On the back of the itinerary was a map complete with guys and girls dormitory buildings which, unlike the integrated academy, was not coed. One guess says the headmistress took advantage of the opportunity that had presented itself and with her title had made certain depraved academics could not run back to their old ways and ruin their bodies and mind.
Parents chose Starkhouse for its capability to improve and rehabilitate their rotten kids into redeeming themselves before they went into a prestigious college that would push them into the world of power and money they grew up in.
The rules were put in place for a reason and if anyone had been caught having sex or worse they would have been expelled immediately. So much for that plan. Theoretically it sounded like a wonderful blueprint for a no-nonsense academy but in real life the headmistresses strategy for a cohesive institution just didn't hold up.
From what I'd seen all the efforts the headmistress carried through didn't help matters. Kids still snuck out of Starkhouse to get condoms and booze and whatever else struck their fancy even though the gate was closed until the weekends. Somehow they managed to jump over the gate even if there was a slew of professors walking the campus. Getting caught in the act meant grounds for expulsion but they didn't care about repercussions.
Maybe it was the fact that they'd been given anything they could ever want since they were little and so they were used to getting their way or that they're parents weren't around often enough to witness just how awful their kids truly were. One thing was for sure, outcome and backlash didn't jump into their afterthought.
I wasn't one of them but I could tell the supposed 'reformed' kids weren't showing signs of slowing down. They were having too much fun living the high life and using their parents money to support their party lifestyle. They still smoked and swallowed pills. And other stuff.
If the headmistress did a quick last-minute inspection inside both dormitory buildings she would be surprised to find a drug store that would impress any drug lord. The weed that I could smell lingered heavily throughout the vents as I walked inside my dorm building and up the stairs to the second floor and I had to give it to the spoiled rich kids because they could stretch past guidelines easily.
Dorm Room 129 had two Daisy White Glamor Full Panel Beds stationed directly opposite each other installed next to the high-paneled dark ocean blue walls. By the looks of it the bed that was closest to the extra door with the bold, rich, and dramatic sheets folded neatly on top was meant for my personal use. Finally, something that didn't look intimidating and cold. I smiled.
Even though I didn't feel like a princess I could see myself being here and finishing school like a normal teenage girl. I may not have been ready to party yet but the interior decorator inside of me came out. Furnishing and embellishing was the closest I came to being crafty and I liked to think I was good at it.
Since my roommate was nowhere to be found I'd decided to make use of the alone time and got myself situated.
If I was going to be here I might have as well made it homey, or, at the very least, not like some plain add-in that came with the room.
My roommate, whomever she was, had exceptional taste in ornate first-rate accessories and high-end fabrics composed of exquisite material and eye-catching color. The first thought that came into my head was: Go Big or Go Bold.
Silk, satin, velvet in bold textures and jewel-toned colors. This was every girls dream. I could only bet her wardrobe was just as dramatic and elegant.
It was like an All You Can Read set of home magazines spilled onto her side of the room. Luxury, interior housekeeping. More and then some. I'd never seen anything so.....perfect.
And intimidating.
I came from a blue color family. The house I grew up in was miniscule compared to this.
How did I get here? Was it possible for anybody to loose so much in such a short time? Better question: would the pain ever lessen in degrees? It didn't show any signs of dwindling. In fact, these days I was only ever angry and resentful. Some twisted part of me hoped I would keep expressing myself that way because at least I was feeling my emotions...that was better than stifling them until I'd explode.
While I thought some more about it I realized I didn't mind having to share a bathroom with another girl; there was plenty space for two brooding teenagers to live comfortably until graduation. Besides, I was used to sharing a room so it didn't bother me.
Mostly, I was thrilled to be out and on my own with no Dr. Cambridge to watch me for signs of danger. I knew she did it because she cared about me and because it was her job to make sure I was alright but I didn't need her anymore. And gratefully she'd agreed that I was stable enough to continue my education.
Once the mattress was fully covered with a satin blue duvet and neatly tucked and folded in the sides I grab my suitcase from the floor and put it on the bed with the handle facing towards me. The old-fashioned suitcase was my grandmas. It had been handed down to many people before I got it which explained the cuts on the trim of the suitcase and the worn out color. But I loved it. She gave it to me years ago that way I could hide out at her house when I wasn't at school.
I push the small round button and lift the faded bronze latch to reveal a messy heap of clothes, most of which consisted of worn-out pajamas that I loved and mid-rise flared jeans that were getting too loose in the tummy area. That was the extent of my ten-plus-three-clothing-variation.
I also had a small toiletry bag that I got in the mall for free that had my brush in it, a multi-facet makeup compact that I'd only used when I was determined to look more alive, a travel toothbrush-and-toothpaste holder that I got from a dentist who took mass at Jetts' church, and some lotion.
I toss the toiletry bag aside and dig underneath the pile and removed a small five-by-seven picture frame from the suitcase. I needed to have something deeply personal in my hands, to look at it and have it close by that way I could feel like myself.
I didn't want the picture frame but Chanel, as usual, had insisted only that frame would do. So I bought it with my lunch money and had to wait until school was over just so I could eat something. For weeks I'd starved. Now it all seemed so trivial.
It was nothing special, just a pink frame- like the color a five year old would have somewhere in her room -only my frame had small red hearts on it, not including the glitter that had rubbed off after some time. Life had gotten in the way and after a while I'd forgotten all about the stupid frame and so it had sat un-touched, concealed securely beneath a stack of handmade memorabilia in a boring plain shoe box that stayed under my bed and coated in dust.
