turning them over to read the meal description on the back for just the mean she wanted, and soon enough, she found it.
Pack in hand, she left the pantry, pushing the tile to close the door behind her.
She threw the pack into the rehydrator, pressing the buttons necessary before she continued walking and jumped on top of the counter, her hand reaching out to the fruit-basket next to her, fingering a cluster of grapes.
She hates sitting around and doing nothing as it is then that the memories resurface.
She could usually handle twice as much treatment from her classmates, it was just that that particular day had been a particularly bad one.
She’d woken up that morning with the most annoying gnawing sensation at the back of her neck, she’d tried to ignore the sensation for the entirety of the day, but it had messed up her mood more than her classmates had been doing.
Being shoved into a concrete bench had just been the final drop in her goblet of endurance.
The sound of the rehydrator dinging snapped her out of her thought process.
Her head snapped towards the appliance, jumping off of the counter.
She shouldn’t have done that. She should have known that jumping like that was not a good idea, and she immediately regretted the action the second she landed.
As her feet touched the ground, her head was thrown into a frantic spin, sending her balance out of whack, her knees buckling under her, causing her to immediately fall face-first in the direction of the stove.
Not wanting to face-plant with hard metal, Cecilia’s arms shot out to slam her hands down on top of the stove. She managed to keep herself upright and her face away from the cold surface, silently cursing her rotten luck as she slowly forced her legs into movement, raising herself off of the tiled floor and moving her to the rehydrator.
She pulled the plate of McDonald’s out of the appliance, immediately popping a fry into her mouth, relishing in one of her few comfort foods as she pirouetted around towards the table, balancing the plate in her hand.
She mentally patted herself on the back when she managed to make it to the table with both herself and the plate in one piece, not even one single fry had dropped, and it satisfied her more than it would have satisfied anyone else.
She still feels a dull ache in her side as she sits down at the table, but thankfully, it’s nowhere near as bad as it had been before, the gel works wonders, otherwise, she wouldn’t be using it.
She dipped another deliciously salted fry into ketchup and nibbled on it, almost moaning at the taste that filled her mouth.
The treat was not something her mother would approve of her eating, despite being the one owning a bakery filled with fattening fructose products that Cecilia had grown quite tired of eating after all these years.
Her legs crossed under the table as she thought about how her mother would react to her skipping out on half the school day.
Again.
She was never the most understanding of women.
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She was turning sixteen that year.
And for whatever reason, for the past few days, she’s felt as though her relatively normal life up to this point was terribly wrong. Something was going to happen, and soon. It was the gnawing at the back of her neck, telling her that something wasn’t right. She couldn’t tell what exactly, she never did when the sensation resurfaced, but she’d learned to pay attention to those feelings.
The last time she had that sensation she has shoved down a staircase and woke up a week later in the hospital.
Hopefully, this time it didn’t get that far, and that comes quickly.
She wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to handle that feeling.
With a sigh, she turned her light brown eyes back towards the canvas stationed in front of her, resting on top of her knees, resuming the movement of her slender arm guiding the tiny limb that was her right hand holding the brush.
She had different sized and colored flecks of paint splattered all over the white short jeans overalls she always wore when painting, the orange T-shirt under it was left unharmed. Her messy, shoulder-length golden brown hair had been tied up into an equally messy bun at the back of her head, she was worried she might have to cut off the elastic is she was ever going to get her hair down again.
Painting was one of the only things she could do right. One of the only things that managed to give her some kind of peace.
The thing that had caused her to pause in the first place, had been the sudden sound of a bird singing over her head.
Sure, she’d heard several birds over the course of the day, but this one was different.
Being in the 23rd century, real birds that hadn’t been born and grown in special animal restoration laboratories were a rare thing to find. The creatures developed in labs never quite sounded right, but those born in nature always did, even when the parents were lab-grown. And this bird that she heard now sounded real.
Trilling it’s pure song from one of the lamp-post mounted onto the concrete fences splitting the properties of the large suburban district.
She’d watched the bird until it took off over the rooftops, taking its song with it.
