JUNIOR

Night came fast, on the first day back in school. Like always Loneliness torments you at night. You look around your barely lit dorm, at the boys sleeping peacefully. You envy them. Their beds are illuminated by Love's warm embrace, like a blanket helping them sleep. You grit your teeth and pull your torchlight out from under your pillow and begin to get dressed.

The courtyard clock tells you that it is past midnight when you sneak out of the hostel to go to the pool. You sit by the poolside as the night breeze prevents your lighter from awakening the joint held between your teeth. Converting your hand into a futile shield, you focused your mind on repeating one phrase, "Please work!".

"Fuck!" you complain as your lighter goes off the moment its flame touches your joint, it didn't even ignite it. You begin to flick the lighter again. Ironically you are praying, "God please let this one light and I promise I'll only smoke one before school starts".

If you hadn't been so focused you might hear the barbed door you had closed, as it opens and drums against the fence. You might have noticed the girl that opens it, as she walks in, dazed, wearing her Sunday wear even though it is technically Monday morning.

It would have brought up questions you will mentally ask like: "Why isn't she wearing her daywear or mufti?" "Did she go for dinner dressed like that?" "How did she leave the girls hostel?"

The full Sunday wear for girls is a red blazer, cream blouse, heavily banded red and black plaid skirt with white ankle socks and low-heeled black pumps. She would have been prettier if she didn't look so pale. If her thick school-mandated black braids packed into a high ponytail with a two-strand fringe in front are not dampened with cold sweat.

If her pale cracked lips and eyes swollen from tears didn't clash with her beautifully slender physique. You would have recognised her as Angel, the girl who won the Ego award for best body. You had watched the award show using binoculars from the balcony you exiled yourself to during the Ego awards.

But you don't look up till the splash catches your attention. It is loud. The water angrily puts out any hopes of you lighting that joint. You are fuming with so much anger that you forget that you're a loner by choice. "Fuck!" you scream jumping off the floor. "Just let that idiot come up", you tell yourself fuming internally. "I'm going to end him."

No one comes up. The body in the water doesn't even attempt to swim. Looking at your digital watch tells you that a minute has almost passed. You look around expecting to see the familiar crew of boys who swim by midnight. But the barbed pool area only had you and whoever is in the pool.

You are a good swimmer although never swim nowadays. "Can't someone quietly enjoy the pool at night", you complain turning away in frustration. Panic stops you from walking away, "That person has been in there for too long ... I think that person is trying to kill themself".

You begin to hope this psycho comes out, so you won't have to dive into the water to save them. You hadn't swum in 3 years. You test the water with the tip of your big toe, "Nope!" you flinch as the cold courses through your cold body. "I'm not entering that cold water".

"Are you really going to let someone die just because the water is cold?" Panic asks you and you begin to look at the person in the pool again for signs that the person wants to come up. "My friend, get in that water!", Panic yells and you run and dive into the icy cold water, sending another splash of water around the pool as you enter.

Inside the moonlit pool, you are shocked to see what appears to be a girl with braids snaking around her face like Mami Water. "It's not Mami Water", you repeat convincing yourself as you drag the girl to the poolside. She fights back the moment air meets her lungs, but you pull her out anyway.

"Are you mad?" you yell through chattering teeth as you grab the hand of the girl when she tries to run back to the water.

Holding her becomes impossible because both of you are soaked and slippery. Vexed you wrap one hand around her waist and the other holds under her knees. You are carrying her like she is sitting on a chair. That fact stuns her enough to stay still till you place her on one of the lounge chairs. You hold her down with your hands and your body hovers above her.

"Angel?" you say finally realising who she is but she didn't hear you. Angel is crying.

"Stop!" she cries and you let go immediately. But she continues crying "stop".

You and Panic are perplexed "Did I do something wrong?", you ask Panic. "Angel-" you say softly as you awkwardly try to wipe her tears and her whole body flinches. She moves as far away from you as she could get on the pool chair. So, you sit on the pool chair beside the one she is on. "Promise me you won't jump back in, 'cause it's cold", you say through chattering teeth.

