Skrevet: Maj 2022

“Heeeeey!” My eyes fluttered open as Jessibells sweet and familiar voice greeted me. The well known sound of wind making leaves dance was the next thing I heard as colors bombarded my vision. The feeling wasn’t pleasant but it was quick and even quicker to forget.
Jessibell stood, hunched over with her face close to mine and a hand raised waving wildly. I instantly smiled. The sight of Jessibells face had always been a welcome one, through everything she had been the rock I clung too.
“You are back early! It has only been a few hours” She mused as I got up from the ground. I looked around wondering why I was back so soon, perhaps I fell asleep in class again? I didn’t care, spending time with Jessica was better than any boring lesson in school.

My name is Gemma. Gemma Winterstone. I’m a completely normal girl, in a normal world. That’s when I am awake though. When I fall asleep my spirit is teleported to a world of wonders. And also the world containing my only friend.
Jessibell and I had always known each other. If I should describe it I would perhaps say like twins? Or two halfs of a whole. The last one is the most correct one I have learned. In my world this kind of thing is unheard of. And if I start to speak of it, I am sent to a hospital or a shrink. They tried to tell me that it was dreams. It was not real, and Jessibell could not exist. So I simply nodded and kept it a secret. It isn’t easy, keeping that to my self. But nobody cares about me anyway. No one but Jessibell.

I embraced her with a laugh and her melodic laughter instantly improved my mood.
“I must have dosed off” I said, as an answer to her earlier comment. She grinned and took my hand in hers.
“Well no matter why I am glad you are here!” She said excitedly. “In fact I have something to tell you! My training today was canceled because…” she stopped and looked at me with a frown. “See you later Gem…” She muttered. I felt it too, the brief moment before awakening. I was filled with sadness again, as always when I awoke. This time it had barely been a few minutes.

“Miss Winterstone!” The voice of my algebra teacher was like a slap to the face and I bolted upright in my chair. The snickering sound of hushed laughter reminded me that I was surrounded by my fellow students. I had clearly dosed of in class as I had expected. I groaned as the teacher folded her arms across her chest and glared at me.
“Clearly someone does not value her future” Mrs Jackson said before heading back towards the teachers desk.
I rubbed my chin, pushing some of the hair away from my face. Why did I have to be here? Why couldn’t I be with Jessibell all the time. I ignored the whispering comments around me and stared out the window at the gray sky looming over the school grounds. Today would be a long annoying one, I could already feel it.

Just as expected the day passed incredibly slow. In my history class I checked the clock more than once just to make sure that it actually worked. The very last class was gym, which also happened to be the one I resented the most. I have never been the physically active type. I preferred my books and if I could be left alone it was even better. How ever, our gym teacher was convinced that activity was an important part of life, and so he made sure we all felt like we were in hell.
Sure there were the sports jocks hanging around and they excelled in his class, but ‘nerds’ like me? Not so much.

“Miss Winterstone, if you keep that pace we wont get to go home today!” His voice was rough and he never had any problem with belittling students and calling out their flaws for everyone to hear. I had learned to tune him out. I kept running, trotting along the line of the gym floor on my last round. We were two students who always came in last. The other guy was Jason, a fellow nerdy person who didn’t like me either. Jason finished half a minute before me, perhaps I could have gotten in first but I honestly didn’t care.
“And here I thought we had to make camp” The snarky comment came as soon as I crossed the finish line for the last time. I didn’t have to turn to identify the source. It was Matt, one of the sports idiots who seemed to have taken the ball to the head one time to many.
I ignored him, and all the snickering laughter and grabbed my stuff from the corner, and went to the locker rooms to change. My mind was on Jessibell, wondering what she was doing right now.

