January 25, 2020 // Saturday

My eyes closed as I felt the smooth blades of grass and the thin layer of bitter snow with my hands while I kneeled. My cold body started shivering even more as a breeze of frosty air swirled around me. I took a very slow, deep breath and let go of it. The air was crisp and delicious. The only sound I heard was the barely audible wind sweeping over the field. Everything was exactly what I wanted on a peaceful morning like this.

Over the next twenty seconds, I began opening my eyes. The snow, covering about three-quarters of this vast backyard, reflected a near-blank shade of white thanks to the Sun’s unobstructed shine. The patches of yellow-green grass stood out just as much, thanks to the contrasting snowflakes, which were amplified even further by the bold, clear, deep blue sky. 

Each side of the oversized bow on my head moved a little with the gentle wind. My bow’s right yellow side- contrasting with my hair’s right blue side- blew slightly more intensely as the wind was blowing to my left, against the bow’s blue left side and my hair’s yellow left side. The view was picture-perfect. My soul was in complete harmony.

January 28, 2020 // Tuesday

“Nicole, come on, cheer up,” pleaded my friend, Sophie Fournier, pacing with me through the crowded 9th Grade hallway in this school near Ottawa, Canada. 

“I’m sorry… but I need to get to Science class. I need to get away from everyone,” I replied. Sophie stopped following me as I looked at and went through the dozens of people aimlessly buzzing around as if they were all in a beehive, getting from their lockers to get to their classroom, or just skipping class entirely.

Some tall jock- whose name, Bryce, was laughably generic- saw me getting books from my locker for 4th period Science and sarcastically walked up, called me “shortie” and “hottie,” patted me on the head, and walked off. He even said my name, Nicole Chiaros, wrong when he first came up to me. What the hell did he want with me? It didn’t help that a skinny boy with a scrawny, annoying voice sitting behind my desk during Math in 2nd period asked me what I was drawing on my notebook when it was absolutely none of his business. The bland, featureless beige walls of the hallway reminded me of how much I just wanted to go back home to my own decorated little room with its calming candles and homely atmosphere.

The 4th period came and went without much happening. It was just a dull lecture class where the teacher told us to take notes of what she was saying. Instead of partaking in the very interesting class, I zoned out and used an array of pencils, markers, and colored pencils to create a minimalist doodle on an entire page of my notebook. The background was a blue gradient that got darker and deeper as it got closer to the center, where a small bright yellow circle was located, and the design also had a faded yellow ring on the top left corner. I smiled at my end product because of how it seemed to represent me, even down to the colors which matched my clothes, hair, and head bow. A glowing yellow ball in the inner center is surrounded by deep blue, and a glowing yellow ring lights the blue just a bit. The two forces are conflicting but complementary.

The bell rang, and I entered the Lunch Period feeling a little better about myself than before. Sophie sat with me at the round table we always sat at, away from the crowded region of the cafeteria. “Hey,” she waved. “Is everything okay? I didn’t understand why you went to Science class so angry.”

“Oh... it was nothing, really,” I responded. “I was just kind of in a lousy morning mood but now I am feeling better, especially since it is lunchtime.” 

“Hm, alright then. I’m always here for you, you know.” We ate our snacks from our pink lunch bags, and the rest of the day went by normally.

February 2, 2020 // Sunday

I sat at the circular lunch table with my parents, Holly and Oliver. My mom was wearing a lovely, delicate white dress as white as the snow, while he was wearing an open jean-style jacket above his usual Extra Large checkered shirt that could barely contain his burly chest and arms. With my head facing down, I poked at my fried fish from our local seafood restaurant while they happily ate exquisite calamari and crab meals. Their forks clanged and scraped against the decorated ceramic plates. My dad murmured: “How do they make it this good every time? Mmm, mm, mm.” A minute passed, and I poked my fish once again until I looked up. “You know we had this two weeks ago, right Mom?”

Both of them glanced directly into my wide blue eyes. While chewing a fried tentacle, my mom countered: “It’s good food, sweetie. Just eat it.” My dad’s stare flicked from me to my mom, and then back down to his food.

“Yeah I know, I like it, but it would be nice to have something a little different.” 

My dad’s eyes flew straight to me again. He leaned forward and flung straight back at my comment sternly with: “Nicole. Your mother and I work our asses off to put food on the table. She manages the local candle store from what- Monday through Saturday- and I sweat all day on weekdays cutting down trees. Be grateful we can even afford to order from the Pelican Pier this often.” Not a word slipped from my end. Admittedly, he was right. Mom always came home pretty late and Dad always got back tired. Mom had an efficient brain that could work for hours non-stop, and Dad was built tall and strong to do manual labor.

“Yeah, sorry,” I mumbled softly.

