The Thing about Falling ✓

Seven • The Thing about Reminiscing

Athena

"I'm exhausted. What have you been up to lately?" I asked.

It was a few days now before classes start and I can hardly hold in my excitement for what experiences await. I can't wait to meet all these different kinds of people in this different campus that actually allow me to wear whatever the hell I want.

That is pretty exciting especially for a kid who went to a fancy school that required intolerably hot uniforms.

Never again will I succumb to stupid rules made by a stupid school.

I'm better than that.

The sky was a gorgeous, drowning shade of dark blue going near black with a few stars sprinkling the horizon. Night was among us and I had the amazing privilege of  Dutch-braiding Owen's messy, wavy hair as he read a collection of poems written by Edgar Allan Poe.

I was sitting on my bed with my left wrist bombarded with tiny elastics to tie down Owen's hair once I finished. He was still sitting on his wheelchair much to my dismay since I wanted him to sit comfortably on my bed. I want to braid his hair but I do not want to be facing the handles that stick out of his chair every time I face forward.

Owen looked unbothered by my question the first time and I felt myself internally roll my eyes backward into their sockets.

I purposely tightened the braid as I continued down in the middle of his head and I felt him jolt a bit, causing him to turn back to me. His eyes were still, yes, the same icy blue but now, they just looked annoyed.

"What the bloody hell was that for?" he asked, his tone obviously displeased with what I did to his hair.

I smiled sarcastically and shrugged.

"Gosh, I don't know. Maybe someone wasn't paying attention to something REALLY important." I said knowingly with a slight nod in points that I had emphasized.

Owen smiled his painfully gorgeous crooked smile and sighed.

"I got the memo, Athena. Detecting sarcasm is quite like an innate talent of mine."

I happily sat nearer over the edge of my bed so we could sort of be closer together and looked at him.

His hair, though Dutch-braided in the middle, still looked messy. Some random strands of dark, wavy hair escaped from the braid I did. To be honest, I don't exactly know how to braid a guy's hair but seeing Owen look like one of those soft, e-boys I see on the Internet made him even cuter.

"So, what's happening in your tiny, fictional universe now?" I asked, peering into his book.

Owen slowly put the book up to me and I stared at the page with my eyes all scrunched up as I read a few passages.

It was a bunch of words seated next to more bunches of words that supposedly made sense.

"To summarize the whole thing, the guy got scared of a bird. He called it a thing of evil." Owen said with a soft smile plastered across his face.

I stared at his happy expression and I couldn't help but admire his fascination of books. I could hand him some random bottle of shampoo and he'd still read off the directions and ingredients off of it.

I took the book from him and cleared my throat.

" 'Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked, upstarting." I read.

I laughed and handed him back the book.

"Edgar Allan Poe's rather edgy but this poem really is complete tosh." he said, shaking his head as he bent over again the book.