Broodings and Kaleidoscopes

“This place is giving me a headache.” Persephone brushes her fingers over the bookshelf. “Honestly, you should paint it.”

“It’s fine,” I shuffle a stack of papers and shove it into a drawer, slamming it shut. A small cloud of dust lifts up into the air, and the wood creaks. “mostly.”

“It looks like someone decorated for a funeral and forgot to get back on with life.”

She flicks shiny light brown curls away from her face and puckers her lips, green eyes squinting as she observes the room around her. Or maybe they’re hazel. I can’t get a read on it. Persephone has always been a kaleidoscope, one day dazzling and the next day making my head hurt from trying to figure out what I’m looking at. It’s exhausting.

It’s also really inspiring.

“You know this is just how it is,” I mumble. “Dark and broody.”

“Just like you?”

I don’t look up. “Just like me.”

I don’t look because I can imagine her face perfectly in my mind. One eyebrow curved up in an incredulous expression, sitting on my desk and swinging her legs in disbelief. She knows I know that she knows I hate this.

Yes, I’m a little broody. But dang it, I hate this place with every fiber of my being. Crammed full of dark furniture and dark classrooms, libraries with no windows, and if there are any they’re covered by thick curtains. No outdoor spaces for me to get lost in, no space for me to relax. Formulas, numbers, and problems shoved into my mind until I start to worry that the words I’ve so carefully honed and crafted will start spilling out my ears to make room for the science and math. My journals snatched away by professors and rarely gotten back. It pisses me off, and I can feel the heat spreading up my neck to my ears. Two hands slide over my shoulders, squeezing to force me to look up.

“Hades,” my best friend sing-songs. “breathe.

“Easy for you to say.”

“It’s not easy. I miss you, kid.”

“I know.” I stand up, her hands sliding off my shoulders. “I miss you too. I’m just starting to go a bit stir-crazy. McLann took my journal earlier today.”

“Again?” Pity pushes her mouth down, her bronze skin dulled by my room’s lack of natural light. “Buffoon.”

“You can say that again.”

“Buffoon.”

I roll my eyes, fighting the laugh. “Seph.”

Footsteps in the hall echo into my room, and Persephone drops to the ground, crawling under the space beneath my desk. I freeze, hands over my chair. The footsteps pass. I wait a few seconds before nudging her with my toe. All clear. She pulls herself back out and to her feet, letting out a long breath.

“That was close,” she grins.

“We really need to stop doing this.”

“If we stop doing this, I never see you.”

I flick the switch of the lamp in the corner. “I know.”

“And remind me,” Persephone retakes her seat on my desk. “whose fault is that?”

It’s mine. I won’t say it, but we both know it. I’m not supposed to be at Bajomundo Prep. I’m supposed to be with her, just like we planned since we were kids, at Olimpo Academy, but I rolled over for my parents like a fricking puppy. Persephone won’t say that. But I know she’s thinking it.

My parents wanted me to come here, where my grandfather studied, to start prepping for the fancy college career they want me to have, in engineering or medicine. I wanted to go to Olimpo, where I could study writing and literature and bury myself in words. I have no desire to be an engineer or a doctor. I have no interest in any of this, but hey, my grades are good. I’m “advanced”. Why waste that on words and books, right?

It wasn’t like they forced me. They asked me what I wanted, when both acceptance letters came in, one from the fancy humanities academy and one from the STEM preparatory. My mother put them both in front of me, smiled and told me to pick whatever I wanted. I pointed at Bajomundo.

“You’re not even that far,” I manage to say. “We visit.”

“Bajomundo doesn’t want Olimpo students within a mile of here and vice versa and you know it.”

It’s based off of some stupid rule that Bajomundo made so their students would form a “cohesive school spirit with each other, forging bonds that will extend far past their four years with us”. Straight out of the idiotic brochure. They shove us all together and only together, like some sort of kumbaya club. Even my parents rarely visit.

A cult, Persephone calls it. A prison, I snort back most of the time. We’ve been best friends since we were kids, and we’ve never not gone to school together. She’s wanting to be an architect, so she’s studying that at Olimpo, where I was supposed to be. I screwed it all up.

“I should go,” she says. “It’s getting late and I have a project to turn in tomorrow.

She starts for the window, ready to climb back out from the second floor of the massive brick building, but I catch her elbow. “Seph, hold up.”

“What?”

I give her a quick squeeze. “One for the road.”

Persephone hugs me back. “And one for good luck. Maybe talk to McLann about your journal?”

“Nah,” I shake my head. “It’s long gone by now. Probably stashed somewhere in the Headmaster’s office. Getting it back would involve a novel-level heist.”

She stops, one leg already out the window, and tilts her head at me. “You’ve read a lot of novels.”

“Yes?”

“And most of those novels are about teenagers?”

I almost nod, but then freeze. I know her well enough to know where this is going. “Seph—”

“Then who’s to say we can’t pull off a heist ourselves? Let’s get your journal back and then,” her eyes twinkle. “I’m busting you out of here.”