[ INBETWEEN LOVE ]
(she couldn't walk straight, he skated barefoot. it wasn't love or even friendship; something in between, just like them.)
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Anna Summers was strangely imperfect.
Her socks never matched. They would always be differing colours, differing patterns, senselessly coming out from her black and white converses—which had crooked flaps. Her hair wasn't even right—she had that one streak of white in a head of strawberry blonde. She couldn't even walk straight, tripping on her own two feet.
The many quirks of Anna Summers caught his eye somehow. Maybe it was because it snowed that one time.
(All it had to do was snow.)
It was early November, just when the temperature began to dip. Outside already felt really cold, as if the air was rubbing ice against your cheeks. He was just sitting there in a tree, the one that shadowed the sidewalk to the school with long thick branches, staring into the vast grey skies. It was a usual place for him to be when he wanted to be alone for no particular reason.
With a red shoelace posing as a headband around her head, she walked by. Like most people, she was never really a fan of the cold, hence the thick, magenta coat that cocooned her, making her curves visually non-existent, and her body disoriented. Unlike him, who wore just a hoodie. Her head was down, watching her own feet walk, as if keeping a watchful eye would decrease the chances of her tripping.
She was oblivious to his presence, up in the trees.
At first, it was nothing but an empty glance. The magenta was eye-catching.
(Way too eye-catching for cloudy grey-skied weather. Way too colourful for a dull morning of black and white.)
Then it just began to snow.
She looked up, her glittering blue eyes wide, surprised. It was weird how quickly her head came up, as if she sensed the snow clairvoyantly. In one, deeming breathe of a cloud, a smile came to her face. Jack was watching, curious, and it was as if the sky became brighter. She blinked, and her eyes seemed to glimmer in wonder.
And then, slowly, she spread her arms like wings, excitement bubbling in her smile, and she began to run. Twirling in countless circles, never getting the least bit dizzy, she ran. She ran and ran and ran, like she would jump into the awakened sky and take flight any second. She would soar like a bird and dance with the snowflakes. The snow caught her hair, her eye-catching magenta coat, and she just seemed . . . happy.
(And snow just had to fall for her for her to be truly happy. Never had he seem such adoration in someone so lonely.)
He smiled to himself.
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After that, she just seemed to catch his eye.
(No magenta needed.)
While she sat during lunch, she seemed gleeful, smiling to herself. She sat with her friends—two of them—and she was gleeful, like it was the best day of her life.
Then when a few people would walk by, she'd just shrink.
Her eyes would just lose their colour. She looked down, as if she were the reason for the stress and wrongdoings in their life. As if her very existence made the skies angry. As if she were guilty of dropping burdens on their shoulders. As if she was just the spare that made the mistake of trying to be useful in the mechanism of society.
It was odd. And it made him curious.
"Jack!"
He flinched, snapping out of his stupor, and then turned to the source of the interfering voice. "Hm?"
"Ya didn't hear a single word Ah just said, did ye?" Merida's short-tempered self spoke with such conviction it was like watching her set every single word that came out of her mouth on fire.
He just shrugged. Obviously he didn't hear a word.
(But it wasn't like those times when he willingly attempts to tune her out since he really doesn't care. Staring makes you go deaf. Staring makes you numb to actuality.)
And he'd been staring at Anna.
"What's up with you?" Tooth asked, concerned, tucking her brunette hair behind her ear, her fingers briefly brushing her yellow, green, blue and pink bangs.
"What makes you think something's up?" Was staring that noticeable? Did he just look like a dead body or something from their perspectives?
"Ye've been starin' off inta space fer the past few days," Merida stated bluntly.
"And we're just—"
"Annoyed."
"Concerned," Tooth quickly corrected, sending Merida a look. The red head rolled her eyes.
(He wanted to ask about Anna. Why her hair wasn't fully strawberry blonde. Why her socks never matched. Why she walked through the world like she was living the best day of her life. And why she just seemed to shrink.
He wanted to ask.)
"It's nothing . . . just . . ."
(He really wanted to ask.)
With his head down, he looked in her direction, on the other side of the cafeteria. The sandwich on her tray was long since forgotten.
(She was shrunken, like she was trying to ignore the fact that she was alone, since Rapunzel and Hiccup had to leave early during lunch for some art program or whatever.)
From under the table her black winter boots—the ones she began to wear when the snow started to pile—swung one at a time. He could almost see her hands fidgeting with one another under the table, and he could almost hear her shaking breathes from here, like she was shivering.
And then, just for a second, her eyes looked up and locked with his, and they fluttered back down way too soon. He could have swore, for that one second, his heart wasn't doing what it was suppose to do.