With a final smear between the darker and lighter color of green, Cecilia allowed herself to lean back and take a look at the final result of her four hours on the porch.
This weeks painting was a forest clearing, a clearing that she’d actually painted several times before in different weathers and seasons. In this painting, the tree’s greenery parted ways for the piercing rays of sunlight, allowing the bright white flowers mixed in with the grass to glow as they basked in the light’s warmth. She allowed her eyes to wander over the expertly placed shadowing.
A small smile played on her lips.
She’s always been proud of her sense of shadows.
Shadows and lighting had always been particularly easy for her, particularly live light coming from flickering flames and fires. She’d gotten comments from her art teachers through the years that whenever a painting of hers included a fire, they could almost see the fire moving, feel the heat from the canvas.
She had no idea why that clearing kept popping up, why it became a reoccurring subject in her paintings. She couldn’t remember having ever gone to a scene even remotely similar to the one she’s painting. She never went into her casual paintings knowing what she’s going to paint, she just lets it become what she finds it becoming whilst looking at it through a blurred vision.
The clearing had become more and more common the last couple of years.
Suddenly, the familiar beeping sound rang through the house behind her, a sound to indicate that someone had just unlocked the front door.
The sound made Cecilia let out a long, exhausted sigh at the conversation she knew would soon follow. She got off of her chair, settling the painting down, letting it lean against the outside of her house before she turned towards her supplies.
A few seconds later, Jennifer Brandet stepped into the kitchen.
The petite middle-aged woman froze when her eyes fell on Cecilia moving around on the terrace.
The woman adjusted the position of her bag hanging over her shoulder, letting out a long sigh. She knew, and Cecilia knew, that the woman should have expected this.
“Did you skip again?” she asked shortly.
Cecilia didn’t answer the woman, carefully putting each utensil back into the wooden briefcase in which they had their home, listening as her mother dropped her bag on the counter, the steps steadily approaching the open terrace doors.
She didn’t need to see her mother know she was leaning against the door-frame, watching her as she wiped the paint off of her brushes.
“What happened this time?”
Cecilia doesn’t turn to her mother, answering more automatically than anything.
“Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Cecilia inspected her paint tubes for leakage, not wanting them to color the wood inside the case, even going so far as to have them neatly wrapped in a rag, all the while feeling her mother’s eyes drilling holes into her back.
“Ceci...”
Cecilia’s hands stopped moving at the seriousness of her mother’s voice, although she still refused to turn around and actually face the woman.
“This can’t continue.”
Cecilia shook her head, her hands now moving to carefully wipe the paint off of her brushes, still not looking at the woman, trying to block her words from her mind, knowing perfectly well that there was nothing she could do about what the woman wanted.
Instead, she focused on her supplies.
“We have to do something about this!” Jenna almost screamed.
Every single utensil Cecilia owned has it’s own assigned spot, not only in her briefcase but also in her room, and she always triple-checked that everything was in place before carefully shutting the lid.
She didn’t do that now.
Cecilia slammed the lid on her supply case closed, snapping the locks in place before she grabbed the handle, rising up from the floor with a graceful spin, although she still kept her gaze away from her mother.
“There’s nothing we can do.” came Cecilia’s short reply, turning towards where she’s set her painting to rest and picked it up, preparing to step past the woman back into the house and return to her bedroom.
Unfortunately, her mother knew her just a bit more than she liked.
Jennifer almost ran over to her daughter, putting her hands on her shoulders and forced her to turn towards her, although Cecilia still didn’t look at her mothers face.
“Of course there is something!” Jennifer sounded almost desperate as she gave her daughter a shake. Cecilia got the feeling that her mother was trying to force her to look at her, and she decided that she would give the woman what she wanted.
Sighing, she pushed her mother's hands away from her shoulders, finally meeting her eyes.
“What?” she asked, almost exaggeratedly.
Jennifer looked a little shocked at her daughter’s word, the girl almost never raised her voice, she never felt the need to do that, her voice was clear enough that it carried out over a noisy room at just a natural level.
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“Tell the teachers?” Cecilia felt as though she was about to burst into laughter at her own words, shaking her head. “Mom… we’re teenagers. We don’t listen to authority.”
