Ahhhh. What a day…. I saw my beloved . My God, my memory had not done him justice. You know when you haven't seen your crush in forever and your memory of them starts to blur and soon you start thinking:
" I think I am actually over this person. His spell has completely worn off"
And then you see them and it's like your memory of them was from a black and white tv, but them in real life is an HD TV.
Let me start at the beginning.
Woke up, put on my uniform, black skirt and navy short sleeved shirt, I felt so invincible when I put on my Prefect badge. Caitlin and her mom came to pick us up at 07:10 am. And Caitlin was going on about her vacation in Spain ( I couldn't tell her how I spent majority of my holiday buzzed). Caitlin was not beautiful per say, she had flushed skin and a wide smile and curly brown hair. She had this big laugh that made you want to laugh. We got to school and Caitlin looked at me and Mondli and said:
"this is our last first day of school"
Like I got really choked up after that because we would be going to university or wherever next year, and Caitlin kept repeating it to everyone we saw, driving the knife deeper through my heart every time. All the other prefects were seated outside at the prefect benches, we all hugged each other. Amy and I hugged for 10 minutes until Dean pulled us apart and was like :
"Stop. You guys saw each other last week" He sounded exasperated as he dragged me away, I made a pouting face .
"THANDI!!!!" Someone screamed. There was a flash of brown and bushy black hair and then I was knocked backwards as tiny arms encircled me.
"Billie???" I said hugging her back. Billie and I have been tight since Grade 8 the first day we met. She is a short Indian girl with big hair, very smart. We balanced each other out because even though I was crazy and wild and unpredictable, she was calm and rational but she let me shine
Cassandra, Scott's girlfriend (Grrr), who was inside the Prefects room, popped her head out and called us all in. Her eyes zeroed in on me and she ran up to me.
"Thandi!" She said as she hugged me, "So good to see you again. I heard you had a good holiday" She said linking her arm through mine. She was a skinny little thing, her hair was a mass of brown curls, the only great thing about her. Sigh, okay, I am being a bitch. She's pretty. If you're into the whole insect look thing.
"Yessssssss, but how was yours??" I asked brightly.
"Oh, I went camping with Scottie's family , it was amazing-"
"So amazing!" I gushed, I deserve a fucking Oscar.
"-yeah and I spent Christmas and New Years with his family, so it was really amazing and-" She gabbled on as she led me inside the prefects room. And my God. Everything was suddenly in technicolor. Scott James. On the couch, looking like a teenage James Dean.
My heart… Like… In the flesh.
He got a hair cut!! Normally his hair flops over his eyes, but he had a new haircut. Even though he was sitting, he was tall, and masculine, not buff, just nice and lean because I mean, he was the first team rugby captain. His jaw was cut and angular and he had a hint of the 5' o clock shadow.He was otherworldly. Just sitting there casually. He looked up when Cassandra and I came in, his blue eyes darted to me. My goodness, it was like looking directly into the sun. I tried to look everywhere but him, but he was hard not to notice what with him being the sun and all. Cassandra noticed me getting flustered and she rolled her eyes
"wow, you still not over him?" She laughed. Did I mention that EVERYONE knew about this intense crush I had on this guy. Even his own girlfriend knew and she wasn't even threatened. I didn't know if she was that confident or if she just thought I was a joke.
"He still takes some getting used to" I mumbled.
I saw she had this satisfied look and it clicked. In her head, she had the guy who everyone wanted.
Our Prefect teachers were Mr Parker and Mr Grant, they came in and told us what we would do and what was expected of us and then… Then we were told who our prefect partners would be…. You will never believe. Or maybe you can because I am JUST that lucky or cursed… That's right. My partner was Scott James. Everyone whooped and hollered and If I was white, My face would have been puce( Billie swears it was bright pink and I believe her.). My face heated, it felt like you know in the movies, when a cartoon character eats hot food and steam starts coming out of their ears and their head pops, I also kind of felt like that. I believe I am cursed because I cannot string two words together when I am in that boy's presence. I cannot. I get tongue tied. My mind just blanks. How am I supposed to perform my prefect duties every day for the next three months when I can't form a coherent sentence.
We were all walking out to help teachers set up their classrooms. Billie was walking with me and she was talking a mile a minute. Normally, it would irritate me, especially when she would talk and tug at my arm at the same time, but I have missed her so I didn't mind. Then Cassandra and Scott came up from behind us.
"Hey, Thandi, you don't mind if we swap prefect partners?" . huh.
