The Shadows Bring The Starlight {Finished}

[CPericardium]

Hello! I’m a big fan of Sims 3, and a longtime lurker of this forum. I’ve never posted anything here myself, or even shared my stories with people on the net beyond Facebook. It’s a bit scary.

Here’s a story!

The synopsis: A girl called Melissa Sparks does things and learns other things and there is also walking. There is a lot of walking. Things happen.


The Shadows Bring The Starlight

Part 1




“Not taking any more passengers tonight, darlin’.”

Having just emptied the meagre contents of her purse into the fare box, Melissa stared at the bus driver.

 He stared stonily back.
   
Then why did you stop? She swallowed her exasperation and apologised. After waiting a moment for coins that were never returned, she stepped off the bus, and landed on the pavement with a heavy thump. How am I supposed to get home now? I have two Continual Assessment exams tomorrow. I need to look over my notes…

Before the driver closed the door, she turned around and cast him a desperate pout.

“Could you maybe just drop me off at the interchange?”

The driver frowned as he took in the sight of this oddly persistent girl in a rumpled school uniform, tinted glasses and dyed hair. She looked distressed, yes, but mostly, she looked like an obstacle. An obstacle to getting a nice stiff Simoleon Sunrise before happy hour was over.

“Love to, but I wasn’t plannin’ on that being my next stop.”

“You’re heading there anyway, aren’t you, sir? All the buses have to park inside the garage at the end of the day. If I could just – ”

He cut her off. “The interchange is my last stop, but as I said, it ain’t my next. My next stop is the ol’ watering hole, see? I got buddies waiting for me.” The doors started to close. “Sorry, kid. Find your own way home.’

Melissa’s ire flared. Drinking on the – just after the job? The pinnacle of irresponsibility… Isn’t there a law about buses having to return the buses by a certain time? Oh, right, this is Twinbrook. Back in Bridgeport this would never have happened.

Back in Bridgeport, there was a subway network that spanned the entire city-state. It was fast. Efficient. Melissa thought it was funny that she’d never appreciated how easy it was to get back on track in Bridgeport. If she ever hopped on the wrong train, she could check her station on an electronic sign and then switch to the appropriate rail line.

Here in Twinbrook, there were only buses and streets. Getting lost was a simple matter of turning left instead of right, of reading the number of a bus wrongly, and then wandering aimlessly to find a taxi, or at least a different bus stop – as Melissa discovered firsthand.



The sun had set. Melissa clapped a hand over her forehead. She was usually so meticulous about these things, but she’d spent all afternoon cramming in the school library, sneaking sips from her coffee flask until it was completely empty, and the caffeine had only really started to kick in a half-hour ago, leaving her disoriented in a city she barely knew.

She had her mobile phone, but she didn’t want to bother her parents without, at least, an attempt at finding her bearings. They were busy enough as it was.



She walked until her footsteps became a distant hum on the pavement, until the steady glow of the streetlamps became a dim blur flickering on the edges of her vision.



Twinbrook was such a drab world. She kicked up dust as she walked, not bothering to observe the buildings because they were all identically red-bricked, identically roofed and identically uninteresting to her.

It was a cold world, too.

An errant breeze whipped past her left cheek. She shuddered, reminded of the beginning of the year. January in Twinbrook was hell and hypothermia; there was hardly any snow, but the small town was still prone to short, localised downpours and bursts of icy wind. She’d spent much of that month with her hands balled into fists and stuffed into her pockets.

She missed the balmy violet nights of Bridgeport, the city that not only never slept but lived, like only a thriving metropolis could. Melissa enjoyed being alone, but there was something exhilarating about being alone with other people around. When she sat in a club, with a muffin in one hand and an evening newspaper in the other, amid the miasmic stench of cigar smoke and fruity air freshener, surrounded by the vibrant red heat of all the people around her who talked and danced and really lived, thoughts of her own numbness melted away like the marshmallows in her hot chocolate.

It was enough to make her wish she felt alive, too.

She didn’t miss Public School 67.