She ignored any other comment from her mother, closing her ears from the woman as she turned back towards the door. She felt her mothers eyes follow her even through the open door as she turned to the staircase, trailing after her as she scaled each step.
The attic door had thankfully already been standing open by the time she reached it, allowing her to ascend the remaining stairs behind it into the absolute mess that made up her sleeping quarters.
Expertly navigating over the junk-covered floor, Cecilia picked down last weeks painting portraying a beautiful, glowing cityscape and replaces it with the one she’s just finished. This particular spot on the wall was something she’d designated as the “drying spot”, or simply “painting of the week”.
Once upon a time, she’d tried to put each and every one of her paintings up on the wall, but as said time passed, the number of paintings increased, until she discovered that trying to fit all of her paintings on the walls would literally cover her walls. Now, the paintings from the previous weeks were stashed at the back of her closet, the only place she could put them really as her bedroom had a severe lack of storage space.
After having fetched her art-supplies from downstairs, the young woman changed out of her paint-splattered clothing, putting them on a hanger she’d previously set out in case she’d wound up with more splatters on them, which always happened. It wouldn’t matter if the walls were splattered with pain, Cecilia was thinking about re-painting them sometime soon anyway, so it didn’t really matter to her.
With the paint splattered article of clothing hanging on the wall as well, Cecilia changed into a pair of jeans hot-pants and a pink and white striped sweater who’s sleeves went way past her wrists, clinging to her figure in the most comfortable way possible.
Her clothing was practically the only things in Cecilia’s bedroom aside from her art-supplies and desk stationaries that actually had a proper, designated place where she’s decided they belong, and thus… one of the few things in her bedroom that actually have some semblance of order to them.
Her floor was covered with discarded papers, books, half-filled sketch-books, make-up of different pharmacy-bought brands, jewelry, other types of accessories such as shoes, purses, hats. Not to mention the small collection of antique toys her father had bought her from overseas over the years for her birthday’s, Christmas’s, and really whenever he wanted to as she was growing up.
Some toys he had gotten her were simply too beautiful to be put away, which the majority of the toys had been, and so, they had made their place in her bedroom as beautiful decorations that were rarely seen through the rest of the mess that covered her floor.
Thankfully, she knew where to put her feet so she wouldn’t step on them.
Her mother never once tried to step into her room because of this.
She really needs to get more storage space…
At the moment, however, that didn’t matter to her as she allowed herself to drop down into the soft feathery covers and pillows of her bed, the mattress immediately forming according to her lithe frame as she reached down to fish her tablet from her bag.
She breathed in the strong scent of fresh oil-paint as she unfolded the tablet, activating it as she removed the touch pen from the cover.
Her life was… to put it simply…
Boring.
She had just graduated middle-school with barely passing grades and started high-school just two weeks ago. Somehow she had gotten a strange idea that high-school was going to be different. For it to finally give some change in the lifestyle she’s had for the past almost eleven years.
A good change.
How wrong she was.
High-school was just the same, if not worse.
Where middle-school had been filled with kids sporting low self-esteem at the beginning of puberty, high-school was a gathering of hormonal carnivores that had just developed their claws and fangs, just waiting for something to sink those new aspects of them into, be it their claws, fangs, or even their private parts if they were desperate enough.
More often than not, it just so happened that that little something was Cecilia.
Not the last part though, thankfully.
She couldn’t help it, she really, physically couldn’t. No matter how many lessons she took in classical ballet, her sense of balance remained the same. Nonexistent whenever she actually paid attention to it. She could trip over practically anything, the ballet just gave her the reflexes that prevented her from falling on her nose all the time.
She also had this thing with test-taking situations where she would find herself unable to focus during times of stress. She would try to sit down and take a test and just find her brain crumbling.
She hasn’t passed a test since, ever.
She really couldn’t help it though, they had believed she could in the beginning, but thankfully that had changed after about a year, and now the teachers were also well aware of this fact.