". . . Anna Summers?"
Maybe it was the fact that it was her name made his head come up so quickly, because Tooth's voice was in no way loud or disruptive. Her name.
Her.
Tooth's violet eyes have followed his gaze, and when she looked back at him, the corner of her mouth quirked up. "You were staring at Anna Summers?"
Jack felt the weirdest sensation as he said nothing and just shrugged, like he had just betrayed himself. Like giving himself away was like betraying Anna.
"Ah heard she's crazy," Merida said, "Lads mess with her because she's way too naive. Teachers compare her to her sister, Elsa, all the time, since Elsa used to come here. They also say . . ."
It was a long list. He never realized how many rumours there were about Anna.
(They said her heart was made of paper and she paper-clipped it to her sleeve. She was so naive that guys got a laugh from messing with her. They'd rip her paper heart to shreds, and she'd try to mend it with tape by smiling at nothing. But all tape does is make sure the pieces don't fall apart. It doesn't help with healing.)
It wasn't normal. She wasn't normal. But at the same time, it wasn't like she was abnormal.
She was oddly inbetween.
And he wasn't sure why he couldn't stop staring at an inbetween.
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His friends had connected the dots all too soon. Sooner than he probably did himself. They interrogated him - mostly Tooth - asking things that he couldn't even answer to himself. Why stare at Anna Summers? Merida seemed to know every single rumour spread about the girl, and he got the feeling he hasn't even heard them all yet. Tooth had been rather 'preserving' towards the topic, wanting to help the poor boy decipher his odd feelings towards the girl who couldn't even walk straight.
But he kept insisting it was nothing.
Absolutely goddamn nothing.
Besides, it's not like he's ever even spoken to Anna before.
It just went on throughout November, and it begun to snow even more, and he'd watch her even more, from the tree, where he usually was, as she attempted to fly with the snowflakes. The temperature dropped further, and Jack soon noticed Anna started wearing a sweater under her coat. It was blue, and extremely eye-catching just like her magenta coat. Just like her. And he found it especially hard to understand how she can be so eye-popping and still be so overlooked.
She wasn't like other girls who wore make-up and gossiped about whatever. And she wasn't the opposite either, being more of a tomboy who was into sports and were tough as nails. She participated in no sports or clubs or anything. She wasn't that smart, or that sporty, or that girly, or that talented.
She was just inbetween.
Nothing but a spare in the mechanism of society.
(And it didn't make sense. She didn't make sense.)
"I think sometimes people prefer fear than comfort," Anna had said during geography class, one of the few classes they seemed to share, and he'd snapped out of whatever stupor he was in that was caused by his boredom of school. Her voice had awakened him. He hadn't even heard the question she was answering, or knew if there was even a question in the first place.
She spoke with caution, but oddly assured at the same time. Like the thoughts in her head were way too quick for her to decipher, but she trusted her own words at the same time.
"They're just that selfless," she continued, fidgeting with her hands, "But they're also too worried to think it through. Like, they're too scared to really recognize if the person trying to help them actually could help them. . . Does that make sense?"
(Jack couldn't tell if the class had cared, or understood, or even heard her. But Jack had. And he had hoped the class had heard, because it made sense.)
And he couldn't stop staring, waiting to hear her say something else.
Unfortunately, she said nothing for the rest of the class.
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"Errrg, I wish you would have told me you like Anna Summers before! I coulda helped you!" Tooth exclaimed. Her locker was right next to his. Jack stuffed his books inside, rolling his eyes at the way too overly-excited girl.
"Tooth, when have I ever said that I liked her?" Jack questioned, feeling odd, like how a person felt when he was aware of a mind-reader in the room.
"You didn't. That's why I would've wanted to help. You're experiencing that weird feeling of interest towards a person, and usually that interest evolves into something of admiration. That's the starting point of a crush."
Jack groaned in annoyance. The interrogation was never going to end.
He couldn't understand how Tooth always wanted to help him. He wasn't even sure if he needed help. Heck, he was still unsure of the whole situation. She always had that motherly vibe to her, and yet she could still pass off as a total child at other times. And she looked at him like she was either hurt or offended that none of the hard work was passed on to her.
"I don't think I'm crushing on her Doctor Tooth," Jack said as they walked down the hallway towards their next class.
"Well, I think that your heart is trying to tell you something. And your mind can't quite process it yet."
"I haven't even spoken to her yet."
Yet. He just had to add yet in that sentence.
"Just talk to her. Talking helps. It's hard to tell if she's aware of you staring at her all the time. Or better yet, if she's freaked out or not."