Angel nods in response and both of you sit quietly for a while catching your breaths.

"Do you smoke?" you ask after she calms down. She looks at you with disdain to which you respond, "Don't stare at me like that, I'm not a junkie. It just helps me cope … with life."

A few moments later she says, "No but … I'll like to try it".

You go towards your Velcro sandals that are at the corner you were sitting before and pull out another joint. "I'm not pressuring you to smoke, I'm just comforting you the way I comfort myself", you clarify shaking the water droplets off the lighter.

With her help, you finally light the joint and teach her how not to choke on it. You look up at the sky before breaking the silence again. "I smoke because it makes me feel like I'm okay, but just so you know that feeling doesn't last."

Angel lets out another tear before she takes another puff. "This is weed, right? I doubt it would help me much", she looks at him and her face reveals a broken soul.

"I know but it would stop you from drowning", you say sitting up. "It would give you something to do or even a reason to manage." She laughs guessing you are probably high.

It gets colder as the night deepens, your singlet and damp joggers give your body reasons to chatter at the night wind. You glance at Angel who is also shivering. Picking up your hoodie that you hung from the top of the pool ladder, you throw it at her. Then remove your damp singlet and wear one of the life vests hanging on the barbed wall.

"Why do you… really smoke?" Angel asks avoiding your eyes in case she had stepped on a nerve.

You smile a sad smile, "No one ever asked me that". "TBH, I don't know", you say laughing. "Because I like to pretend, I am happy."

"I get", she says passing back the joint. "The pretending part, I don't – smoking isn't my thing" she adds looking around.

The pool is situated in the middle of the basketball court and football field which are only illuminated by the twinkling stars of moonlight and distant streetlights.

The school generator is off, so it is deadly quiet, you could clearly hear the symphony of your combined breathing. The two of you face each other sharing a joint you didn't want but did to keep yourself busy and away from your thoughts and nightmares.

After a while, you smile and say, "You're the first girl I've met at a pool by midnight".

"Me too", she replies and you both laugh. You still had a million questions racing through your thoughts, but you decide to start with something simple.

"Why aren't you asleep?" you ask her, and she smiles another sad smile.

"Why aren't you asleep?" she asks back.

"Because-", you hold back your words before you could tell her the truth. "I asked you first", she smiles awaiting your response. The two of you are lying down looking into each other's eyes, reading every facial expression. "I guess I just felt lonely", you say and she stifles her laughter.

"So you left your dorm filled with boys, to visit the pool to keep you company", she replies and you nod feeling Embarrassment hover behind you whispering, "Why not wear a shirt with the word weirdo boldly written on it?"

"Why aren't you as-" you stop your words as you see Fear creating frown shadows on her face. You decide to change the question, "Congrats on winning-", you begin.

"Can you tell me a story?" she says deflecting the conversation.

"Like a bedtime story?" you inquire watching her bite below her lip and nod her head. "I don't …", you wanted to tell her that you're not much of a reader except myths but Panic shuts you up. "Do myths count?", you ask.

"Myths?" she repeats sitting up as her eyes are widened by Curiousity.

"I'm kind of obsessed with myths, they are the only books I own… I could tell you one. Give me a second let me think", you say ransacking your brain. Panic comes and shakes you, "Come on Junior, you need to impress her". You begin scanning her face for signs of impatience.

All your usual acts of self-ostracization haven't prepared you for impressing girls. You really want to impress Angel.

"Really out of all the stories, that's the one you choose", Panic complains. "Junior, you like this girl, that's not the kind of story that girls like", Panic protests. "What type of story do girls like?" you ask Panic. "I don't know, girly ones, not that one, you'll ruin everything", you decide to ignore Panic and take a deep breath.

"Centuries ago, in a land very far away", you say starting the story.

…