The only reason she was able to graduate from Middle-school was that she’d passed her homework-assignments with flying colors, and the teachers had allowed her to prove her knowledge through other means than sitting down and take a test and thank the stars, she’d managed to pass them with enough points to survive the grade.
Unfortunately, the “special treatment” she receives from the teachers in class has gotten her classmates believing that she’s being favorites by them, and got them gossiping about just how she’d gotten their “favor” in the first place.
She never bothered to correct them, they wouldn’t believe her.
Adults were the only ones that understood, or even knew that Cecilia really couldn’t help everything she was being picked on for. It truly wasn’t her fault that her brain had absolutely refused to fully develop, making it so that Cecilia’s functions completely fall apart whenever she tries to motivate herself to do something or even decide to do anything in particular.
Just the thought of calmly putting one foot in front of the other caused her to trip over thin air.
The doctors had no idea what to do about it, and so, Cecilia just had to live with it.
The mere factor that she’d managed to graduate from Middle-school was a huge step for her.
But no, she was stuck in a class filled with hormonal monsters that were all trying to make themselves feel better by trying to make her feel like something less than human, making it so that Cecilia had almost come to regret her one moment of actual good luck in life.
And so, she buried herself in her own little world of art and dance.
Had she been of the weaker structure people seemed to believe her to be, she probably would have ended her apparent suffering a long time ago, but Cecilia Brandet was not that weak. At least, she didn’t think she was.
She was her father’s daughter, and even if there were only a few traits that the two of them shared, the almost overpowering strength of will and stubbornness she’d inherited from him made it all the easier for Cecilia to power through every day that passed by, even if the man that had given her those traits in the first place wasn’t there.
The gnawing sensation was still there, and with it came the strong, very, very strong, suspicion that something serious was about to happen to her, something that would change her life completely. She hoped it would be a good one.
She would just have to suck it up and deal with her life as it was until that day finally comes.
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April 17
Friday 2215
Cecilia woke up the next morning to the sound of her alarm-clock blaring at a medium-high volume. Its strange combines sound of rooster-cries, vibrating bells, the smashing of fragile objects and a strange melody more than likely having once being played on a xylophone-like contraption echoed around the room.
When she’d chosen the alarm that first day, she’d laughed at the ridiculousness of it, but now she just groaned in annoyance as she was slowly yanked from her peaceful world of fantasies and actually nice people.
Truly, she’d made the right choice.
She’d long since discovered that it was easier for her to wake up to the smaller sounds that the louder ones for some reason. She didn’t complain though as it worked, and she didn’t have to worry that she’s waking up the neighbors with the sound of her alarm, even though she did sometimes feel as though she did so anyhow with the shock of the sudden noise.
Leaving her hair in the usual mess it was in, Cecilia pulled on the uniform she’d just started to become used to wearing. Reaching out for the blue plaid pleated skirt instead of the gray one, the black thigh-socks instead of the white knee ones, the black button-up blazer with golden details instead of the dark gray sweater-vest, and the blue blazer with golden edging instead of the pain yellow one. The only part of the uniform that hadn’t really changed was the plain white blouse really.
To be honest, Cecilia preferred the new uniform to the old one in an artistic sense.
She allowed her hand to run over the embroidered crest patch over the left side of her chest.
Fairgarden high-school.
Letting her hand drop, she didn’t bother checking her reflection in the full-body mirror standing in the corner of the room. She knew she probably looked like all the garments apart from the skirt and socks were two sizes too big for her, and her hair being more of a resemblance to a bird’s nest than actual hair.
She had picked the size of the uniform with a possible future growth spurt in mind, even though that was highly unlikely and very much against her mother’s wishes, a woman who wanted nothing more than for her daughter to show off that perfect ballerina figure she’d trained so hard to obtain over the years, and now she was paying for that choice in the mocking voices of the students around her in class and in the corridors believing that she was too ashamed to show off her figure since she most likely didn’t have one.
Their words, not hers.
Sometimes, her observational skills worked against her.
Picking up her tablet from her desk and unfolding it, Cecilia went over her presentation once more. Displaying the most exotic looking pastries and bakes from her mother’s store. It was the only subject she could think about for her Social Studies assignment.
