She looked out into the darkness and knew what it meant - she was alone. The sky stretched above her and the town below. It was late at night, and the sound of her breathing was the only thing she could hear, the touch of the wind was the only thing she could feel and the stars in the sky were the only thing she chose to see. It always calmed her - coming up on the terrace in the middle of the night. There was something so peaceful and serene about watching a town sleep, she almost missed it during the day, when the noise and the hustle of the streets was loud enough to drown the loudest thought in your mind. She was a girl of the night, it always felt more dear to her, more personal. It was the one time of the day when she felt like she could do anything, even though she eventually ended up doing nothing other than staring blankly into the darkness most nights. She never came down before 2 or 3 in the morning but tonight was an exception.
She sighed, pulling her blanket closer against the wind. She got up and bid goodbye to the night before her and then went down the stairs and into her room as she had done many nights before- undetected and unnoticed. As she switched on the lights, a pile of books greeted her at the table. She pushed them into the corner and decided not to think about that tonight. Something fell on the table and she shifted the books to retrieve the object.
It was a picture, of the five of them together- her family.
She touched the glass of the frame and traced her mother's face. She was beautiful in every picture of hers that existed. She wondered how the years hadn't yet robbed her of the beauty, the strength she radiated still now. It wasn't the obvious kind that you catch almost immediately, it breezes in slowly and leaves you surprised. Her mother was just another typical housewife, running around the house, bringing food to the table and always shouting herself hoarse for no reason at all. Still, she was so different from them all. There was something so graceful about everything she did, she could understand how her father fell in love with her.
However, she couldn't say the same for him. For as long as she had lived, Julia had never seen anything on her father's face except for a frown, at least when it was directed at her. He had the same routine- he woke up early, had breakfast early, left for work early and came in as late at night as he could. It was almost like he didn't want to come back home. Julia didn't understand why. She knew for a fact that he loved her mother, she knew it because she saw it in the way he looked at her sometimes. She also saw it in the way he looked at her brother sometimes, probably the only member of the house besides her mother whom he actually acknowledged. But that look was reserved for them only. Never for her or her sister. She used to feel hurt as a child thinking that maybe her father didn't love her because she was a girl. But she knew that couldn't be true, because she had seen a picture of her father and her sister when she was only a few years old. And they had never looked happier. She used to look at the picture a lot while growing up and wonder what happened. What happened to steal that smile from both of their faces, rendering them permanently incapable of holding such pure happiness again?
Because she didn't get to see her sister smile either. She didn't get to see her sister at all actually. She was always in her room, or always with her friends or always far away from them. She didn't get it. She was her older sister. She was supposed to annoy the hell out of her, tease her about boys, comment about her total lack of judgement in choosing friends. She wasn't supposed to forget about her very existence. It wasn't supposed to be like this. She knew her sister didn't dislike her. She just didn't want to do anything with her, with them.
That left her with the last member of their family- her brother. She smiled as he traced his face on the photograph. The world could turn upside down, but that grin on his face wouldn't. Sometimes she felt that God had sent him personally for her, so that she would have one friend in this lonely family of hers. He was two years younger than her, and he was the exact kind of stupid and silly that she needed in her life. He was her partner in everything, in fights, in arguments, in pranks and in her childhood. She had watched him grow from the class joker into the king of middle school. She had seen him lead boy's gangs and rotate girl friends every month. And she had watched him grow. But she had this feeling that no matter how much he grew in height and fame, he would forever remain the child he was in his heart. And she took comfort from that knowledge.
Suddenly there was a knock at her door. Speak of the devil. She ignored it along with the rapid beating of her heart at the sudden interruption of her silence. Never in a thousand years was she going to admit that he had succeeded in scaring her. But, of course, the door opened anyways.
"I don't think I gave you the permission to enter."
"Oh please!" he said, walking in and hopping on to her bed like he owned it.
" What interrupted the beauty sleep?"
"Like this face needs anything!"
She rolled her eyes. "Are all 15 year old boys as annoying as you?"
He seemed to think about it for a moment. "I don't know. Are all grandmas as boring as you?"
"Ha ha. How long did it take you to come up with that?"
He looked surprised. "Well, this brain requires a few seconds to come up with new inventive creations but-"
"You know I don't even want to listen to this. Did you actually need something or are you just here to annoy me?"
He shrugged, "The second."
Julia sighed.
"Come on! It's not like I disturbed your chat session with your stars. You should be grateful for my consideration," he defended.
She looked at him surprised and he looked at her knowingly. "Don't worry. I will pretend to be blissfully oblivious. I am just here for a chat."
She folded her arms, deciding to go with this. The easiest way to get him out of her room, was to play along. "What do you want to talk about?"
"High school. What's it like?"
That made her turn back at him. It wasn't like him to actually reply with an answer that wasn't a joke, but now it was kind of starting to make sense.
"You are not actually scared about high school, are you?"
He dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. "Nah, just worried that my fan club back at middle school won't be able to handle my loss."
Julia pretended he hadn't said anything. "Trust me, there's nothing to be scared of. It's just the same people, the same idiotic talks, the same hypocritical discussions, just under a different roof. And this is you we are talking about. You will be leading a gang before the end of the day!"
When he still didn't say anything, she nudged him in the shoulder-their own personal style of offering comfort. " You will be fine. Don't worry. It's just high school."
He nodded. "Right. It was nice talking to you. Good night." And with a fake bow, something he had learned from the new Japanese show he had been so obsessed with, he left.
And she laid down on her bed thinking about the next day. It was just high school. And it was going to be a very long day.
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