Until one day I had scoured tirelessly through my room dodging my mother like a deranged maniac looking for anything Chanels' mom could have used in her service. It was my last tribute and I just had to find something that would resemble what our friendship had meant. I'd cried and cried as I turned my room upside down, too hysterical to even care that my mom was in my room watching me as I broke down. Finally I'd looked under the bed and that's when I saw it.
Inside of that old cardboard box I had kept every small inconsequential item that Chanel and I had collected over the years from Maroon Five tickets to vintage gumball machine tattoos that we never got around to putting on. I forgot it even existed. From said box I held onto that picture since it captured her so well. Everything else I gave to Chanel's mom even though she didn't use any of it at the ceremony.
I put the picture frame on the nightstand that and continued to relocate the few items I considered possessions into their rightful place.
After I'd put all my things I'd brought with me in the dresser I shut the drawer, the brass handle moving back in place. Closing the suitcase I put it under the bed, pushing it so no one could find it.
I sat Indian style on my bed and checked off stare at the blue walls for my quota of insanity and without hesitation or exasperation I decided now was as good a time as any to finish the rest of my homework. There was nothing tying me back from getting it done and I had no reason to procrastinate. Speaking of...it was a breeze to finish through since the answers were already organized in the packet itself. I had a sinking pit in my stomach because I knew eventually it would get more toilsome and complex.
I shuffle my papers to the side once I'm finished and stretch out on my back, the image of a sloth bumming it on a branch high-above ground popped into my brain and I laughed.
Arching my back like a domesticated Peruvian cat I used the additional support of the heel and ball of my feet and pushed off the brilliant blue duvet scooting closer to the edge of the matress hoping to get a closer look at the hall outside.
I was sprawled out half-hazardly on the bed my legs kicking back and forth as I stared off into space.
Looking upside down, my long dark hair that was at all times straight and could never be teased into the perfect style or flipped just so, regardless of what hair product I put in it, cascaded down like a waterfall, the ends skimming the shag carpeting just barely. If I moved my head further to the side my hair would completely roll out in a surging mass like a curtain.
I lifted my arm and did a series of circles in the air like I'd seen gypsies do. I loved to watch them dance. They seduced and had a way to move their hips that was....hypnotic.
More than once I was told that I had long fingers shaped for an artist. I had identical hands as my great-aunt who long since past and at times I'd wondered if any of my children would posses the same hands that I had or would they look like their father.
Mostly I was petrified that if I did bear children one of them would inherit a gift and would have a difficult time functioning like I did or worse. That's why I didn't like to think about my future. It caused more dread than hope.
I purposefully wasn't taking my meds anymore and I could think much more clearly. I wasn't as exhausted as before and I could distinguish both of my worlds so that my ability wouldn't drive me absolutely bonkers.
When I told Grandma about what was going on in Starkhouse she'd said I was unique and that very soon I would be needed but what did her cryptic message even mean? What did she see in one of her visions that could help me construct my own path. I understood why she couldn't tell me.
Because the future was always changing and even if she had a vision of the future with me in it didn't mean anything necessarily. That was why it was so tricky when grandma saw things about people she loved.
Sometimes things would turn out exactly as she saw it. But usually something would happen that would cause the unseen future to distort and modify, thus altering what grandma may have or haven't seen yet so that it didn't happen. That was the thing about predicting the future. Sometimes grandma didn't always get it right, so long as it had to do with one of her family members.
I didn't have the same gift as grandma, I had the ability to channel ghosts, that meant I could see and feel things that most people couldn't. At best I was adequate. Not like my mother at all who had ice running through her veins that's why we never got along but different than my grandma who had been a fortune-teller all her life. I didn't know who my biological father was, just that he left shortly after I was born and was never heard from again. Not that I could blame him for leaving the Ice Queen. But what of his daughter? Did he not want a child of his own or was he hoping for a son and bailed we he saw me.
I had a bad aura. Why else would the people in my life feel compelled to stay far away from me. That was the only explanation I could come up with that made sense.
I let my arms go and fisted my fingers through and in between the silken ivory carpet admiring the practicality of it.
In the other buildings the floors were all marble but my room had lush ivory carpet that insulated the cold weather so that it was a little warmer at nighttime. I wondered if all dorm rooms were built with that same function but somehow I doubted it. By far there were a lot more rooms on this floor than the others. That meant other people in my dorm building had bigger rooms which was so not fair.
Curiosity getting the best of me, all thanks to those damned kitchen thin walls, I peered out of the open door and people watched like I did whenever I was bored. Finally I came to the decision that I had a decent view of the hallway from where I stretched out.
I stared out of the open door and into the hall because I thought I might catch someone do something interesting when they thought no one was looking.
To my relief no one picked at their butts or caught me gaping like a stalker but they didn't do much either. They did what everyone else did when they went past my dorm, oblivious the door was open. Kept their heads forward and walked across the long stretch of marble leaving the hallway without stopping for a smoke break.
Occasionally a small group would talk in abrupt rushed sentences when they walked in pairs as they held books in their hands but that was it. Nothing scandalous. Although to be fair I wasn't sure what I excepted to find out. Apparently girls were girls no matter what school you went to. They were catty, two-faced, and ignorant. And Dr. Cambridge wanted me to make friends.
When the image of a girl with short tousled waves walked inside and made a face I sat up and acted accordingly.
No comments:
Post a Comment