Born with a Curse (Snippet Sunday)

Every now and then, when Sunday rolls around, I look at whatever writing I've been working on and decide whether or not it's too horrid to share. Sometimes it is. This time, it's not. So enjoy this snippet, from a currently unnamed short story that I've been working on for a while.

~~

“Hey.”

            

Don’t look up. Maybe they’ll go away.

            

“Aria?”

            

Shoot. I still don’t look up. “Yeah?”

           

“You’re good at math, right? Can you help me with this?”

            

I recognize the voice as a classmate; Michael? Or maybe it’s Mason. I raise my eyes up from my desk, just enough to see the assignment he holds in his hand. It’s the one assigned to us yesterday. Despite my situation, I smirk. “Isn’t that due today?”

            

“Uh…yeah.”

            

I drop my eyes and ruffle in my bag, before taking out a slightly crumpled piece of paper. I hand it to him. “Here, just copy mine.”

            

He doesn’t take it. “Aria?”

            

Just go away. “Yeah?”

            

“Are you okay?”

            

Shoot. “Totally, why?”

            

“You haven’t looked up once since I came over here.”

           

Shoot shoot shoot! “Uh…” I cautiously glance up, careful to keep my eyes focused on his torso, then his neck, then his chin, then his nose. I smile what I hope is a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. Totally.”

            

I watch as his mouth forms the words that he voices next. “Are you sure? We’ve been in the same class all semester, and you always seem a little…” He hesitates. “…Nervous. You know, like you’re scared of something.”

            

Do not move your eyes, do not move your eyes. “I’m, um, just not…really comfortable around people. Just shyness. That’s all.”

          

He shrugs and takes the crumpled up paper in my hand. Thank God. “Alright then. Thanks for the…uh, help.”

            

“No problem,” I say, my eyes already trained back on my desk. Before he can leave, I shift my arm, knocking a pencil off of my desk and onto the floor.

            

“Oh, you dropped your pencil,” my classmate says, leaning down to get it.

            

“No no, it’s fine,” I say quickly. I push my chair back and lean to the side to pick it up. “I got it.”

            

But it’s too late. He’s kneeling on the floor, his fingers brushing against my stupid number two pencil. He picks it up, lifts his head, and before I can look away, his eyes lock onto mine.

            

Time stops. His face freezes in front of me; his expression neutral, his brown eyes staring back into mine. Every sound vanishes; the chatter of the people sitting beside me, the quiet hum of the lights above my head, and the steady pounding of footsteps that pass by the open door, as students hurry to their classes. Everything frozen. Everything silent. Like we’re playing a part in a movie, and someone in the audience has just hit pause.

            

Except I’m not frozen. I blink my eyes, I flex my fingers. My heart still beats frantically against my chest.

            

Then, everything disappears from my vision. I know it’s still there, but I can’t see it. All I can see is the life of the unnamed boy in front of me, playing out at a frantic speed, my heart clenching and rising and soaring through every emotion he has ever known.

            

It’s not that bad, this time. There are no childhood traumas; no injuries or sickness or deaths in the family. My body relaxes; my clenched fingers unclenching, my static body slacking and slouching in relief.

            

But then I reach the present. This very moment passes before my eyes in a mere flash before it continues on. The remainder of his high school career passes by, with nothing more than a few broken hearts that only register as a twinge in my heart, as it flies by in mere seconds. He goes to college. He drops out. He falls in love, he gets married, and I feel my heart inflate with joy and care and the happiest feelings I’ve felt in a long while.

            

I come crashing down, however, when he catches his future wife cheating. There are screams. Arguments. My heart falls down, down, from high in the sky to the pits of my stomach. There are lawyers. Divorce papers. He moves from a gorgeous two-story house to a shabby little apartment in a busy, downtown area. He starts drinking. He loses his job. His entire life falls apart. My heart twists and clenches and I bite down on my tongue so hard that I taste blood. My throat constricts. My lungs begin clawing for air, but I can’t grant them their request. It feels like every inch of me is on fire as I’m dragged through the last few, lonely moments of his life.

            

There is pain. There is darkness. And then, with a jerk, time resumes, as though it had never stopped in the first place.

            

The boy’s brow furrows in confusion. “Woah, hey…are you okay?” he asks.

            

“Yes,” I croak. Although I can already feel the tears running down my face.

            

“But…but you’re crying,” the boy stammers. He’s still holding my pencil. He’s looking me up and down. He’s trying to figure out what happened. I can tell. They always try to do that.

            

“I’m fine,” I mumble. I keep my eyes trained on the floor as I stand up. My hands fly across my desk, shaking, as I struggle to gather everything into my arms. Stray papers fly out, drifting slowly to the floor, but I make no move to pick them up. I grab as much as I can before pushing past my classmate, dodging desks as I rush towards the door.

            

Before I can abandon the classroom and enter the diminishing crowd of students in the hall, I collide with someone at the door.

            

“Woah!” an unfamiliar voice rings out. “I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

            

“I’m fine,” I say again, automatically. I push past him and leave, not even daring to look up in fear of what I might see.