Why did they have to make a presentation on a relative’s profession when the only relatives Cecilia was aware of were her parents? Said parents absolutely refusing to talk about their own relatives, optioning to keep either side of the family an absolute secret from their daughter.
Why they did this, Cecilia had no idea.
Wandering into the kitchen, Cecilia was her mother standing at the counter like she always did in the morning. It was almost the only time Cecilia would see her in the whole day before the woman would slip away to the bakery and not be seen until the late hours at night if she didn’t get lucky like yesterday where her mother had to return to the house to fetch something.
At the moment, the woman was wearing that regular pink apron with her shoulder-long chocolate brown hair twisted up into a bun at the back of her head.
It had been jaw length three years ago, but her mother found that she hadn’t liked the look all that much, and so she had optioned to grow it out. Now, it just brushed over her shoulders. It actually looked longer than Cecilia’s did with her hair the way it was, they didn’t even know how it would look like should she actually take the time to take care of her hair.
Neither of them knows how to manage ringlets.
“Morning.” Cecilia greeted her mother with a breathy voice, letting her school bag slip down her shoulder to rest it on the table's leg before she let herself slide down into the chair.
“Looking bright, Sweetheart.” Jennifer greeted right back, though she sounded a bit awkward. The previous day's conversation still hanging in the air between them as she turned around towards her daughter with two plates expertly clutched in her one hand a glass of milk in the other as though she was carrying a tray of the things.
Cecilia liked to believe that, should her brain actually have been normal, she would have had her mother’s almost ethereal balance.
She also wished she’d have her mother’s hair.
It was odd to Cecilia that her mother had such a dark brown color of her hair and her father (the half-Italian that shall forever remain a secret to her schoolmates) had such a dark blond color it almost looked like a straw-color, Cecilia had been left with something more akin to golden-brown. Only, as her hair was at the moment, that particular factor was way out of eyesight, it looked more like a muddy brown but that was just because she hadn’t washed it in about three days now.
She should probably get to that before she went to bed that night.
Jennifer settles down a plate of egg and bacon in front of her daughter, a cooling piece of toast on the other plate and proceeded to just sit there, head leaning on her knuckles as she watches her only child slowly eat the food with as much trained etiquette one can access that early in the morning. She usually did this, but this time… aside from the obvious air of awkwardness, she had a worried look on the face that greatly resembled her daughters.
About half-way through her meal, the look became too much for Cecilia.
“Mom.” the girl spoke up, setting down her fork as she turned towards the woman.
At the sound of her daughter’s voice, the woman jumped slightly. Too caught up in her own thoughts to register anything else Cecilia suspected.
“Mom, what is it?”
It took a few seconds, but the woman eventually lets out a long breath, allowing her hand to slide down onto the table as she straightened out her back, looking at her daughter with a concerned look in her eyes.
“There’s just something...” the woman began, closing her eyes for a moment before she looked at her daughter again. “I feel as if something terrible is going to happen today.”
Cecilia couldn’t help the frown creeping onto her face.
Biting her lip, she reached out to tentatively take her mother's hand.
When was the last time she’d done that?
This wasn’t really something that happened often, she’d always been a lot more of a daddy’s little girl, so she’s never been as close to her mother as she’s been to her father.
The father that hasn’t physically been there since she was ten.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Cecilia assured her mother. “It’s just school.”
Calming down a little, Jenna smiled again.
“I suppose you’re right.”
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A few minutes later, Cecilia was walking down her usual path towards school, her head held as high as she could as she tried not to think about the looks that followed her as she went.
She was one of the people in their small town that everyone could identify, only the reaction towards her was vastly different depending on the age of the person looking at her.
If the person was just over three years older than her, they would look at her either with thinly veiled pity or admiration for apparently being able to stand at all (as if putting one foot in front of the other was a huge miracle). If the person was just over three years younger than her, they would greet her with cheers of excitement and maybe even rush towards her to tackle her with a hug (playing with them whenever she finds the time will do that. But if the person was within that six-year time-frame just around her age, the looks they would send her would be filled with contempt, disgust, or even hatred if the person was spiteful enough, even though all she’d done was walk past them in the hallways of the school one day.