At her old school, most of the girls had been segregated into cliques and bonded by childhood friendships. Melissa had been in a clique before, in primary school. However, in the aftermath of a rather dramatic kerfuffle that split the group up, she’d been friendless by the time secondary school rolled in.

There had been other students, students like her, who floated past each other, lost and lonely ghosts counting the dents in the floor – united in their solitude.

There had been bullies, too. They had never been up-front, although Melissa would hear the ghosts of their voices follow her down the hall. Hushed comments about her unnatural shortage of pigmentation, measured criticisms of her weight – they had hurt, but none of it had mattered, because she hadn’t gone to school to make friends. Teachers had made no small fuss of her intelligence and attendant diligence, and she’d been determined to live up to it, no matter how envious her classmates grew.

In spite of her non-existent social life, Melissa had never truly been unhappy at Public School 67.

When she tired of strolling through the corridors, she would retreat to her leafy green corner in the school library and flick through a book.



No one knew it, but reading was her personal bête noire. Words seemed to bleed across the pages, for mile after painful mile, and she found it prohibitively difficult to find a genre that could sustain her interest. Still, reading was important for her studies, and it was more productive than her preferred activities – scouring the soccer field for grass seeds and collecting insect samples for idle experimentation.

She had looked forward to starting anew at Stary Prep, an all-girls private school tucked away snugly at the west end of Twinbrook.
 
Her parents had said that she didn’t have to take the scholarship if she didn’t want to. She knew she had to, all the same. It was the one of the best schools in the region, the Gateway to the Ivy League. She’d have to have been a fool not to seize the opportunity.

Yet the guilt of making her family move to Twinbrook when both her parents had tidy and well-paying careers in the city continued to haunt Melissa.

On the tourism websites, her new town was described as ‘sunny, with a magnificent skyline’. At the time of her family’s arrival, the skies were an ominous cloudy grey. She took it as a portent, and so she isolated herself – from the paper boy who was curious about this new addition to his regular route, from her parents’ new employers who insisted on paying them house visits, from neighbours who came bearing baked goods. Of course she conversed with them, and spouted comments like ‘what delightful weather’ and ‘Twinbrook has a magnificent skyline’, but for the most part she revealed nothing of herself or her previous city. There wasn’t much to tell, after all.

Her parents had been snapped up by the town’s science laboratories within a month of their move. They were well-known in the region.

Her older brother Theo had not appeared to mind being uprooted very much. He had assured her that his band had been looking for change of scenery anyway.

Her older sister Venus hadn’t been home in years and never returned any of their calls. Everyone understood, because involvement in black operations didn’t quite lend itself to contact with relatives or friends.

Everything had fallen into place, and still she believed her decision to take the scholarship had been nothing but an inconvenience. It was a belief not without cause; an atmosphere of strained cheerfulness permeated their new home following the move. It was for her benefit that her parents and brother plastered on smiles and waxed rapturous about their experiences in Twinbrook and congratulated her on her success day after excruciating day.

She didn’t know how to apologise. She didn’t know what to apologise for, when all she had done was study.



Studying, and reading – as much as she loathed it – remained her only solace when she submerged herself in a bitter sulk during the winter months. Before she got down to preparing for school, she spent a week making her bedroom look exactly like the one she’d had in Bridgeport – mess and all. On and off, she would hole up in her studying nest, brooding like a Petrarchan lover, with the curtains drawn and a textbook cradled in her palms. Her family knew well enough to stay away.