Just talk to her.
(All this time of watching her fly with the snowflakes, waiting for her to say something in the few classes they shared that would change the colour of the world; his mind never came across the idea to just talk to her. Idiot.)
"Why are you so interested in this anyway?" Jack asked, smiling humourlessly, walking backwards to face the girl.
Tooth stopped walking, causing him to stop as well. She looked like she was about to rip his head off.
"Because-I-think-you-might-actually-have-some-genuine-feelings-for-the-girl-and-you-not-noticing-that-is-just-aggravating-me!"
Jack tossed his head back and groaned. He's gotten used to her speaking like she was half hummingbird, so being able to decipher what she just said was nothing. Being able to not get annoyed, that was a different story. And he was annoyed.
"Jack." Tooth said, her voice much calmer now, and he brought he head back down to face her. "I don't think you understand what this could do to you. Anna Summers isn't your normal girl. And that's what makes her special." She smiled, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder. "Talk to her."
Then she walked right past him, leaving him there.
(He couldn't help but think about how things just escalated way too quickly. He wasn't feeling it. He just really wanted to talk to her.)
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In Math class, after lunch, he sat right next to her, and he'd sometimes glance her way and notice that one streak of white in a head of strawberry blonde. People dye their hair, sure, he even dyed his hair white. Anna's streak of white was almost senseless. And he was curious.
It was before class, the ruckus of students entering in the background, and while he was drawing snowflakes on the misty glass of the window, his other arm crossed over the desk, he was trying to focus on last week's lesson. Math was never his thing.
But his mind kept replaying the recent one-sided conversation he had with Tooth. Just talk to her. It was goddamn annoying.
(And he swore it was nothing.)
He looked away from the window and crossed both arms over the desk. With his head slightly down, he glanced Anna's way. She had her hand in the in the other, her thumb rubbing against her palm. Her eyes were slightly squinted, like she was listening to the world around her.
And he swore he could have got a heart attack when her head abruptly turned to him.
"This happens in a lot of tv shows," she said, and he couldn't have been more perplexed at her sudden words that seemed to rush from her mouth. He couldn't have been more curious. She looked straight at him, right into his eyes.
(No shivering breathes, no fidgeting hands.)
"There's a guy and a girl, and the guy stares at the girl a lot. He gets caught by his friends and gets teased for it. But he only stares at her because he thinks she's pretty. And . . ."
She suddenly trailed off, her eyes on him but her mind somewhere else. Whatever she was trying to say, she said it with confidence as if she was trying to prove something, and her eyes were beaming with life. Then she frowned, and her eyes fleeted to her desk as if she just proved herself wrong.
(Anna Summers had that one streak of white in a head of strawberry blonde. She had a gazillion freckles on her face. Her socks never matched. She walked liked she was living the best day of her life, and then she just seemed to shrink. It wasn't normal.
And that's when it hit him. It hit him.)
He leaned in, just slightly, as if to get himself in her view, and he smiled. "I think you're beautiful."
(It was strange—how he didn't notice it until now.)
Her eyes flashed in surprise, and she looked back at him, her mouth parted and her eyes wide. And when she did, she had this shock in her eye, as if he just held up the sky from crashing down upon her. Like he just did something he wasn't suppose to do.
(Inside, he wanted to know why—why she looked at him like that.)
But instead he smiled at her reassuringly.
A few seconds passed, she blinked, and the corners of her mouth quirked up just a bit. Just a bit to become a smile.
"Jack, by the way," he introduced casually.
She smiled. "Anna."
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Jack took Emma out for ice skating every Wednesday, and she was still learning. She just liked to circle the ice rink, trying to skate faster. And soon enough, she had grown fond of the activity, always rushing Jack out the door way earlier than their usual time.
He liked to just watch her skate, sitting in the stands, cross-legged. In his opinion, the public ice rink was way too crowded. He'd really rather skate on the lake, the one close to the neighborhood. The one that had an inevitable reputation of freezing over every winter.
And just his luck, there was that eye-catching blue sweater. Impossible to miss.
He was a few rows up in the stands. She was right there at the front, gripping the edge with her mittened hand for balance, obviously not knowing how to skate.
(Even from where he was, he could see her shivering, even with her blue sweater on.)
The blue sweater that made her curves visually non-existent. Biting on her lip, she concentrated on her feet, as if waiting for the crash-landing she so destined to have. Her concentration seemed so strong it was like the whole world had been tuned out and long since forgotten.