She brushed a few strands of messy hair out of her eyes, finding the annoying locks to tickle her forehead.
It was then that she heard them.
Footsteps, right behind her, rapidly approaching.
She couldn’t help the sense of dread that was slowly creeping up inside her. They were in a part of town where almost no one passed unless it was on the way to school, and at the moment, she could see no one else there.
Memory after memory of moments of brutal bullying flashed through her head one by one, making the dread build up higher and higher inside her.
But it didn’t matter, she still kept her back straight, her shoulders squared and her head held high like she always did.
No matter what happened to her, she would always stand strong.
“Brandet!”
At the sound of the familiar voice, Cecilia allowed herself to calm down.
There were precious few people that didn’t bully her, even less that showed her no contempt, but there was only one person that talked to her with such a carefree and even happy tone on his voice.
She spun around and met the smiling face of the very well known Asian athlete running towards her.
“Ben Tanaka...” she allowed herself to acknowledge him softly when he finally reached her side, towering at over a head taller than her and that wide smile plastered onto his attractive features.
The second he stopped running, the smile was twisted into a teasingly scolding expression, his hands landing on his hips as he bent down over her.
“You disappeared half-way again.” he tried to pass it off as a joking statement but Cecilia could hear the genuine concern and the actual question hidden in those eyes.
She would not answer it.
“Can you blame me?” she asked, turning her feet around to continue walking.
It wouldn’t do if they were late for class.
“This is worse than middle-school.”
Ben quickly followed after her, claiming a spot at her left side before he kept talking, easily keeping pace with her.
“ “Can you blame me”?” the athlete mocked the shorter classmate good-naturedly. “That is really becoming your motto isn’t it?” he asked, nudging her gently with his elbow.
Cecilia swatter the offending limb away from her, rolling her eyes at the tone of her voice.
“Not even close.” she easily replied, not even bothering to look at her long-term classmate. “It needs to become a mantra before it becomes a motto.”
Ben’s eyes locked on Cecilia, an unreadable look plastered on his attractive features as he looked at the casual face of the girl next to him. The fact that she’d said something like that so easily… it worried him.
He plastered a smile back on his mouth, making sure it reached his eyes.
“I’m just learning more and more about you.” he chuckled.
“That’s what you wanted.” Cecilia shot right back.
He was not used to that, she was usually so quiet, and yet, she could have such quick retorts…
He chuckled once again, shaking his head before he reached out, putting his hand on her head to give her hair a good ruffle. Something that visibly shocked Cecilia but she quickly brushed it off, along with his hand.
“And I don’t regret it.” Ben laughed.
Cecilia raised an eyebrow at his comment.
“Are you flirting with me?” she asked, her steps freezing for a short moment before she continued walking, her attention now fully locked onto the athlete.
“What would you do if I did?” he countered, voice dripping with a teasing tone that forced Cecilia to fight the smile from spreading across her face.
She was not comfortable enough with him yet to show him her smile.
Cecilia found her answer as they passed the school gates.
“Run.”
For a few long seconds, there was nothing but silence between the two long-term classmates, until suddenly, the athlete broke out into loud echoing laughter that seemed to shake his entire being. His torso bent over to clutch at his stomach before he allowed himself to straighten, finger wiping at his eye as he shook his head from his mirth.
Truthfully, Cecilia hadn’t thought it was that funny.
“Why have we never talked before?” the athlete asked once he’d gotten his breathing in order.
“You’re the only one that can answer that,” Cecilia answered almost immediately, sending the two classmates into a state of uncomfortable silence.
It was at that moment that Cecilia noticed a larger group of students standing some ways away from where the two of them had stopped. She noticed Ben didn’t. He didn’t see their frantic jumping and the enthusiastic waving of their arms, desperately trying to capture his attention.
She took a deep breath before she turned to the athlete.
“I think your friends are trying to get your attention,” she said, jerking her head in the direction of the spirited students.
Ben followed her movement, and Cecilia could have sworn that she saw the smile that was almost permanently fused to his face falter for a split second.