She did the only thing she knew how to do anymore: be alone.


~~~
Obscenely Long A/N: I intended this to be an stand-alone exploration of a side-character in a much longer story but , as with everything, including this author's note, it ballooned into a monstrosity because I needed to assuage my own loneliness (I conceived this just before sitting for my O-Levels this year. Exams: they exacerbate loneliness.). The longer story is going unfinished due to waning authorial interest. (It was about vampires. And I hate vampires. I tend to write about subjects that I hate, be it vampires, werewolves, pensive nineteen year-olds, body swaps, potboiler romances etcetera. I don’t finish them. Then I don’t know what to do with all these prequels, spin-offs and side stories that were supposed to serve a larger narrative. So I thought, might as well make ’em public.)

This story in particular is not supposed to be very long – after all, not much happens. Be forewarned: this is a character study at best and a disjointed jumble of words at worst, so there is no hero, or plot twist, or nation-shattering political intrigue. Heh.

I really hope this turns out OK, and that you enjoy this, because I sure didn’t. 

So, good fellows...continue?

[CPericardium]

Part 2


It was easier to see the stars here, though.

In Bridgeport, the kaleidoscopic lights of dive bar signs and nightclub advertisements overpowered the occasional pinprick of white that dared to twinkle over the skyscrapers.

She remembered being seven years-old and scrambling to stand on an unattended scaffolding, yanking on a lever, going up, up, up, reaching to touch the only visible star in the sky. It was so bright, yet so very small like herself, a flash of brilliant animal heat awash in a cold sea. She imagined that it must be a sun and not a star, and she stood for a few minutes staring into the face of infinity.

Then she saw her parents below, like terrified ants, screaming for her to come back to them.

Carefully, reluctantly, she did.



They may have stopped taking her out for walks in the city until her next birthday, but she didn’t mind. She still lay awake dreaming of climbing up to the night sky and marching into the gaping black maw of her unknowable future. She still hugged close her vision of the tiny sun that would shepherd her through it.



Here, the inky dome was swathed in constellations as far as the eye could see. Slivers of street were steeped in starlight, defying the encroaching grey of night. Here, there was no star that shone brighter than the rest. Here, it felt like she in the epicentre of infinity. From where she stood she could see cars jack-knife around corners, disappearing into the void with reckless abandon. She saw the threadbare wings of moths as they clung headily to the glass bulbs of streetlamps, convinced of a higher purpose hidden within the flames. Shadows shifted as she backed into a signpost, dizzy.
 
It frightened her. It blinded her.

The unpredictability of it all. The vulnerability of her.

She cut across a park.



The caffeine amplified her senses. Twinbrook was pregnant, writhing with blue shadows – of trees, of blades of grass, of ghosts, and without knowing it, she broke into a run.



Melissa ran, as if prodded by a supernatural power, through clouds of murmuring insects and through patches of damp tickling weeds. Lactic acid simmered in her calves until she was almost doubled over, and the wind stung her eyes and her backpack beat down on her shoulders with every bound. Her heart pounded thunderously, alive in a crescendo.

For some unearthly reason, she kept going.







She wound her way up a hill, hearing the world scream past with blazing clarity. Every whistle of wind, every rustle of bush, every crackle of dead leaf skittering across the ground sent a new frisson of terror through her bones, forcing her body to surge across the grass, faster and faster and then – 



Silence.

Dazed and breathing hard, she skidded to a halt on the pavement.

Her body ached like she had been running for hours, like she’d been riding the crest of a tidal wave and was only now sliding back to shore. Her fingertips twitched, demanding to be busied. She adjusted her backpack and squared away her socks, which were soaked and dappled with grass fragments. She fumbled to pluck them off. She dragged her fingernails up her legs to relieve the persistent itch that burned through them. She scrubbed at the oily sweat on her face. Then she wrapped her hands around the nape of her neck, searching for some phantom heat, and shivered as the cold trickled down her spine.

Pools of blood eddied inside her ears. She waited for a lull in the clamour before finally attempting to form a coherent thought.

What had she been running from?

What had she been running towards?

[Trip]

Welcome to the forum!

I absolutely adore your writing so far and really like the character study aspect of this.

[CPericardium]

Welcome to the forum!

I absolutely adore your writing so far and really like the character study aspect of this.

Thank you so much! It means a lot. I'm very flattered that you like my writing because I love your Escapists story. 

[Gwendy]

*stands and slow claps in amazement*

Well, I'm blown away. Your writing style is beautiful, and even though you've said that this is more a character piece than a traditional story, it's absolutely fantastic, and I can't wait for more. And I absolutely love the imagery in this, it's almost like I'm there, it's so detailed. 

[CPericardium]

Part 3

Melissa’s first day at Stary Prep had been surreal.



