every day, but neither of them bothered the other (the librarian hardly left her post behind the desk, only to wander aimlessly around the first few rows of shelves), and that was absolutely fine with Sienna.
She must have spent every day like that for about a week before it happened. The day
had started off as innocently as any other - she’d woken up early once again, her tired eye lids pried open by the rising of the early morning sun, and had decided to treat herself to a small spliff under the tree down the road, just to set the right tone to the day before she headed off to College. Her mother was still working the late night shifts, and so Sienna had managed to avoid and ignore most of her demands for recompense vis-a-vis the vodka, thanks to their opposite schedules. Sienna also took a small slice of bitter amusement in continuing to stomp loudly down the wooden stairs as she left her house each morning, pausing at the bottom to enjoy the reliable stream of muffled curses coming from her exhausted mothers room.
When Sienna had arrived at College that morning, she had made her way as quickly as she could through the seemingly endless corridors and corners to the library (made to seem even more endless and winding by the rather pleasant effect of that little spliff), head down, eyes forward as usual. Upon pushing her way through gratefully through the swinging doors, Sienna was greeted, as usual, by the startled, blinking stare of the librarian, her confused eyes magnified amusingly in her bottle-bottom thick specs, as if she was baffled as to why a student was coming into her library.
Sienna plugged her laptop in and took her seat at her table, silently greeting the long untouched books around her as she waited for the lightly purring machine to load up her homepage screen. The sun, though finally beginning to wane slightly, was still unseasonably ferocious as it poured through the library windows, pooling in shimmering waves across Sienna’s table, forcing her eyes to squint and cooking her brain, making her already muggy thoughts and functions even muggier, and meaning it took her a few seconds to register what her facebook page was telling her. The little red and blue icons in the top left hand corner of her screen were indicating that she had three new notifications and one new message. Sienna’s sleepy eyes widened in surprise as she shuffled her chair and laptop further into the shade, to better seen the screen. It was not the three notifications that had peaked her interest - she would often get notifications and invitations from the many different pages and groups that she was linked to on here - it was the single, lone message that had caught her off-guard. Nobody on facebook ever privately messaged her, none of her ‘friends’ on the site knew her well enough or would ever have any need to. Her heart caught in her throat as a stray thought floated through her subconscious - ‘It could be Sam.’ Just when she’d thought she’d escaped, could this message be the idiot jock once again trying to force his company upon her, just through a different medium this time?
Her mouse hand trembled as she led the cursor towards the offending red icon, dreading what she might find behind it, and repeating -
“Leave me alone. Just leave me alone!” In a groaning whisper. Her laptop, still not fully warmed up, took a few long moments to reveal the message.
The page finally loaded and Sienna was instantly assaulted by a tidal wave of relief, followed by a sharp slap of confusion. Her eyes rolled over the unfamiliar name ‘Lewis Stowell’, trawling through her mind but finding no recognition - this wasn’t anyone she knew, and certainly wasn’t one of the few names to be found in her meager ‘friends’ list. But at least it wasn’t Sam.
Sienna
She must have spent every day like that for about a week before it happened. The day
had started off as innocently as any other - she’d woken up early once again, her tired eye lids pried open by the rising of the early morning sun, and had decided to treat herself to a small spliff under the tree down the road, just to set the right tone to the day before she headed off to College. Her mother was still working the late night shifts, and so Sienna had managed to avoid and ignore most of her demands for recompense vis-a-vis the vodka, thanks to their opposite schedules. Sienna also took a small slice of bitter amusement in continuing to stomp loudly down the wooden stairs as she left her house each morning, pausing at the bottom to enjoy the reliable stream of muffled curses coming from her exhausted mothers room.
When Sienna had arrived at College that morning, she had made her way as quickly as she could through the seemingly endless corridors and corners to the library (made to seem even more endless and winding by the rather pleasant effect of that little spliff), head down, eyes forward as usual. Upon pushing her way through gratefully through the swinging doors, Sienna was greeted, as usual, by the startled, blinking stare of the librarian, her confused eyes magnified amusingly in her bottle-bottom thick specs, as if she was baffled as to why a student was coming into her library.
Sienna plugged her laptop in and took her seat at her table, silently greeting the long untouched books around her as she waited for the lightly purring machine to load up her homepage screen. The sun, though finally beginning to wane slightly, was still unseasonably ferocious as it poured through the library windows, pooling in shimmering waves across Sienna’s table, forcing her eyes to squint and cooking her brain, making her already muggy thoughts and functions even muggier, and meaning it took her a few seconds to register what her facebook page was telling her. The little red and blue icons in the top left hand corner of her screen were indicating that she had three new notifications and one new message. Sienna’s sleepy eyes widened in surprise as she shuffled her chair and laptop further into the shade, to better seen the screen. It was not the three notifications that had peaked her interest - she would often get notifications and invitations from the many different pages and groups that she was linked to on here - it was the single, lone message that had caught her off-guard. Nobody on facebook ever privately messaged her, none of her ‘friends’ on the site knew her well enough or would ever have any need to. Her heart caught in her throat as a stray thought floated through her subconscious - ‘It could be Sam.’ Just when she’d thought she’d escaped, could this message be the idiot jock once again trying to force his company upon her, just through a different medium this time?
Her mouse hand trembled as she led the cursor towards the offending red icon, dreading what she might find behind it, and repeating -
“Leave me alone. Just leave me alone!” In a groaning whisper. Her laptop, still not fully warmed up, took a few long moments to reveal the message.
The page finally loaded and Sienna was instantly assaulted by a tidal wave of relief, followed by a sharp slap of confusion. Her eyes rolled over the unfamiliar name ‘Lewis Stowell’, trawling through her mind but finding no recognition - this wasn’t anyone she knew, and certainly wasn’t one of the few names to be found in her meager ‘friends’ list. But at least it wasn’t Sam.
Sienna
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