AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Two
Aela
Before
In my plaidskirt with its box pleats, a crisp linen shirt, and a heavy jacket, I felt more than just stupid. I looked it too. My squeaky leather shoes had these tiny tassels on them, for God’s sake. Throw in the knee socks, and I looked like a character from some weird show.
I wasn’t used to wearing a uniform. Back before Dad’s promotion, I’d just worn regular clothes at my regularschool. Then I’d had to move to St. Mary’s Middle School for Girls, and we were now being shunted off to St. John’s High. St. Mary’s had been bad enough with its ankle-length skirts, but, and I knew this was horrendous, it hadn’t mattered at St. Mary’s.
I was just one girl among a thousand.
St. John’s was a different matter entirely.
It was mixed.
Boys were going to see me wearing this getup.
Somehow that was more nauseating than anything else, and I didn’t consider myself a vain person. My friend Deirdre, on the other hand, was totally vain, but the only reason she wasn’t bitching about the uniform and the fact that we looked like some creepy uncle’s ‘favorite’ niece was because of Declan.
Declan Shmeclan. I’d be glad to meet him at long last just because she went on about him so damn much.
Honestly, it was boring. Like, it never stopped.
Declan this and Declan that.
You’d think he was Brad Pitt with the way she could wax poetically about him. Sister Sarah would have fainted with glee if she’d shown as much imagination in English class, that was for damn sure.
I was pretty certain that Declan was either going to be the most handsome guy the world had ever seen or the most blah. The fact that our other friends had met him and seemed to agree with her told me I was in for a treat, even if it was only on the eyes.
“Stand up straight,” Mom chided me, as she shoved me against the wall beside the door.
With Dad’s promotion, we’d moved to a better building, but though that move had been two years ago, I still missed the old place. The wall beside the front door had little pencil marks measuring how tall I’d grown, and it was a ritual for us to take my first day of school pictures here.
We were making new rituals in the apartment, but it wasn’t the same.
Not much was.
Dad had never been that important in the Five Points, and he still wasn’t, but ever since he’d moved up a level, he just wasn’t around as much, and he hadn’t been around a lot before. If I missed him, I couldn’t even imagine what Mom felt. It was no wonder she was taking more and more of her happy pills. Of course, the more she took of them, the less happy she was. Go figure, huh?
I gave her a false smile because she looked so proud to see me dressed in this outfit, and I straightened my shoulders as she held her breath for a second, then hovered her finger over the button. In a snap, a Polaroid was spitting out a little photo, and she wafted it in the air, beaming at it then at me.
“You look beautiful,” she told me with a grin, dumping the picture on the hall table before bustling over and hugging me tight.
She gave the best hugs.
Always.
I squeezed her back, loving the way she almost always smelled of vanilla cookies, and wished I was just going to a regular school. Sure, I had friends now, and those friends had been hard earned, but I’d still prefer my old PS.
She kissed my temple and murmured, “You’re going to knock ‘em dead.”
“I doubt it,” I grumbled. The only thing unusual about me wasn’t something the sisters at St. Mary’s had appreciated. I had a good eye for color. That was it. Everything else about me was just average, but I was okay with that.
“You will. Chin up, sweetheart.” Another kiss to my temple. “Now, come on. The bus will be here soon.”
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting beside Deirdre on the bus as she primped and preened in a mirror.
I wasn’t sure how often she had to confess about being vain, but I knew the sisters had removed her compact mirror more times than they’d chided me for my inability to concentrate.