She had barely introduced herself before getting swept up in a gale of hospitality, embraced by veritable hordes of classmates who sought to know what public school was like and whether she had a boyfriend and what did she like to do on Friday nights? She had done her best to entertain the volley of questions, but then it was back to being a spectator.

Frankly, she didn’t know what to make of her new school.

The work was manageable – at least at first. There were tests in nearly every subject, five days a week, until examination dates drew near and teachers stopped teaching new things in favour of intensive revision. The tests were all twenty-five marks, and most of the level didn’t regard them as a major deal because they weren’t part of the final grade. The challenging syllabus had been unfamiliar but welcome; she’d thrived under the pressure, attacking the books feverishly.

However, the real pressure only reared its head when she lifted hers.

She soon noticed that Stary Prep was constantly buzzing with activity. The students worked harder, but they also played harder. Her peers were in all manner of sports teams: lacrosse, bowling, netball, swimming, badminton. Those that weren’t were involved in after-school clubs and societies like debate club, art club, Student Council, journalism club, science club and so on.

There was a suspiciously huge number of Girl Scouts.

Melissa would have signed up for an extracurricular herself, if only because it looked good on her college application, but the sheer amount of homework kept her swamped.

Her classmates were smart, and friendly enough – always inviting her to join their study groups, always trying to start conversations with her. Melissa found it hard to accept. She couldn’t, not when there were so many assignments that needed triple-checking and chapters to review and formulae to memorise.

Plus, she wasn’t sure what to talk about, anyway. Boys? Music? Boy music?



Was it any wonder, then, that she couldn’t fit in?

There were things her classmates did that she could not understand.

Why did they loiter around the lockers even though they knew they only had five minutes to get to class before the bell rang? What stimulating conversations were they so rapt in that they couldn’t wait till after school? Were they so fascinated by, so drawn to one another’s siren calls that it took all they had to wrest themselves from every discussion? Melissa was dying to know what could possibly excuse time-wasting when there were facts to be learnt, but the bulk of the snippets she heard were inside jokes and obscure references to – to doughnuts? Comics? Doughnut comics?

It must be fire-forged friendship. Just like the students in Public School 67, they battled and overcame obstacles together, probably in significant mortal danger, all the while coming to know one another as people with dreams and flaws and inner strength and –
 
After her first Chemistry class, when she was clearing up the last of the apparatus on her table, Blair and Willow spontaneously materialised at her bench to help wash the beakers.

Fine, it’s textbook camaraderie. Kinship ties between classmates.

The most bizarre instance had to be when she walked into the classroom one morning in late February and everyone leapt out from their chairs to shout ‘happy birthday!’

It – it has to be, um…

There was a homemade ice cream cake on the teacher’s desk.

When she asked how they’d known, they indicated the chart at the front of the class with the birthdays of every student in the class, but she knew she had never told anyone her birthday. Quite reasonably assuming that her favourite hobby was reading, they presented her with a gift voucher to the Always Studious bookstore, paid for using the class fund.

For the first time Melissa felt warm and welcome and appreciated.

For the first time she felt like crying, and she had not cried since she was a baby.

She had to question what she was being appreciated for, though. What had she done to deserve these people? Had the teacher asked them all to be nice to her, on a day she'd been absent? It was impossible. Melissa had never missed a lesson in her life.

~

My exams! she thought, in a rush, and she rooted around in her skirt pockets for her mobile phone. What was she doing, just standing around? Additional Maths I can probably breeze through, but Chemistry? Everything she knew about macromolecules, electrolysis and the Haber process raced through her head. I still haven’t gotten to grips with redox reactions , either – oh! Biting her lip at the blinking battery icon, she dialed home.

Her brother picked up.

Melissa exhaled. “Theo, I need you to come and pick me up. I’m lost.”

“Take the bus home,” he drawled. He put her on speaker. “I’m busy.”



“No bus runs this late!” she barked. That was probably untrue. There was likely a 53 or 217 – those could often be found in abundance – somewhere. Unfortunately, both ran east and she lived north.

“Guess you’ll have to walk, then.”

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “But I don’t know where I am! If you’re not coming to fetch me, at least tell Mom.”

There was a grunt and some shuffling on the other end.

Her mother came on the line. “Where are you, dear?”

Mom is home for once? thought Melissa, bemused. She and Dad don’t get off work until nine – and sometimes not even then because they have research to finish up. “I – I don’t know.” She scanned the area for inspiration. “I’m at a church…” she eventually replied, with some triumph, when she spotted the silhouette of a cross atop a nearby bell tower. “And I see a sign... I’m somewhere along Puddlewick Drive.”