“Yeah…”
Cecilia’s brows furrowed.
The way he answered, the way he’d said that one word. It was clear to Cecilia that Ben wasn’t as psyched about hanging out with his group of associates as they obviously were to hang out with him. It was so obvious to her that she actually came to wonder how no one had caught onto that before.
Then, before she had the chance to ask him about it, his expression did a one-eighty, a smile replacing the look of resignation as he turned to her.
“I’ll see you in class?”
He sounded so sincere, so genuinely curious and maybe even hopeful that Cecilia couldn’t stop the response from slipping through her lips.
“I don’t see why we wouldn’t.”
The smile she was awarded with at her answer would have shattered anyone else’s jaw.
“Don’t you go disappearing again!” he screamed, sending a large wave her way before he turned around and kept sprinting towards his cluster of teammates and admirers, leaving Cecilia standing there with her arms crossed, a heavy sigh escaping her lips.
“No promises.”
----------------------------------------
Groaning slightly, Cecilia pulled her tablet from her bag and unfolded it, preparing herself for the lesson that was about to roll around. Several others in the classroom were following her example, though they would never admit that they were doing that even if they had a gun pointed at their heads.
First class after lunch, everyone was pretty much running high on the energy they had stuffed themselves with. Almost running around the room like two-year-old toddlers. She really should have expected something like this to happen.
She was once again going through her presentation, trying to commit most of it to her faulty memory when a small cluster of boys in the back of the classroom caught her attention.
They had gathered up in a tight circle, whispering about something that Cecilia was too far away to really hear, but she was sure they were whispering about her if the looks she could practically feel digging into her back were anything to go by.
Seriously… some people just didn’t have lives.
Suddenly, the group parted.
There stood Terrance Justice (Terrance for short), one of her more relentless bullies from the Athletic division, his face plastered into an almost permanent smirk as he slowly began to raise what could only be a 21st -century gun, it’s barrel pointing directly at her.
Cecilia would later be proud to say that her blood only froze for a split second before the logical part of her brain kicked in and calmed her down.
“I’m tired of your face Messy,” Terry said with a deep, wannabe-menacing voice. “Just die already.”
In normal circumstances, the sight of a gun should have frightened everyone. But seeing as it was a 21st-century gun that looked like it was in pristine condition, and after throwing a look around her at the rest of her classmates, she found some of them snickering into their hands in a lame attempt to try and look scared at the sight of the weapon.
So this was just a lame attempt to scare her then…
Frickin’ bullies…
Rolling her eyes, Cecilia turned back to her screen, returning to casually swiping her fingertips over the screen still folded up in her hands.
This, however, didn’t seem to sit well with Terry.
Growling, the boy stomped over to Cecilia’s desk, grabbing said girl by her arm and yanked her up to her feet, forcing the barrel of the gun under her jaw.
“PAY ATTENTION TO ME YOU USELESS PIECE OF SHIT!”
Much to his surprise, however, Cecilia’s face remained stoic.
“Hey, stop that!”
All sound in the classroom stopped at the sudden commanding voice, all eyes snapping towards the unspoken leader of the first year Athletic division, Ben Tanaka, getting up from his own seat, a never before seen serious look in his eyes as he pushed Terry away from Cecilia, positioning himself in front of her, glaring down at Terrance in a clear power battle.
He was not amused by their classmate’s treatment towards the girl he’d just started to get to know.
“You’re taking this a little too far Justice.” the star athlete practically growled at the shorter male, eyes narrowed as he established his superiority.
Glancing at the back of the athlete’s head, Cecilia couldn’t help but think that maybe it was because of this tiny little reason that her bullies had become much more brutal in their advances towards her the past couple of weeks.
Alright, it may not be such a tiny little reason…
Suddenly having one of the most popular boys in school acting nice towards the most bullied person in the school is definitely one way to capture the wrong kind of attention if you’ve got the luck of Cecilia Brandet.
Many believed that she was forcing him into acting that way towards her, but she’d much rather have him ignore her if everyone would bully her even more than before.
Why did THAT have to happen?