[lj idol] week twenty two | "start singing to myself..."
[the art of…]
*
It starts as a feeling.
As an uncomfortable twisting in her gut that she puts down to PE class in the morning followed by not enough, or maybe too much?, to eat at lunch. But she’s going to her first sleepover after school today and there’s no way she’s getting sick now.
Unless maybe she is? Maybe going to a sleepover now is a bad idea? What if she vomits? Or gets other people sick?
What if she’s contagious?
Probably best if she doesn’t go after all, if she rings her mum instead, asks to get picked up as per usual. Best to be safe…
She’s feeling so much better by the time school finishes for the day, but she’s already made the call and explained the situation to her new friend and so, it’s probably just easier to go home after all.
Yeah, definitely.
She’s started doing assignments the night before they’re due.
It’s because she’s lazy and unmotivated and a terrible student, really. She pretty much always knows the material inside out. And the essay that she handed in last week was on the best book she thinks they’ve ever had the opportunity to study. But she’d still been blearily tapping out sentences at three in the morning because school is a waste of time and, frankly, she has better things to do.
If she fails, it doesn’t matter, because it’s not like she cares.
At all.
School dances are the most lame.
That much she knows for sure.
And she’d decided right back at the start of semester one that she wasn’t going to prom, has spent the rest of the year making her intentions loud and abundantly clear to anyone who’ll stop long enough to listen.
“Pffft,” she says, on a loop. “I think I’m washing my hair that night.”
Her friends are freaking out about dresses and dates and maybe, kinda, sorta, do you think we could hire a stretch limousine?
“Pffft,” she says again, her trademark opening, “I can’t imagine anything worse…”
The timeslot they allocate her for the job interview is after business hours.
She thinks that, right there, probably tells her something about how professional they are. She’ll go, she tells her parents, rolling her eyes around the huge concession she’s just made, but only for the experience.
Not because she actually wants them to hire her or anything.
Because, um, no thank you.
She arrives ten minutes late, just because she can.
His name is Mark.
So he says.
He buys her a drink and offers her a cigarette and drapes his jacket around her shoulders when they sneak outside and into the heavy night-time chill.
Later, when he asks if he can call her some time, maybe take her to a movie?, she giggles wildly and says her name is Kate. Makes up a number on the spot and blows him a kiss as she walks out…
*
previously on...
introduction | jayus | the missing stair | in another castle | nobody can ride your back if your back's not bent | build a better mouse-trap | step on a crack, break your mother's back | yes, and... | the recency effect | barrel of monkeys | open topic | confession from the chair | chekhov's gun | a terrible beauty has been born | scare quotes | disinformation | kindling | intersection | the music made me do it
*
It starts as a feeling.
As an uncomfortable twisting in her gut that she puts down to PE class in the morning followed by not enough, or maybe too much?, to eat at lunch. But she’s going to her first sleepover after school today and there’s no way she’s getting sick now.
Unless maybe she is? Maybe going to a sleepover now is a bad idea? What if she vomits? Or gets other people sick?
What if she’s contagious?
Probably best if she doesn’t go after all, if she rings her mum instead, asks to get picked up as per usual. Best to be safe…
She’s feeling so much better by the time school finishes for the day, but she’s already made the call and explained the situation to her new friend and so, it’s probably just easier to go home after all.
Yeah, definitely.
She’s started doing assignments the night before they’re due.
It’s because she’s lazy and unmotivated and a terrible student, really. She pretty much always knows the material inside out. And the essay that she handed in last week was on the best book she thinks they’ve ever had the opportunity to study. But she’d still been blearily tapping out sentences at three in the morning because school is a waste of time and, frankly, she has better things to do.
If she fails, it doesn’t matter, because it’s not like she cares.
At all.
School dances are the most lame.
That much she knows for sure.
And she’d decided right back at the start of semester one that she wasn’t going to prom, has spent the rest of the year making her intentions loud and abundantly clear to anyone who’ll stop long enough to listen.
“Pffft,” she says, on a loop. “I think I’m washing my hair that night.”
Her friends are freaking out about dresses and dates and maybe, kinda, sorta, do you think we could hire a stretch limousine?
“Pffft,” she says again, her trademark opening, “I can’t imagine anything worse…”
The timeslot they allocate her for the job interview is after business hours.
She thinks that, right there, probably tells her something about how professional they are. She’ll go, she tells her parents, rolling her eyes around the huge concession she’s just made, but only for the experience.
Not because she actually wants them to hire her or anything.
Because, um, no thank you.
She arrives ten minutes late, just because she can.
His name is Mark.
So he says.
He buys her a drink and offers her a cigarette and drapes his jacket around her shoulders when they sneak outside and into the heavy night-time chill.
Later, when he asks if he can call her some time, maybe take her to a movie?, she giggles wildly and says her name is Kate. Makes up a number on the spot and blows him a kiss as she walks out…
*
previously on...
introduction | jayus | the missing stair | in another castle | nobody can ride your back if your back's not bent | build a better mouse-trap | step on a crack, break your mother's back | yes, and... | the recency effect | barrel of monkeys | open topic | confession from the chair | chekhov's gun | a terrible beauty has been born | scare quotes | disinformation | kindling | intersection | the music made me do it