Ella
XOX
Preface
It was a Monday, and I woke with the light.
Ages ago, when I lived in Bath, my room was very small, right in the middle of the house, dead centre, because it used to be a bathroom. You had to really know where it was or you’d never find it, because it only had one small door and no windows, so it didn’t get any natural light. I used to set my alarm clock each night, and every morning I’d wake up to the annoying, repetitive beep, in total darkness. I’d stumble to the light switch before the other sleepers heard, and everything would be bathed in an orangey yellow light. Artificial and unconvincing. But I was used to it.
Here, my room has five windows. It’s not even a room, it’s a dorm, and, compared to my old cupboard, it’s massive. You can even open the windows, and peer out through curtains so thin and wispy they look like air, to the courtyard below. That’s why its called an enclosed dorm. On the other side, the windows look out to the colossal mountains, towering above us. The peaks are iced like cake, and the snow stays all year round. The temperatures pretty cold all year round, come to that.
Even though my dorm is “enclosed” you still get a fantastic morning light: shining through the flimsy curtains, illuminating every persons sleeping face. I share with five other girls. None of them wake up as early as I do, but then again, I suppose they all were used to the morning light streaming in through the triple-glazing, they didn’t see the miracle I saw, only routine.
I wasn’t used to it, so I woke up bright and early, every morning, with the light. The window was my favourite place to sit, it had been ever since that first day when I arrived here, and the snow was so new and magnificent I used to sit here all night, just watching it. From the window I could watch the world go by. Or at least, I could watch the snow fall in the courtyard below.
Behind me one of the girls in the dorm stirred. She had short hair, cropped in a confusing mix of disarrayed, choppy layers and the richest dark red I’d ever seen in somebody’s hair. Her name was Emily Summer, but everyone called her Pixie. For the most recent years of my life, she had been my best friend. She would be forever.
Her eyes were smudged with mascara and eyeliner from last night, a contrast again her stark, almost translucent white skin. She looked like a drug addict.
She moaned, tossing and turning in her sleep. I knew Pixie had nightmares, but not until recently did I know what of. Once she woke up screaming, screaming so loud and piercingly it woke the rest of us up. I couldn’t have been sure, but I thought she was screaming about fire.
Pixie was properly awake now, and she sat up, hugging the sheets against her tiny frame.
“Tessie?” she yawned, “How long have you been awake?”
I smiled. “Not sure.” I didn’t really look at the time much anymore. In the time we spent apart, Theo taught me that time is short, and you should use it wisely.
“Tessie?”
I turned towards Pixie, her face was inquisitive.
“What?”
“You had an odd look on your face. Are you alright?”
“Fine.” I replied, “I was just thinking about that time… in Bath.”
At my words she bit her lip. “Tessie, you never talk about that time.”
“I know,” I said, thinking hard, “Maybe its time I did.”
Pixie’s face was solemn, and she came over to sit at the window with me, “Tell me, Tessie.”