Her mother tutted in recognition. “Ah, you must be at St Victor’s. That’s a good thirty minutes away, if I take the jeep. How did you get there? Never mind, you can tell me later. Just sit tight and read a book.”

~

“Melissa!”



Walking down the corridor imperceptibly faster, Melissa gripped the page of her copy of Romeo and Juliet tighter and feigned fervent interest in Friar Lawrence’s reaction to discovering the now-deceased Romeo.

“Melissa!”

The Friar just abandoned Juliet at the graveyard – left her in the lurch, to face the bitter cold alone. She couldn’t believe it, even after reading that scene nine times in the last three minutes.

Yvette Cartwright’s high airy voice echoed down the hall.



She wants to invite me to some get-together again. It was so late. It was half past eight, and the school gates closed at nine. Melissa envied her classmates’ ability to keep up with the material and still have time to go out every night.

It’s because they’re older than you are, she told herself, wincing at the excuse. You’re fourteen going on fifteen, and they’re sixteen. They’re more intellectually mature.

She’d skipped a grade by somehow managing to test off the charts in the school placement exams. Everyone told her she would have skipped right to university had it been possible.

Everyone called her a genius, but she knew better – she knew a genius would not be struggling to keep her head above water.
 
Two tests. One Chemistry, one Geography. Both in the same week, both twelve out of twenty-five. Her teachers had had a solemn chat with her about the importance of unwavering focus and delaying gratification.

She had been too ashamed to tell her parents. They would understand, of course, but the image of their faces when they realised their daughter was a failing grade away from squandering all the potential they believed she had …it made her squirm.

People would compare her to her older sister Venus, who was a documented child prodigy and now a vital player in complex international espionage for the government. And her brother Theo – well, he was still awfully precocious for a high school drop-out, and now he played lead guitar in a successful band. It would be worse for her – she had the sun in her hands and she dropped it. She would be the only true failure in the Sparks family.

“Melissa Sparks!”

She was scraping the bottom of the class with her daily sixteens and seventeens, while her classmates were snagging twenty-ones without breaking a sweat.

Some genius.

Melissa quickened her pace, panting a little as she pulled the book up to cover her eyes. Get to the exit.

She didn’t make it. Yvette accosted her, hands on hips. “Melissa. I was calling your name from down the hall. Didn’t you hear me?”

“No…guess I wasn’t paying attention…”

“OK,” Yvette sang, bouncing by Melissa’s side. “So, a bunch of us are having a slumber party at my house on Friday. Sounds fun, right? Giggling, gossiping, and of course movies! We’re going to watch Alpacalypse Now. You know, the sequel to The Hurt Llama.”



Mentally constructing a critical analysis on the significance of the Prince’s appearance at the end of the play, Melissa hoped she was nodding at the right times. “Mmhmm, aren’t those war films?”

“Yepperoni, and I looove them! I make dioramas in the basement,” Yvette revealed with a birdlike titter. “I’ll show you. Ooh, what’s your favourite type of pizza? Hannah and Casey like seafood, but I thought you might be allergic, like Quinn. She swelled up like a Tragic Clown doll at the last party, but luckily Sam had just taken a college-level course on how to do an emergency tracheostomy and…”

Melissa watched her classmate gesture enthusiastically, buoyed on her own rising voice. And they say I drink too much coffee.

There was that niggling anxiety again, that fearful keening at the back of her mind, telling her she couldn’t afford it. She just wasn’t friendship material, and yet every one of her classmates was intent on hunting her down and firing concentrated beams of whimsical joy and heartfelt sincerity at her until she caved. Alarm bubbled up within her. She had to get away.

“…then she just jammed the eraser-tip of my pencil into Quinn’s neck! It was totally awesome. You should have been there. You can be there!” Yvette went cross-eyed as she contemplated either the likelihood or health-related ramifications of such an occurrence. “Well, we’re not going to re-enact that episode, because I don’t want to lose another pencil. I think the bearded paramedic took it. Never trust a man with facial hair!”



Wh – what? “Sorry, are you inviting me?” Melissa asked, head bowed and eyes still fixed on the page. It was getting hard to walk.

“Uh, yeah, girl! We want you to come. We can have safe, sane and consensual misadventures together. There won’t be any nectar,” Yvette said. She leaned in conspiratorially. “Unless you want some, because I know a guy...”

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to intrude.” Trying not to break Yvette’s momentum, Melissa surveyed the corridor. They were too near the school exit for her to duck into an empty classroom.

“Oh, no, no, I bet you’ll multiply the fun! Unless you go into anaphylactic shock after eating shrimp, which would divide the fun, but like Quinn said, ‘When you can’t respirate, celebrate!’ She paused. “Or was it ‘asphyxiate’?”

Ah, there’s an out. The storage closet.



“That’s when we knew she was alright. As I was saying, though, if you aren’t too busy…like you…always are…” Her voice trailed off.
 


The hall was empty.



