Sᴇᴘᴛᴇᴍʙᴇʀ 25. 2024.
Alessia isn't feeling it today.
She didn't do her yoga yesterday, working the whole evening instead to please Petro. Call after call she took until four in the morning, she got intoxicated, went home and cried herself drunkenly to sleep.
She feels guilty for buzzing around still like Petro's perfect little dog after finding out what he did and the things he held back from her. She feels guilty for not taking revenge, which in her eyes makes Phillipeño's death was in vain, though she doesn't want to resort to violence. She feels damn guilty that being Petro's puppet is a habit she can't break out of so suddenly.
She wishes it was as easy as one, two—
"Three!" The piercing sound of Mrs. Dale's whistle cuts through the deafening silence of Alessia's dreadful mind. "Go, go, go!" She shouts roughly at her students who quickly begins a game of volleyball. It's basically a free-for-all because of not having a net.
Alessia stands quietly in the same spot, staring jaded at the field. The girls rush away, while across the open space, the boys are play fighting to get all the soccer balls from its net.
"MOSKAL, what're you doing?! Get at it, girl!"
Her unwavering gaze is now on her teacher and she responds, a bit startled, "Huh?"
Mrs. Dale narrow her eyes, taking the look on her face as a challenge. "What is it? Feeling stiff today?" The girl says nothing. "Want a detention, Moskal?"
Moskal... Alessia is beginning to notice how much she despises that name, the pronunciation and the letters that make it.
Lisa draws closer to the unmoving girl. She has always been a bully. Being one of the only females growing up to be able to build body mass as she likes, playing sports and looking down on skinny girls that care about make-up crap. Her finger comes up to poke at the girls chest, but a smack ripples through the air right by her face. She freezes momentarily, swearing inwardly because she thought she was slapped. However, Alessia had instinctively swatted a volleyball, that was breezing towards her face, like it was a bothersome mosquito, and Mrs. Dale, with her slow reaction, turns gruffly to glare at wherever it came from.
"Sorry, Mrs. Dale!" A dainty girl shrieks.
Huffing, she walks away from Alessia to tend to the rest of the class, blowing her whistle for their attention. She [Alessia] doesn't waste any time to block them all out and dive back into her own depressing space. Her feet begin to carry her along the track of the field.
The sky is clear today, no clouds, just endless blue and the sun, tinted in sepia. It's quite hot, nonetheless windy and cool as ocean breeze wafts over the school from Venice Beach. It sifts through her hair that has grown out partially to her back, showing her black roots and giving her a feeling of nostalgia.
Or, is it because she's walking alone?
She goes around the first curve, trudging in lane 1, hands and feet moving antagonistically. She blinks slowly, weary from the warmth of the sun, wetting her dry lips with her tongue and breathing...just breathing.
Her head tinges with a slight ache, but it doesn't show on her face. Even the unsteady dragging of her shoes and the arrhythmic pounding of her heart in her chest is unseen since her face shoes no sign of discomfort.
Pit-a-pat-a-pit-a-pat-pat-pit-a-pit-a-pat...
When she falls, it seems everyone were too stunned to move, until Phil bursts through and into the open. The field dopes up on adrenalin and noise becomes a new language, triggered by the boy who shouted her name like he could yank her from the dark place she has finally fallen into after walking on the edge for weeks.