I meet Sam for lunch so we go to the cafeteria together. As I’ve been busy with my classes I haven’t had time to think of what happened this morning. However, once I walk inside the cafeteria and see Butch, the big guy, I remember that fight. I never noticed before if things like these happened. I never noticed anything, which is quite wrong because a person who’s in science as much as I am should notice these kinds of phenomena. But I didn’t. I was blinded. Now I wonder how often this guy gets into trouble.

Sam walks by my side but I stop when I see Butch picking on some guy. He’s short and skinny, he almost seems fragile, like he could break if the wind blows too strong. His hair is jet black and perfectly combed. He wears regular glasses, like the ones I wear when my head hurts because I’ve been reading for too long. But he looks fragile, like a wounded gazelle and Butch is the hungry Lion. He’s bullying the kid, I can see that.

I’ve always heard of bullying, but I never saw it. It never happened to me. Despite everything, no one ever bothered me. I assume it was because I was just as invisible for them as they were for me.

But this kid, this wounded gazelle, is clever and when Butch corners him, he drops the tray and uses the moment of surprise to run away. He didn’t get lunch, but he escaped the bully. I smile as I see the scene, especially because Butch doesn’t go after him. He just shrugs and goes back to his friends. I don’t know why he was bothering the other boy, but I know it wasn’t that relevant for him.

If Butch was bullying another boy, I don’t feel that bad about him getting hit by the other guy, Zeke. I’m not condoning the Zeke, but I don’t feel sorry for Butch, either.

I look away, ignoring Butch and his friends and notice Sam kept walking and now she’s waiting for me on a table. I hurry with my tray in my hands, careful not to drop anything. She is looking at me with a quizzical expression so I smile at her as I take my seat across the girl.

“What caught you back there?” Sam asks opening her bottle of Ginger Ale.

“I was just watching. Butch was nagging a boy,” I reply and Sam turns to look at Butch’s table.

“Unsurprised,” mumbles Sam. “It’s frequent of him. He does that just to have a laugh, I guess. I’ve never seen him following a boy or something, like in all those American movies, you know?”

I nod as I open my sandwich to start eating.

“You notice many things, don’t you?” I ask because I’m sure Sam is not friends with Butch, yet she knows things about him. Things I have no idea.

“I see them. I’m not one for the gossips, you know? But if things are happening right in front of my eyes, I see and remember. I’m studying music, I like seeing the world. I need to get ideas from somewhere, right?” Sam muses and I smile. “Mum says that you need to watch the experiment to see all the stages. You can’t get distracted. I like to believe the world is my experiment and I need to pay attention to portray an accurate description in my music.”

I look at her impressed at how she sees things. The way she sees the world. Whilst I was focused only on my own little world, with my eyes closed to everyone else, she was seeing it all. How different from me.

Once again, I’m so glad I had that dream because it allowed me to open my eyes. I know dreams mean nothing, that they are just waves from our subconscious, but those weaves are from thoughts and things we see during the day, information that is already in our brains. Information we haven’t processed. And it wasn’t the dream what made me suddenly open my eyes; It was the terror, that paralysing fear and possibility that I might die today. It was that the dream could have been easily any day. I bet if the dream had been just a bit surreal I wouldn’t have reacted the way I did. But it felt like any other day, not like a dream. And it filled me with panic. And that made me react. Not the dream. The feeling that it left in me.

“You’re noticing things, too,” Sam comments and I go back to reality.

“Yeah, I’m finally looking, you know?”

“Yes,” Sam replies. “I noticed. You were always so… silent. I saw you, I remember I saw you because my Mum was fascinated with you and how brilliant you are,” Sam tells me and I nod, remembering she told me that yesterday. “But you never noticed the world around you. It was like everything and everyone was invisible to you. I’ve seen people doing that, but they normally get immersed in other things, like music or books. I see people completely oblivious to the rest, lost in the pages of a book or the beat of a song. But you…” Sam stops talking and just looks at me. I hold her gaze. “You just didn’t pay attention to anything. Nothing touched you. People could be shouting and fighting next to you and you didn’t flinch.”

I blink in surprise. I know I never paid attention and nothing disturbed me, but I didn’t think that things were happening around me, next to me, and I just didn’t notice them. But apparently, things happened and I just couldn’t be bothered to look around.

“I found that interesting, you know? How you just shut everyone out so easily.”

I don’t know why I feel embarrassed. She finds my behaviour amusing, interesting, but I think it was stuck up and just rude. I never noticed that because I never stopped to think of anything else but my future. My dream is to do something amazing for this world, leave a print, an important achievement to help everyone, but I never stopped to look at the world I want to help. That’s hypocrisy.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble looking down, pinching my sandwich.

“Why?” the girl in front of me asks. “I don’t think you were ignoring everyone on purpose. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be talking now.”

True that. I was just… busy doing other things. I never stopped to think about this other stuff.