Moments later, my dad asked, “What’s been up with you lately? You’ve been acting weirder than usual. Oh, and your grades have slipped a little since November. I checked, and they’re not looking any better, dear.”

Oh no, no, no, please don’t bring up my grades in front of Mom. “They have?” she asked. “Nicole!”

“Look, it’s nothing. I’m completely doing fine, I had a pretty great school week and I have been happy for a while. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, especially since the school year doesn’t end for another four months.”

No one spoke for what felt like hours. “This is the perfect time to catch up, Nicole,” my dad suggested. “You had Friday off this week, and you even have tomorrow off. Use this time to do homework and study, please.”

“Okay,” I said. My mom nodded, and we all stayed quiet for another eternity.

We finished our food and moved into separate rooms. No one bugged me since they thought I was doing homework, which I was not, because I care more about art and my mental state than school. My grades in Art- and English to a lesser extent- are high for a reason; because I genuinely care about them. I adore the art of visual design because I think it allows for brilliant creations to be produced by pure emotions, and the same goes for writing and storytelling.

In the evening, while lying on my bedroom floor with a lit, fresh-smelling candle labeled “Garden Rain” by my side, I recreated what I drew in Science class on Tuesday into my sketchbook, and it was even better than the original version. It was deeper- both visually and metaphorically- and more geometrically perfect. Another craft in my precious collection. I’ve made several, several dozen works more and less intricate than the one I just recreated, dating back as far as when I was merely four years old. Every one of them is pasted up on the bedroom walls right up against my bed.

I’ve made a few drawings including the human body rather than simply figures and shapes. The female body is something I have especially come to admire. I think it’s very beautiful, appealing, and expressive. I have tried pushing this opinion away from me but over the last few months, I have slowly embraced it. This and the way some boys- including Bryce- treat me has molded me into a kind of “mild bisexual,” as I would describe.

I have loved grinding out hundreds of hours into making art, and I am more or less set on becoming an artist and/or writer in the future. Creativity is beautiful. Hopefully, my parents agree.

February 6, 2020 // Thursday

I’m walking out of 5th Period English feeling great. Since it was a nice Thursday, the teacher just told us some personal stories, partially relating to Valentine’s Day even though it’s not until next Friday, and gave us very easy work since we just finished a unit.

As I’m heading to my locker, a group of three tall jocks came up to me, each of them already probably six feet tall. Bryce was there, along with the equally stupid Trent and Cody.

“Heyo,” Bryce whispered up to my ear. I hurried up so I could get out of this goddamn situation, but Cody asked “what’s with the hurry, shortie?” and “hey, how’s your gf?”

If I just ignored them and moved on, nothing would go wrong. So that’s what I did. I slammed my locker shut and dashed over to French class with my stuff. Suddenly, I smelled excessive cologne passing by me, and Trent ran up in front of my face.

“Well, how is she?” he asked in the most infuriatingly obnoxious voice.

I leaned my face closer to his stupid smirk and said: “I don’t have a girlfriend. Now go away.”

Two of the jocks were behind me and only one was in front, so I slipped away between them and rushed toward French class.

By the time I arrived, the class had already started. Those idiots couldn’t just burst into a class in session, so they didn’t. I snugly sat in my chair and calmed myself. Learning French already confused me so I felt okay with zoning out for a while. I wrote down a bunch of random words and sentences with no rhyme or reason. It helped me calm down better and ease my emotions. Strangely enough, sometimes expressing scattered ideas made me feel more collected.

The period flew by and I was free from school. I had no desire to meet up with the musclebrains so I packed up and organized everything in my locker as quickly as I could. I snatched my backpack, looked around the long hallway, and made my way to the school buses. I thought they’d jump out of nowhere and annoy the life out of me, but they probably had some sort of after-school sport, so I never saw them.

February 7, 2020 // Friday

Things started to get worse. The three boys probably got a kick out of making fun of me, so they’ve started doing it more and more today. They never did anything much worse than what they did yesterday, which is why I haven’t reported them to any teacher or principal yet. It was mostly just teasing and being generally pretty douchey, it’s not like they were hurting me physically or hurting me too much emotionally.

However, of course, that’s when tensions shifted. During lunch today, Sophie and I were sitting together next to a certain tall oak tree, as we often do on Fridays and/or when it’s not too cold. It certainly was both of them today; the sun was a bit warmer now that the winter was slowly fading. Very casual topics crossed between us, like embarrassing moments from classes over the years. Sophie brought up the time in 5th Grade when she almost fell asleep during a group discussion.

