She was the new girl in town. A mystery. A commodity.
A freak.
As she approached the once-familiar learning grounds, returning now from whence she came long ago, she stopped for a moment and thought about just what she was getting into. It's not as if she had a choice of whether or not she could go to school - that much was certain. Rather, her worries pertained to another personal subject: her classmates, ones that she did not despise or look down upon. Like they do me.
Naminé entered through the front gates willingly, strode though the courtyard at a pace slightly faster than the average walking speed, entered through the front doors, only to be met with the blaring sound waves of the bell system, impending that she must get to class with haste, without enjoying her surroundings. She wondered what her classmates might think of her. Specifically, her outer image. Because that's all they really see.
Many would argue that Naminé was in fact rather beautiful. Her attire was rather uncommon, though highly fashionable. Simple, white sandals moved along her naked feet. A simple white sun dress covered most of her body, leaving her long, thin, unscathed legs exposed to the world. Another slightly faded navy dress was worn over her first, like one would wear a coat over their sweater, setting off an expression clearly uncommon to the teenagers in this school. Two belts, one gold, one silver, bounced around her hips, with no lacing evident on the dress, though they stayed perfectly balanced and equidistant with one another. To finish off her odd proximity, she bore a white piece that covered her petite, creamy shoulders. Black boxes criss-crossed across the accessory, giving the illusion of a chess board print running across her back.
In fact it wasn't just her attire that was alluring what attention she received but did not desire. It was her physical features as well as her clothes that were setting off alarms in the eyes of the few who noticed her. Naminé was paler than a full-fledged ghost or any current teenage fashion trend ever wanted to be, almost as if she could be transparent. Like I always want to be. Long, bleached blonde hair shielded her sapphire eyes, fell slightly past the blades of her shoulders, and swayed on either side as she passed through the narrow corridor that was the senior hallway. Though she did not belong there, it wasn't as if she was unwelcome. Nobody spoke up and told her to leave as he passed by like they would to most sophomores. Rather, most ignored her, and the few who did look up when she passed continued on with their insignificant conversations without any further indication of her existence. Like they always do.
When she arrived in her first classroom, a large room filled to the brink with posters, projects completed from the previous years, and a large whiteboard opposing a green chalkboard on the opposite side of the room. Naminé sat down carefully in the front of the row of chairs that sat farthest away from the teacher's mahogany and paper-scattered desk. As she noticed more students walk in, some clearly more respectable than others, Naminé ignored them as they would so often her and took the time to take in a deeper examination of the room.
The projects scattered across the brown wall seemed to reflect events and information about stories and texts she would probably learn about in the near-future, this being an Literature classroom and all. Though she could relate to what she was looking at, Naminé knew that she would rather express her ideas and feeling through her drawings, rather than words. She had always believed that pictures and photographs told stories deeper than the richest novels ever since she was a little girl, and at a young age began experimenting with the former, though she did not dislike the latter.
What captured Naminé's attention the most was a small side of the white wall that was on the eastern side of the room. She thought that most of it was painted black and that the paint was peeling, but upon closer examination, Naminé was able to tell distinct features and specific groves and spaces between the apparent lines. They were names and signatures written across the wall, most likely from past students whom were taught about literature in this room. Naminé wanted to know just what it was that made students want to leave their name forever in this room, and also wondered if, at the end of the year, she would leave her impression on the wall as well. There were quotes as well.
As she pondered on this thought, the annoying siren of the present bell rang, and Naminé immediately jerked her head towards toward the largest desk in the room, her crystal eyes meeting another pair. Who was obviously the teacher rose from behind her oak desk, strode over to an equally oak podium, and began to speak in an aged but friendly voice.
"So it seems that someone has taken over your seat, Mark," the teacher chuckled. "It's okay – she's new here. You can take on one of the empty seats in the back of the classroom." The student did not look pleased with the teacher's decision, but did not argue any case, and merely nodded his head silently, and strode to the back of the classroom.
"And just who is this seat stealer, anyway?" the teacher inquired out loud, not bothering to reach for any sort of seating chart.