It was a bit weird. I was transported there as soon as I fell asleep, how ever she never went here. I had asked why a long time ago, and she had said that it was because the world I came from had almost no magic. We had talked a lot about how and why, she had often relayed the questions to her trainers and mentors.
As far as I understood, my world was cut of from magic. Usually the magic had flown freely from Jessibells world to mine, through wide portals. How ever, for the sake of humans, the elves had deemed it necessary to close the gateways. The reason for it being, that the dark creatures of the magical world preyed on humans.
It had taken ages to close it completely but they had succeeded and saved the human race from ending up as supper. I had not met any of the dark creatures, but Jessibell had told me enough stories to make up for it. Lets just say – our human legends and myths come from somewhere.

When I was washed and dried I headed for the hallway, eager to get away from here. I positivity hated every aspect of my High School but home wasn’t much better. At least I could sleep there, uninterrupted. It had been a problem for me, sleeping to much. My body couldn’t handle it, and I would lay awake for hours at night, and as a result of that, I would either miss school completely or fall asleep in class. That had happened more than once resulting in a talk with the principal.
“Hey Phlemma” I stopped in my tracks as my name was called out again, or a less favorable variation of it derived from an unfortunate episode in gym class when I had a cold. I sighed, and brushed a few of the black strands of hair behind my ear before turning to face the source.
“Wade” I said looking at the smug face of another sports idiot. Wade was best friends with Matt, and seemed to go through every popular girl in the school. Well, thats another reason that I was happy to be off their romantic radar.
“Come on Phlem, you seem so annoyed” He said causing a giggle from the current blonde girl holding on to his arm, I didn’t spare her a look as I kept my eyes on Wade as he tended to be somewhat of a danger to me.
“I noticed you needed a little nap in algebra” He said while interlacing his fingers with the girl. “You must have worked quite hard last night”
My cheeks burned slightly by the insinuation but I kept my cool. I didn’t answer, what ever I would say would be turned against me anyway. Besides, the no-answer technique seemed to piss them off. Was that a bad idea? Yes. Was it fun? Also yes.

“Speechless?” A new voice asked by my side, Matt had joined the party. “Well its for the best, don’t want to overwork that pretty mouth of yours, you’ll need it to make the money since your parents are drinking everything up”
I wont lie, that stung. My parents were not the best people on earth and my mother had a reputation. But words were just words, nothing more. Did my parents drink? Yes. A lot? Yes. But my mother was faithful. I don’t know why the idea that I was making money in ways that was shameful had lasted for so long but it had persisted for three years now. I had heard it all. I had an idea of who had started it, and why. But why it persisted I had no idea.
Again I just looked at them waiting for them to just get bored and move on. It didn’t take long this time as Matt spotted his girlfriend down the hall, who would have know that she would have a positive influence on my day.

With a relived sigh I exited the School and headed towards my home. The city was not the biggest one, so it would only take about half an hour to walk home. That being said I usually went through the park to drag out the time, but as the first drops of rain landed on my forehead I decided to just get it over with.
I didn’t really pay attention to my surroundings, my thoughts on Jessibell, wondering what she was doing now. No one could really understand the connection I had with her, and that made it terribly lonely.
Loneliness had been prominent my entire life, the only time I didn’t feel lonely was when I slept. Loneliness was also the main reason that I had been driven in to a deep depression a few years back and had it not been for Jessibell I properly would not have survived. I had contemplated just ending it, but my friendship with Jessibell had made me stronger, strong enough to survive. I still felt the tug of dark thoughts all the time but I ignored them mostly.
I turned down the street where I had lived my entire life, familiar houses passing by as my eyes fixed on the rundown house at the end. There were no lights on, no windows open and no sign of life. That usually meant that my parents weren’t home which was a relief. I seldom felt more scared, that when I had to face them after a day of drinking.
They had never been violent or abusive. Actually I was sure that they loved me deeply. How ever, their addictions made life difficult and I was scared out of my mind when I smelled the telltale smell of alcohol, or looked at the glazed eyes when they tried to converse with me.
I slipped in through the back door, heading through the empty garage towards the kitchen. Precious silence greeted me and with renewed rigor I quickly got up the stairs and went in to my room. I dropped my backpack and gym bag on the floor next to the door before landing face down in my bed. An annoyed groan escaped my mouth, muffled by the pillow before I rolled on to my back staring into the sealing. I wanted nothing more than to sleep, but I knew I couldn’t. My grades had been lacking when I slept too much and even though they didn’t matter, it was just easier to keep up the work than trying to explain.