"What do you mean" I frown at Cassandra, already knowing where the bitch was going with this but trying to play it cool and dumb. My eyes were on her, but I wasn't even seeing her face, I was paying attention to Scott who was in my peripheral vision. I hoped I looked as good as I thought I did and no hair was out of place.
She smiled , "Like I take Scott and you take Dean who is my partner"
I count to 10 while I umm and uhh.
"I mean, I don't really care either way-"I start to say but Then Scott cuts me off .
"babe, it doesn't matter. " He says to Cass, not looking at me,"If we swap, then everyone will want to swap. Just leave it" He says when she tries to protest.
They walk on ahead of us, I stare longingly at Scott, wondering why he wouldn't want that extra time with his insect babe.
"What a bitch", Billie spits, her eyes flashing.
"Right?"
At 1 pm, we all went home and were told to return at 6 pm for the Orientation Night. I went to Liss' house because she lives 5 minutes away from School. We watched A Bollywood movie. I believe that in a previous life, I was an Indian because boy do their movies speak to me. Plus my Hindi is so good, I could be in the next room and still know what they were saying if a hindi movie was playing on the tv. By 6 pm, I went back to school, the parents were already arriving, and Cassandra was standing next to Scott directing them in the hall, doing MY job. Like this bitch.
So I went to stand next to Dean in the middle Isle and he was handing out flyers to parents and Dean laughed when he saw my irritated expression and gave me half a batch of his flyers. Once all the parents were seated, and the prefects were seated by the doors, Miss Delaware, my grade 10 Math's teacher who was the grade 8 Head of Department, gave a speech about how since the Lord never blessed her with children, The grade 8's were like hers. And I was so confused. Miss Delaware was known for making students cry, she once made ME cry because I had the audacity to walk past her class smiling and she ripped into me, and there were matrics in her class who heard EVERYTHING. She was the Trunchbull of our school. She even threw a permanent marker once at a boy in our class when he couldn't figure out what x equaled to.
I noticed Amy across the room trying to catch my eye, her face was red from the effort of trying not to laugh and I realised what was going on. Miss Delaware was selling these parents dreams, talking about how they were leaving their kids in safe hands and they would be nurtured and looked after. I started giggling, and Dean kept hissing at me to shut up, but I could see his cheek rising as he faced the front and I knew that he was also fighting the giggles, which made me giggle even more. It was the biggest fight of my life. I felt a hole burning on my forehead and I looked up to see Scott staring at me smack bang across the room. I felt all kinds of weak. He was actually looking at me like I was a speciman to be studied, he didn't look away when I saw him looking. He was leaning forward , his elbows on his knees, but his eyes were trained on me. I felt so weak. My heart was racing, pounding in my ears, I couldn't see anything except him, and all I could hear was the loud beating drum of my heart. I jumped when I heard chairs scraping across the floor and I realised that everyone had been dismissed. I was assigned parents to take around the school, Dean went off to pair up with his friend and Billie came up behind me.
"oh my God, thandi!!! Did you see how Poseidon was STARING at you??? Even I was blushing!" she said grabbing my arm.
I gasped, "ohmigod, you saw that too??? I thought I was imagining it"
Btw. We call Scott Poseidon so people don't know who we are talking about because well… He's a topic of conversation all day looong.
"it was kinda hard not to notice because he was giving you a longing look. Even Cassandra noticed and she looked so annoyed"
It was hard to get over this guy because my friends sold me dreams like this and fed into my obsession. But believe me, it's not the first time I have caught Scott James giving me longing looks. Why else would I continue to crush on this guy?? Im not crazy. It's like Mike Tyson said to Robin in How I Met your Mother:
"… a woman is only as crazy as the guy she's with. If you think she's crazy, just look at the guy she's with, then you'll really see crazy."
So Scott gives me hope because he gives me these looks and it feeds the beast in me. And I stay crushing on him. But today's look was so intense. He normally looks away when I catch him looking but today his eyes feasted. Ahhhh, I am on a high. Remember when I kissed Lindani and I felt drunk, but all Scott did was look at me and now I feel all kinds of drunk. What on earth would his kisses do to me???
Anyway, we showed the parents the school and I didn't see Scott for the rest of the night but Cassandra didn't even hug me goodbye but she hugged Amy who was standing next to me. Caitlin and her mother drove Mondli and I home and I've been in my room since trying to dissect the look that Poseidon gave me. I'm gonna go think about Scott now.
Night night.
Lotsa love