"Naminé, ma'am. My name's Naminé."
"Pleased to meet you." The teacher looked up toward the ceiling, the sky, for a brief moment then drove her head down and stared softly at Naminé. "You know, now that I think about it, I've never heard that particular name before."
Most haven't, Naminé thought to herself.
"It's so… beautiful. It's delightful and elegant, yet different, and certainly fit for a young lady like you." Naminé almost blushed a bright red at this comment. Nobody had ever said things like that to her directly, other than her parents and relatives, so hearing such pleasing words about her name was something that caught her off guard.
"My name's Mrs. Wyatt," she continued on, "and let me be one of the first to welcome you to both Destiny Island High School and my Literature class. I know for certain that you'll come to love it here in due time. If nothing else, I just can tell that you'll fit into this class rather well."
I nodded my head in hopeful approval, and she then walked over to me and handed me several things. First on the list was a syllabus. Mrs. Wyatt claimed that she didn't have time to explain everything on it, but it was rudimentary enough to follow. Next, she handed Naminé a small book with a blank, red cover. The spine of the book bore a name and an author - an unabridged version of Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare. This was what the class was reading and interpreting right now, and it only made Naminé groan on the inside. Reading Shakespeare was not something that Naminé was fond off, and Mrs. Wyatt almost looked crestfallen at the site of her new student's facial expression.
Across the room, in the very back of the most distant row, Naminé noticed, was a boy quietly snickering quite rudely at the sight of her new face. All she could tell about him before he dove his face into the same book as her own was that his hair was a very brownish blonde and that he wore a black-and-white chess board arm band that matched the back of her accessory. She had never seen that on a student before, and she wished that she had it for herself.
The rest of the class paced at a pretty moderate speed, as all that the entire class did was read out of Hamlet for the whole period. Naminé was not given a part, and was therefore spared of sharing her soft, almost pitiful voice with the rest of the class. Instead of showing any enthusiasm to the relevant subject, Naminé silently ghosted her sketchbook to her desk, and continued sketching on a previous drawing of a figure of hers holding a five-pronged, star shaped keychain. This image had no face, but it was supposed to be of a boy that Naminé had held in her own heart at one time. She could not identify the inspiration for her original affection for this boy, but she knew that leaving him behind drove her passion forward.
She also noticed that the boy who was quietly laughing at her earlier volunteered to read as Hamlet himself and speak in the same, ancient tongue that they did back in that time period. There was clearly something different about this boy, something like herself – something that she recognized, but that she could not put her finger on just where she had seen or thought about someone like him before.
The bell rang soon after the boy finished, and he left the room at a rather fast pace, before the rest of the class, even. The rest of Naminé's mundane day passed at reoccurring intervals. Each period was different from the last, though she detested most of them in the same way; even her art class, whom she normally had a naturally biased love for. Clearly, just by looking about the room, Naminé could tell the teacher did not show very much compassion for drawing and did not care if any of his students ever learned the craft or not. It was apparent that he had knowledge of "the arts," but showed no appreciation towards them.
The only class period besides English Naminé had any plans not to start a rebellion in was her advanced placement class: AP Psychology. Naminé thoroughly enjoyed that particular period, not because the material particularly interested her, or that conveniently enough the laughing spiky headed child from her Literature class was sitting in the back of the room, but because she could tell that her teacher was somebody who was dedicated to Psychology, whom also loved it passionately, and wanted to share her love with her entire class, that consisted of students whom almost all enjoyed the period and participated with enthusiasm. They were currently studying memory, and relayed events concerning the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.
It was at this mention of memory that made Naminé want to leave the school and never come back. leaving no traces of herself behind for her classmates to scathe and ravish. After a sole glance across the room, she somehow immediately remembered where she recognized the boy clothed similarly to herself, and was immediately disgusted at the thought.
Can it really be him? What on earth is he doing here!
I'm writing this for a friend, so the title and the overall plot may appear a bit strange and stereotypical, respectively.
The ending that I need to re-write doesn't help either.
What I'm doing here will make more sense as I write more.