For most people my age, around 17 that is, grades are the ticket to a good life. With good grades you get a good education. With a good education you get a good job. With a good job, good money. And with that money you can provide for your good family and watch your children do the exact same as you did. I do believe that is true, grades are important. Just not for me.
Nobody in my world knew this, but at the next equinox I would be removed from this world, and be with Jessibell. It was a weird thing to know, I couldn’t tell anyone and frankly I didn’t want to. But that meant that what ever grade I got in history or maths were redundant. The only reason to keep them up was to keep the facade so no one would ask questions.

My phone buzzed, startling me. I had forgotten I had it in my pocket as it was on silent when I was on school ground. Only when it connected to the home WIFI did it start notifying me. I pulled it up and scrolled through the blissfully few notifications.
A previous friend of mine turned 17, my cousin had checked in at some hotel in New York and I had gotten an email from school, reminding everyone of the upcoming prom and that it was time to think of collages. None of it mattered really. I hadn’t spoken to my ‘friend’ in three years, as he was one of the reasons that those rumors about me were spreading at school. And for the loneliness. My cousin was someone I had never really had any contact with and the email? I’d properly be out of there before that became a reality.
The day I would be removed from this world was the day I turned 17. Which was a few weeks before Prom and graduation.
With a swipe I deleted the email and sat up, loosened my hair from the hair tie so it could dry properly. I didn’t care much for my appearance but going to bed with wet hair was a nightmare waiting to happen. Not that I would really know what a nightmare was.

I had always been the one girl in the classroom who was not dressed up. Especially in High School. Before that everyone were more childlike. Now all the girls were seemingly aiming to be overgrown dolls. No thats a lie. There were some except me who didn’t care, but they were aiming for a more grownup or brainy look, where I just had my black hoodies to hide in. Only in gym class did I wear clothes that was somewhat akin to everyone else. Granted most were a number to big, I hated clothes that stuck to my body, it made me feel trapped.
I threw the hair tie towards the desk where I kept most of my stuff, it missed by quite a lot but I didn’t care. My room was a little messy. Not dirty per say, just messy. I got up from the bed, reluctantly, and dropped down by my desk lazily flipping the mirror around a few times before fixing my gaze on the one pimple I had at the moment. Red and sore it stuck out next to my eye. God I hated pimples, and I had had quite a lot.

Rain had started to drum on one of the windows and as always it made me sleepy. I loved rain, but I always felt compelled to sleep. I resisted and got up to get my school books and do my homework. I was always a bit ahead of the others, so it was not really a problem doing the tasks assigned that day.
After that I once again laid in bed, this time reading a few chapters ahead in my school books. I don’t quite know how long passed. The light rain turned heavy and then stopped, replaced with a few sunbeams. I didn’t notice anything until the door downstairs was closed with quite the effort, and it made me jump a little.
I could hear movement, so the logic thought was that my parents had returned. Or at least one of them. I closed my book and listened to figure out who it was so I could prepare my mind for what ever would come.
There was some rummaging in the kitchen situated below my room, so it was likely my mother. She had a job in a local supermarket at the moment but would properly loose it again soon enough. Workplaces had this idea about people actually showing up in order to get payed and neither of my parents had understood that yet.
My dad had it a bit easier. He was a truck driver and would drive across the country every other week and then had the following week off. How ever when he was home, like this week, he spent most of his time in the bar or… somewhere.
I did have one grandmother close by, who administrated the finances. That meant I had a roof over my head, internet, water, heat and even food from time to time.