He couldn't help but hop over the few front rows, until he was close enough to see the senseless white streak in a head of strawberry blonde through the scratched-up, misty glass. She was mumbling encouragements to herself, like the rest of the world really didn't exist. But he still wasn't that close. And she didn't even notice him.
The urge to just say hi was strong. And the urge not to seemed equal. And it all just confused him. Why couldn't he just say hi?
Just talk to her.
He watched her struggle to pass the gap in the entrance, not having anything to keep her balance, resulting in stretching her arms across and pulling her wobbling feet behind her.
Talk to her.
He didn't use skates to glide around the ice. Despite the complaints he'd get from the people who worked there, he skated barefoot without a care in the world. So it didn't take him long to get on the ice.
And just then, like what was destined to happen, she slipped.
And strangely enough, right in the catch, he lost his footing. And she swirled around, landing right on top of him. And he could feel his cheeks flare.
She pulled up quickly, and from that close he could count the dozens of freckles on her face. Her freckled cheeks seemed equally red.
"This is awkward," she said with an uneasy smile.
He didn't know what to say. He couldn't think of anything to say.
She laughed. "My bad. Um," she attempted to get off, but getting a grip in slippery ice wasn't the easiest thing to do. He held her shoulders up so they wouldn't again, and their faces got even closer for that brief moment, and he brought her up in a sitting position. "I'm really really sorry. It wasn't your fault, of course not, I'm just . . . awkward and I really don't know ho—"
"I-I could teach you," he suddenly said, deciding that waiting for her to stop wasn't going to work. She seemed to have a tendency to ramble on, never really aware that she needed to stop at some point.
(The many quirks of Anna Summers.)
At first, she seemed confused, not getting it. "Wait, what?"
"I could teach you how to skate," he repeated, a bit slowly this time, with a shrug of his shoulders. The corner of his mouth crooked up, just a bit.
Her eyes seemed to flash in surprise, her hands fidgeting, like she couldn't believe . . .
(—what? Couldn't believe what?)
"R-Really? I mean, um, a-are you sure? 'Cause I really suck."
"You can't be that bad." Jack gripped the edge of the rink and stood up. He offered Anna a hand, "Come on."
A second passed, and Anna lifted her right hand to take his, when her eyes glanced down to his feet, and her eyes widened in alert. "Holy crap your feet must be freezing!"
Jack was a bit taken aback at how loudly her eyes screamed of guilt. Her eyes went wide and almost seemed to panic, portraying such worrisome you'd think she just saw the entire world crash and burn inside of you.
He let out a light laugh, grabbing her hand that has frozen in the air.
(Her hands were warm, despite how she shook with shivers, and it sent an unnatural rush through him that felt almost foreign.)
"Well, they're not frozen yet," he replied with a reassuring smile, and brought her to her feet, with the constant slippery zigzag of her skate, and she gripped the side with her other hand for balance.
The concern in her eyes was still there, barely though, since she seemed to relax. He couldn't quite read her, but she was thinking something. And when she blinked suddenly, her eyes fluttering downwards, he realized for the past few moments he'd been staring at her.
Idiot.
Anna's eyelashes were thick and dark, framing her eyes like flower petals, and when she looked down, you could see how they curve upwards.
"Um," she stuttered, her eyes still down. His hand was still holding hers.
And then he noticed; she was shrinking.
"So?" he said, gliding backwards a bit, bringing both their arms up as his fingers were still curved around hers, "Are we gonna skate or what?"
The tip of her mouth curved into a bit of a smile, and she let out a light laugh, her breathe a misty cloud. Her eyes came back up and she shook her head slightly. "I really do suck."
"I could change that," he said.
He could change that. He could stop her from shrinking.
Anna Summers isn't your normal girl.
She shook her head so lightly it could have been mistaken for shivering. "Jack, I—"
Goddammit, Anna, he thought.
Finding her other hand and gripping them tight, he pulled back, skating backwards. Startled out of her mind, her eyes practically popped out of her head, and her feet kicking at the ice in a desperate attempt not to fall. He didn't skate very fast, and soon enough she caught up.
Until she lost her footing, and she suddenly collapsed into him, his hands on her shoulders, her hands on his chest. Despite her shivering, her warmth practically radiated off of her, and in the sudden collision, his heart did something it wasn't suppose to do when warm met cold.
Her head perked up, meeting his eyes, and he couldn't help but smile. "Wanna try again?"
Then something happened to her. A smile came to her face, and her laughter filled his ears. Her eyes got their colour back, she stopped shrinking, and she just seemed glow. Anna Summers was glowing. Anna Summers was . . . happy.
And that's what makes her special.
"Okay."