~~~

Now I have to get some screenshots for the next part. Or I may not, because I have to figure out how to build a thingy and that's going to be an uphill task if I ever saw one. Even if I can't do it, I'll do my best to update tomorrow.

I hope whoever's reading this is enjoying it thus far.

[CPericardium]

*stands and slow claps in amazement*

Well, I'm blown away. Your writing style is beautiful, and even though you've said that this is more a character piece than a traditional story, it's absolutely fantastic, and I can't wait for more. And I absolutely love the imagery in this, it's almost like I'm there, it's so detailed. 

Thank you!  That's very, very high praise. I tried to capture the feeling of being lost out on the streets when it's dark, because goodness knows when I was fourteen I got lost in my own town frequently. I can only hope to, er, blow you away more?

[Eldridge]

Hey, welcome to the forum! You can call me Eld for short, nice to meet you! So how should I call you?

Don't worry, it's scary first but you'll get used of it. I also post my first story here and it's horrible comparing to yours but I'm glad that I can post it here as I am improving so much... Well, I think. There's a bunch of nice people here

I have read your story yesterday but I'm too sleepy just to comment.

So, here are the comments:

I liked the way you write your story, reading yours remind me of reading a novel. You're also good with using terms and words that perfectly matched the situation. You also describe the situation well with the word that you chose and I also loved your screenshots, it adds so much feel and touch to the story and the decorated room looks good and fits well. And ohh, people don't usually commenting but they definitely reading, just look at the count view But looking at your beautifully written story, I bet people will comment yours. I definitely will come back again as your daily reader

Thank you for such a delicious update and I learned so much from reading yours. I love to read but when it comes to writing story, I always nervous and makes mistakes, haha. So, I check your profile. You’re 2 years older than me and you’re a good writer like everyone else. What’s your secret? To be honest, I envy you But, not anymore though I love being myself

See you again in the next chapter!
~ Eld

[Pam]

Allow me to add my welcome to the others!  This is really very good.  Lovely writing style.  I'm going to feature this on our Facebook page. 

[CPericardium]

Eldridge:

It's nice to meet you too! Thank you for your detailed comment, and for liking my story. You can call me CP.

Ha ha, I sometimes look at the neat floors of my sims and say to myself, "That's not a room! In my room you can't even see the floor!" I look at what people like to have around them when they're relaxing, and I look at what's around in my classroom, and I go for realism. And well, the scenery in Sims 3 is already amazing, so I make use of that.

