Fixing Amy – Chapter 1

Amy paced into her English class, clutching her thick, blue diary tight to her chest. Her blue eyes darted around the room, a nervous tick in her gut. All of the people she'd been in class with for the past three years were loud, talking, laughing, and greeting each other excitedly.

No one greeted Amy.

She timidly took a seat in the row of the desks on the side opposite from the door. She hated classrooms set up like this; with desks on both sides of the room, facing each other. She was forced to look at her classmates, especially being first row, but she didn't belong behind the front row. Wasn't welcome.

She glided her hands over her thighs, as if smoothing her dark skinny jeans out, and sighed, not looking across at her hyper classmates, but at her hands, which were now stretched and clasping each other on top of her desk. She controlled her breathing and examined her newly painted nails. Rose pink, all except for the ring fingers, which were a pale gold glitter. She liked doing her nails.

The bell rang. She nervously reached across the back of her neck and gently tugged her lengthy brown hair to one side while the teacher instructed everyone to their seats and began calling roll. Deep breaths, Amy thought. There's no reason to be nervous.

She waited for her name to be called, and when the elderly man finally exclaimed, "Amy Parms!" she simply raised her hand and immediately stopped paying attention.

Amy flipped open her journal and began drawing her dream house. That was usually her subject. It was across town from where she currently stayed, but she went when she wanted to get away. There was a bench directly across the street from the grand gate where she would sit, cross her legs, breathe deeply, and begin just drawing.

The house had been abandoned as long as she had lived there, so at least three years, but it was kept up nicely by someone. She hadn't been in close to a month and now that she was thinking about it, she was itching to go back.

For a moment, she became aware that Mr. Warring was droning on about the plans for the school year. She shook her head and tuned him out again; that's what the syllabus is for.

But a strange feeling suddenly swept over her, like she was being watched. But who would be watching her? She laughed to herself, but quickly averted her eyes to the old man at the front of the classroom to make sure she hadn't been caught not paying attention. Nope. He was looking at nothing in particular actually, not even noticing that no one was paying attention to him.

And then her eyes fell on the boy sitting directly in front of her.

He was the one staring at her. Even when she caught him, he didn't look away. He was new, he had to be… short, brown hair, lovely tan skin, beautiful smile…

She looked away quickly, back at her diary, feeling her cheeks flush. Blinking hard, her focus went towards cooling her face down, but she suddenly found herself gazing innocently through her long eyelashes. The boy's smile faltered slightly. He seemed… taken aback?

Sadness washed over her as she looked back down at her journal, and she began writing under her drawing.

Dear Diary,

There is a boy staring at me right now. A new boy.
Obviously it's some kind of fluke or something,
right? He's probably laughing to himself about
how ridiculous I am and look. I'm sure he is.
He's cute, but there's no point in getting caught
up over him.

No one sat next to me today. In video productions,
I sat in my little corner, where there are only two
computers. Of course no one sat next to me. They'd
get so bored.
I stayed after school for two hours today, in music.
I'd rather play the piano for the rest of my life than
go home. Seriously. With a piano I have music, at
"home," I have nothing but myself. Anita and Kevin
are probably the only people in this world that don't
like music. I've probably said that a million times in
these journals… oh well.
I find myself thinking about that Latino boy in Mr.
Warring's class today. That's the only class I have
with him. Wait. I'm not supposed to care. Right. It
doesn't matter. He obviously wasn't very happy
about what he saw, so yeah. Doesn't matter. I'll
just remain invisible.

As always, Amy