“I swam for two hours the day before. I was exhausted,” she said. “Then, my parents served me a vegetable dinner that I didn’t care for, and they refused to prepare me anything else, so I went to bed hungry, tired, yet amped and energetic. So, I barely slept, and when I woke up after five light hours, I had no energy.” Her voice slowed down as if she was losing energy just by talking about it. She paused, and I sat watching. What I loved about Sophie was that she expressed her full emotions while I could also express mine when I spoke about anything personal. That’s trust.

“I overslept a little, so I got to school ten minutes late, and that’s when I had this boring discussion on a short story in French. We had to present in front of the whole class. It was with Vanessa, James, and Elizabeth- obviously the blandest group possible.”

“What’s so bad about them?” I asked.

“Do you not know them?”

“Not really.”

She frowned disappointingly, and she was going to speak further until the three jocks emerged from inside the school building. They noticed us immediately and strode up to us to do their usual shtick. Cody, who often made fun of my bisexuality in these situations, sardonically asked: “Damn, so Sophie really is your girlfriend? You kinda have good taste, girl, not gonna lie.” Trent chuckled.

“Hahaha, shut up. I’m just her friend,” Sophie clarified. In my eyes, she was pretty cute and good-looking with her silky brown hair, smooth skin, and petite figure, but Cody’s stupid joke was like a butter knife that cut into me. Not very menacing, but it still hurt. I looked over, and Sophie shyly turned her head away from me and held her shoulder.

“Why don’t you all just go away? You heard her, we’re just friends,” I retaliated.

“Aren’t you a lesbian though?” asked Trent.

“No,” I replied firmly. My throat quivered afterward.

“You don’t have to hide it, Nicole. We all know what you two do together,” Bryce said. His two friends started laughing hysterically, even though he didn’t even say an actual joke. I started getting intensely frustrated with these morons, so I stood and walked up to Bryce, attempting to subtly lift my heels so I looked slightly more intimidating. I puffed up my chest to add to the effect, and all he commented was “you got a flat chest, girl.” He flicked at the huge ears on my head bow and shouted “boop,” and Trent and Cody laughed as if it was the funniest thing of all time; a literal knee-slapper. I was getting ticked off from the embarrassment, so I kicked Bryce in the shin. He backed down from the sudden hit, and the other two laughed even harder since I, some 5’2” girl, kicked Bryce and caused that much of a reaction from him.

I felt a bit relieved and didn’t want to face any major problems, so I turned things around by acting a bit silly and trying to side with them. “You got some screws loose, bud? I told you to step back… or imma have to call up the cops or somethin’.”

I acted way too cool for being who I am. I turned my head and noticed that Sophie was skipping over to me and whispered “we should go.” I didn’t realize it was the perfect time to flee, since Bryce was still recovering and the other two were still laughing their asses off, but Sophie did. So, we dashed left.

Sophie was sprinting fast, and I barely caught up with her. We were still outdoors going through a very long straight path, and the smell of the air was fresh and clean, something of a mixture of rain and flowers. While running and running, distant chatter turned into shouting, so I could tell they were going for us, and they were going. Sophie was panting heavily, and soon enough, she slowed to a halt. “Soph-” I shouted until I ran out of breath. I took a brief pause and saw the boys bolting toward us from only a few meters away, and I knew it was not the right time to stop. “Sophie! Just go!” I was running, but Sophie managed to catch up. I was starting to get extremely tired and sweaty, but then Sophie took a sharp turn to the right, into the school building. I followed. The boys sounded like they were getting a lot closer. Their sneakers stomped against the concrete loudly. Once inside the building, I dashed inside the girls’ bathroom near the cafeteria, and Sophie followed.

We flooded into the stall area of the bathroom and stopped dead in our tracks. We started gasping loudly and laughing awkwardly before we noticed there was a girl inside one of the stalls and another one leaving a stall and watching us. I laughed even harder because of how stupid we looked.

“What is wrong with you two?” the girl leaving asked. She was in our grade level, yet I didn’t quite know her. She wore a dark gray t-shirt with a classic rock band logo, along with even darker jeans and black boots.

“Nothing,” Sophie responded, then laughed more. “Actually, alright, alright.” She broke into a chuckle again. “So, a couple of dudes were making fun of us and bothering us… so we ran away, and they chased… us-.” She paused for air. “So, here we are.”

I added, “It was… Cody, Trent, and Bryce?” I glanced at Sophie and she nodded.

“Oh,” the girl said. “Those assholes. I know them pretty well. I’ll tell them to piss off, probably after the 6th period.”

The girl continued walking out, and I meekly exclaimed, “Thanks!” After the bell rang a few minutes later, Sophie and I left the bathroom together.

As we slowly walked back to our 9th Grade hallway, I peeked over my shoulder and looked back forward multiple times. Sophie caught onto this. “Are you looking for those guys?” I bobbed my head. “You shouldn’t worry about them- hmm…”

“Yeah. I feel you,” I said.