I sincerely think you are a very perceptive and talented writer. Would you believe that I only recently discovered what you already convey in your story? To put it in blunt terms: the world doesn't revolve around me. I've been trying to understand people these days, see things from their point of view. Melissa is quite honestly not me; she embodies a lot of things I do not and she does a lot of things I would never do. I disliked her so much prior to the writing of this story, but I've been examining her motivations - trying to see why she does what she does. This made all the more difficult by the fact that she doesn't always know why she does what she does either. We are similar in that respect. It's also impossible to dislike someone you truly understand, don't you think?

As for advice, here's some that puts it better than I ever can -
 

The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.” - William Saroyan

When I get lost, I really get lost! (Don't do that.)

Don't worry if you make mistakes! What's important is that you make people, including me, reflect on ourselves and how we view the world. And keep loving yourself!

Pam:

Thank you for the welcome, and ...wow. I'm honoured! Thank you again. I love this forum.

[Luna]

Welcome to the forum!

You're a wonderful writer in such a young age! I enjoy every bit of it. I hope that you'll continue the story until the last chapter. I’ll definitely reading yours but not always commenting

[CPericardium]

Part 4

There didn’t seem to be anyone around St. Victor’s.



Ascending the front portico steps, she saw that this was nothing like her church – not her own safe, familiar, salmon-hued, lemongrass-scented church back in Bridgeport. This one was huge, Babylonian, even, with its colonnaded patio and grand arches. The outside walls themselves were clinical in their whiteness, spotless save for a sprawling series of frescoes.

She had stopped going to church just after her Confirmation, before her family moved to Twinbrook. It was more convenient that way, and she had never been that into the faith. Still, it was a big sin, a mortal sin that continued to snowball as long as she kept receiving the Holy Communion every time there was a Mass at school.

There wasn’t any harm, any sin in looking, was there?

Wall-mounted candelabras lit up the biblical characters gleaming in the stained-glass of the chapel on the left. Passing by the smiling cherubs adrift on wisps of cloud, Melissa started to feel the first flutters of anxiety in her breast. If a security guard, or perhaps a loitering priest, discovered her, she could be prosecuted for trespassing on consecrated ground. What could she say in a testament to her innocence? Her eyes shifted to the Chemistry textbook in her hand. I…needed a place to study?

Her hand hovered over the front door handle. She really shouldn’t be here.

Yet there was a certain quality so very inviting about the place: the way the polished marble statue of the Messiah himself stood, in all his glory, at the fore of the church with arms outstretched; the way the light of the waxing gibbous moon seeped in through the clerestory windows.

Her instincts told her: Wait outside. Find a bench and study Chemistry. Do not open that door.

Then, absurdly: Your life is a sin of omission.

She sucked in a breath, allowing the antiseptic chill of the evening air to soothe the caffeine jitters.

Without further ado, she opened the door.

~

“…and that is why Roe v. Wade precipitated a noteworthy drop in criminal activity in the 1990s,” Melissa finished.



“That’s so fascinating!” Louise Valencia gawked at her, eyes glistening in awe. She pulled her nibbled pencil from her mouth and scrawled in her notebook.



And you’re so ridiculously perky. Just like everyone else in this class. Melissa strode over to her desk to collect her backpack. “It’s nothing...” And it was nothing – just a more detailed, if more monotonous reiteration of the teacher’s lecture.

Louise’s hand shot up and pinched her cheek.

“Ow…”

“You are so sweet, Melissa Sparks.”

Melissa’s mouth, typically schooled into a firm rictus, quirked. Why do people always say that? I’m obsessed with my grades. I reject party invitations unequivocally. I’m curt with everyone, and that’s only if I’m not ignoring them. What am I doing right?

“On top of being adoracute, you are really cool, you know that? You’re, like, a total genius, but you don’t lord it over us lesser folk with highfalutin vocabulary and esoteric terminology, like some other girls I could mention.”

Melissa decided not to point out to Louise that she herself had just used at least two moderately impressive vocabulary words (and one portmanteau). She did not mention that ‘genius’ was inaccurate. Prodigies hit targets that non-prodigies could not hit at the same age. Geniuses hit targets that non-geniuses could not see at any age. The term for her was more likely ‘gifted’, and even she was doubtful of its accuracy.

