Aurora Borealis--part 1

I remember the time Hannalie was suddenly, inexplicably, thrust into my life, like thunder that comes without the lightning strike of warning.

I was lying on the ground outside my school.

The reason I was on the ground was because I had slipped on the soft mud and fallen on my back. Staring up at the sky, I wondered what would happen to me if I decided not to get up. I wasn’t sulking in the new turn of events, but simply pondering… The ground was comfortable; perhaps I could rest and not have to bother with the rest of my classes. Who would look for me? What would they think if they found me taking a nap?

That’s when she showed up.

“What the heck are you doing on the ground?” A voice asked me from above. My eyes blinked open and were greeted by the hazel irises that were staring down at me as if I was a strange specimen of fungus found on an overturned rock.

I didn’t really have an answer, so I just looked at her with disinterest. Answers like that, however, are not enough for Hannalie.

“You’re a freak,” she said, but she seemed happy about it, extending a hand to help me up. Reluctantly, I consented.

I turned to meander back to my class, hoping to walk out of this eccentric girl’s life as abruptly as she had entered mine.

It didn’t work.

“You’re obviously mentally unstable,” she told me, “so I better walk you to your class to make sure that you make it okay.” I guess I didn’t really mind, not that she would have taken, “no,” for an answer, anyways. I’ve found in the course of my fifteen years of life that it’s easier to go with the flow of events, than against it. As long as peoples’ activities don’t threaten my seemingly boring future, there’s no real reason to argue against them.

“I’m Hannalie.”

“Kyle.”

“I’m new here.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I just moved in a few days ago. Seems like a pretty dull place so far,” she said. “Anyways, you’re lucky I found you. Who knows what could have happened to you, lying there in the dirt? What if mutant earth worms crawled into your ears or something? Yuck. You really are lucky I saw you.” How my minimalistic comments provoked such detailed responses from her, I will never know.

We stopped at a door in the hallway.

“This is my class,” I told her matter-of-factly.

“Oh. Alright.”  For a split second, she seemed unsure of herself, and then she walked away.

I had almost forgotten about her when she saw me at lunch and confidently parked herself in the seat across from mine. My friends glanced at her warily, then decided to ignore her, which was okay with her. She only seemed to want to direct her incessant talking towards me.

“So, do you always bring your lunch from home?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s probably a good idea. I bet there are really nasty things in this food. Do you think the lunch ladies reuse the same rubber gloves every day? Kinda makes me not want to eat this pizza. Can I have some of your mac n’ cheese?”

“Sure, go right ahead,” but my stomach rumbled as she boisterously ate most of my lunch.

As we left the cafeteria she looked at me. “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have eaten all your food.” Concern gilded her brow for a moment. “Oh well. You were sick anyways, weren’t you?”


* * *


Hannalie had naturally chestnut-colored hair, streaked with multiple shades of red and orange. Once I asked her why she insisted on streaking her hair in such a wild way. Her response was simply, “Because plain hair is so boring! With mine, you never quite know what you’re looking at.”

This was her motto for pretty much everything. Really, she was just an average girl with a plain, round face and large, hazel eyes. It was what she did herself that made her different. Her nail polish glittered with a dozen different colors at once, and she often purposefully mismatched clothes to make them “more interesting.”

Remember, I did have friends before Hannalie came along, but after that first meeting they were continually and shamelessly shoved to the side, by her. A week after she “saved” me, she pulled me aside in the hall and told me, “We’re going to the movies tonight! I want to see that one with the aliens, the scary one.”

“I heard it was a terrible movie.”

“Are you coming with me or not?” she asked, annoyed and impatient.

“Okay,” I said. “Whatever.” I’d go along with anything.

The movie was a joke, but Hannalie was more of one. She spent the entire night with her face in her hands, giggling at the intended scary parts. The only time her eyes snapped open in actual horror was when the hero and heroine brought themselves together in a blissful kiss.

“Wewf, that was a great movie, don’t you think, Kyle?”
“I thought it was terrible.”

She glared at me quickly, then commented defensively, “It was a really, really, really good movie.” She nodded to herself, then added as an afterthought, “That kissing business was gross, though.”