“Yeah.”

She didn’t have to say it, but I knew she meant that stressing out over the jocks was not a good thing to do. But, on top of that, she knew that letting our guards down wasn’t any better.

“You know,” Sophie spoke. “They’re different people. They’re not you.” Her walking slowed down, so I stopped. She asked, “You’re… not straight, right?”

I clarified, “Right. I’d say I’m sort of bi.”

“Exactly,” she said. “They’re different. Why should they judge someone they’re not?”

“Hm,” I said. I smiled a little bit, and we started walking again. She had a point about them judging me- or us. We were opposites to them.

Once we finally got to the hallway, I said, “Well, I’ve got English now. I’ll see you later!”

“See ya!” she exclaimed. We fist-bumped and split our ways.

I got to my locker, took notebooks, and stored my lunchbox away. I went up to English class, but Bryce was there waiting for me at the door.

He muttered: “Don’t ever make a clown of me again, and don’t hit me either. I look like a complete idiot, thanks to you. My friends think I’m a joke, and football practice today isn’t gonna go any better for me. After what you did, I wanted to beat the hell out of you out there, really, but things wouldn’t go very well for either of us if I did. So be careful, bitch. Tell your girlfriend to not say shit, and tell her I said hi.”

He bumped into my shoulder as he walked off elsewhere. Rude.

Things calmed down from there, but I was still very much on edge. What if I did the slightest thing that he didn’t like and he lashed back? Well, maybe it wouldn’t go very well for either of us. For now, staying on my own is probably the safest bet. Maybe even away from Sophie. She was on the table too.

My English teacher started class a little differently today. The key difference was that on the board, she was presenting a graph and chart of coronavirus cases in China and the rest of the world. I had heard about the virus in the news for the last couple of weeks, but this was different. Infections in China were surging, with about 3000 new cases every day. Multiple different Asian countries had a couple of dozen cases each, while the US and Canada each had 12 and seven cases, respectively. After hearing about lockdowns, it was clear that we were next after China. A major change was coming, and there was no stopping it. The thought stuck with me for the rest of the class.

At the end of the school day, Sophie and I briefly glanced and smiled at each other and waved before we split ways. My smile quickly receded afterward. I didn’t know how safe we were from the jocks, let alone a deadly virus. The former was something I could cope with and/or deal with personally, but the latter was inescapable.

February 12, 2020 // Wednesday

Between Bryce and I, dirty looks were fired, but nothing physical came between us. He and his friends were standing in a circle more often this week (almost huddling, in a way), and it was clear what was on their minds. I don’t think Bryce has fully recovered socially since I kicked him. Bryce seemed a little madder, and sometimes Trent and Cody would be laughing when Bryce clearly wasn’t.

The muscle heads were a minor stressor, but this new virus was something stranger. As of right now, cases in China are spreading faster than ever, and they seem to be sprouting up in Europe too. I just hope this is all either contained quickly or blows over just as fast. The looming, inevitable fact that I will graduate from high school and live completely on my own in just over three years is stressful enough. I love being by myself, but… damn. I can tell that my schoolwork is starting to become more and more difficult and time-consuming, and it is bound to get worse as my graduation year comes closer. All I can do for now is exist while trying not to fail my classes or be ridiculed by jocks. Teenage life, right?

Speaking of those guys, I’ve been a bit distant from Sophie this week. When walking between classes, my gaze is forward and doesn’t change from there. I’ll come back to her once I know the coast is clear. I could tell she was uncomfortable on Friday, especially when Cody brought Sophie the idea that we were more than friends. She’s great as a friend, but I don’t know whether I want to be in a relationship with her. The fear that I’ll lose one of my only friends- and my closest one at that- is a worry that cannot be shrugged off. A sinkhole would swallow me whole. Could I get out of it? I don’t know.

February 14, 2020 // Friday

A special day of the year. For most people, love is in the air. Colorful clouds, crystalline carnations, cozy company, and cute cupids cover their entire being and every one of their thoughts. Sometimes, I want to capture that same high. But with times like these, I find beauty in isolation. Stress is straining, and other people create that stress. When I get involved with the lives of others, their problems are strung together with mine. Why should I plant myself into other people’s business when I can’t even figure myself out?

Sophie is one big part of my life. Big and personal. Whether I should come closer or further away from her is something I can only find out with time. Being together could keep us as targets, but it could make us stronger. Being separated could leave each of us more vulnerable, but we could steer clear of the jocks easier.

I may just have to observe it all from a safe distance. Do I? I still don’t know. All I know is that more is coming into my life. This flower is finally maturing. Whether it blooms to be beautiful or it falls short of beauty… is still something I still do not know.

 

Good morning, Diary.

 

The dawn is here.