“I’m flattered,” she replied, unsure of what else to say. Actually, she had a rather pertinent question on her mind: how do you do it? How do you manage being Secretary of the Student Council and still being ranked in the top five of the class academic leaderboard? You don’t really believe you’re ‘lesser’, do you? Because I – I am nothing.



Melissa said nothing, because asking questions like that would be tantamount to admitting that she was drowning. It was weakness. Besides, she thought, Louise might take umbrage if she thought I was insinuating that she doesn’t work hard to balance all aspects of her school life.

But she doesn’t work hard, does she? She was just bestowed with natural brains. She’s always preparing for some pep talk or fundraiser. I’ve never seen her study once, this semester. Melissa felt her thoughts begin to slide in a darker, less charitable direction. She blinked fiercely to banish them. Just because you don’t see her do it, doesn’t mean she doesn’t at all. In her heart of hearts, she knew that there wasn’t a secret to their good grades. It was first-rate study habits. It was genetics. It was crazy random happenstance.

But there was knowing, and there was knowing. She needed to know.

It was strange that Louise had chosen to stay back today. Unless they needed a space to paint a banner or practise a performance, most of Melissa’s classmates fled as soon as the bell rang. Even Melissa preferred the library. She was only in the classroom because the library had become too predictable. Her classmates kept jumping her there.

She wondered how Louise had known.

“Anyway, thank you loads for explaining. I’m really bad at this stuff. I got a sixteen on the last test. Can you imagine? Sixteen. With my parents, it's like the hit or stand number in Blackjack. I could’ve been busted. And before that, it was a seventeen,” Louise mused, grimacing.

In the last test, Melissa had scored a fifteen. When pressed, Mr. Kapoor told her she had the substance down pat, but lacked brevity in her writing.

The only sound in the classroom was the rhythmic bluster of the ceiling fans.



“I know you want to get back to your own homework, but…” Louise’s mouth relaxed into a loose smirk. “We should talk more. You’re so quiet all the time.”







~

The day after her little excursion to St. Victor’s, Melissa ploughed through the Additional Maths exam and muddled through Chemistry, restless to the point of distraction. There were too many questions, and she could not answer all of them.

After the final paper, she made a dash for the door, narrowly avoiding an upbraiding from Miss Joan about fidgeting during exams and Florence’s ham-fisted attempts to ask her out for dinner.

In the canteen, she weaved through clusters of chattering students to get to the bus stop. In the bus, she sucked down a flaskful of lukewarm coffee to psych herself up for what was to come.

Evening mass started in an hour.

~~~

A/N: This isn’t chronological. I’m not going to reveal what happened at the church just yet. I would also like to assure you that although Melissa is Catholic, and in a church, and I’m Catholic, this will remain as secular as I can keep it. No religious preaching here. Because I prefer non-religious preaching! Nya!

In other news, I was relieved that I didn't have to build the church from scratch. I trust you recognise whose house it is…

[Audren]

Oh, I'm sure Trip could tell you, but I don't know off-hand. Is it the Knack house? I'm not too sure. 

I'll join in with the others in saying how wonderful this story is. I love how far into depth you're going with Melissa. I really feel for her.

Love what you did with Alpacalypse Now, by the way. I didn't get it right away, but once I did I was dying. 

[Rhoxi]

I don't get to the miscellaneous stories board as often as I should, but I'm glad I checked this one out. Color me bookmarked!

[CPericardium]

Oh, I'm sure Trip could tell you, but I don't know off-hand. Is it the Knack house? I'm not too sure. 

I'll join in with the others in saying how wonderful this story is. I love how far into depth you're going with Melissa. I really feel for her.

Love what you did with Alpacalypse Now, by the way. I didn't get it right away, but once I did I was dying. 

Looks like you do know offhand! It was a coincidence that the Knack house happened to be on the same randomly chosen 'Puddlewick Drive'.

Yes. Llama puns are the best. In my o-pun-ion.

Thank you all for reading and for all your kind comments.