“Which makes me wonder,” Sam carries on, leaning a bit close to me over the table, her elbows on the wood surface. “What made you change? Just from one day to the other you made eye contact and smiled and talked. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re socialising, but I’m intrigued.”

I laugh awkwardly. I don’t feel like telling her I had a dream that scared the living days out of me and that made me think of all the things I was doing wrong. I don’t want her to believe I’m the kind who lets herself be led by projections of the subconscious, but I don't know how to explain her what really happened. I know anyone would think that it was the dream what made me open my eyes, but it wasn’t yet at the same time it was.

It’s complicated.

“Let’s say I had an epiphany,” I say, trying to explain things without seeming silly. “My parents have always told me what to do, how to go. They say ‘all you’re doing now is for your future, Allison. If you want a bright future you have to concentrate in the now. You can’t waste your time fooling around’. I never questioned them, I just did all what they expected from me. But the other day I stopped to think, you know?” Sam nods at my words, an invitation to carry on. “And realised the same things you said. I was ignoring everyone and everything. I was postponing my life for the future ahead and I realised that I can’t even be sure if I’ll have that future.”

“So you decided to appreciate today instead of only thinking of tomorrow,” Sam ventures and I smile because she understands. She actually gets what I feel now. “It’s a good philosophy.”

“I haven’t thrown away all my plans,” I hurry to tell her. “That’s very important to me. I’m just… I’m just not throwing away my present. That’s all.”

“I think that’s great, Allie,” she tells me with a big and bright smile that I reply with one of my own. “You know that cheesy saying, right? You only live once. I know it’s basically a joke now, but it’s still true. You’re only a teenager once and it ends all too soon. At least you realised this now and now when you were like fifty. That would’ve been sad,” she says and I laugh. “No surgery would help there. And I know you’re bright but travelling back in time doesn’t look like a possibility.”

“And I can’t change the past. It could bring disastrous consequences! Imagine, I might step on a butterfly and then when I come back we live in a world divided into factions,” I joke and her eyes widen, catching my literary references.

I said I liked reading.

“You better not mess with my genes, Allie,” she warns me and I smile because she also read the Divergent series. “I like them very much. I’ve never seen them, but they are mine and I like them.”

“I wouldn’t do that. Plus, I’m not planning on becoming a geneticist.”

“You better,” she threatens me with her bottle and I laugh and she does the same. “But really, as a friend you can’t mess with my genes.”

I smile widely because she’s called me a friend. And I feel warm inside for being called that and because it wasn’t hard. It wasn’t an intrinsic ritual. It just happened. We are friends now and it’s fun, it’s great knowing I have a friend with whom I can joke and laugh and talk about my epiphany. A friend that explains things to me.

“Don’t worry, I’ll look after your genes,” I tell her and she smiles brightly at me.

For the rest of the lunch break we keep talking and having a good time. Sam is such a nice girl, full of life. And she blurts out everything she’s thinking, which makes her a bit awkward at time. But it’s great because I’m awkward myself due to my inexperience. I feel like she won’t judge me for anything so I feel free to ask for whatever I don’t know.

After that I go to my English Literature class and as I had such a good time with Sam I didn’t even think that I share that class with one of the guys in the fight of this morning. So when I walk in and I see him sitting at the back, purposely ignoring everyone, I stop on my tracks. His lip is swollen and I see a purple shadow on his jaw. Some small cuts on other parts of his face, like his right eyebrow. But other than that you couldn’t tell he was in a fight. He looks so relaxed, like nothing has happened. Like the world doesn’t exist around him.

I’m surprised he wasn’t suspended, though.

I can’t stop looking at him, like I couldn’t stop looking at Butch during lunch break, with the difference that Zeke is not bothering anyone like Butch was. He’s just sitting there, minding his own business. If it weren’t because I saw him attacking Butch this morning I wouldn’t think he was in a fight. He just doesn’t seem like he could care about anyone else.

Like it happened yesterday and this morning, he feels my eyes on him and turns to meet my gaze. It’s one second in which we look at each other but that’s all I need to get scared. I don’t know why, but I see him attacking Butch all over again, pushing that big guy against the wall and pressing his throat.

I look away immediately and go directly to my seat, pretending that this never happened. Pretending I don’t feel his eyes on my back. I feel cold and I know that’s fear.

What if he gets mad at me for staring? Could he hit me like he hit Butch? But I’m a girl. But then I don’t know if he cares about that. I don’t know anything about him but his name.

Slightly shaking, I pray he won’t corner me at the end of the class or something. I don’t want to get hurt.

I thank God when the teacher walks in because I don't have to think of Zeke at my back anymore. I can focus on today’s lesson and carry on. I’ll just run after class. That’s my plan.

-:-:-

That's it! I hope you're liking it so far. Please leave a comment, remember the best commet gets dedication. Also, if you get 200 votes on this chapter before Sunday I'll update.

Bel, xx

PS: If you wanna talk to me the best and fastest way is twitter, @BelWatson