MIA -- INTRODUCTION
The story of my life is as simple as pie. I believed that for some time now, but now I know some pies are more complicated -- much more when you don't know how to bake.
I lived in a small town, where everybody knew each other. I am an only child of my Mother, Ingrid and my father, Michael. I have boring pale skin, boring brown eyes, and boring brown curly hair. I am 5'2" in height, and rather dangly. I am dull as dull can be, no boys liked me from grade school to high school. I could be called an outcast, a nerd, or just simply invisible. I loved to read, to paint, and I am a lover of music. My parents taught me manners and reminded me how I should live my life as a proper lady to be respected and admired by women and swooned by men. I had accepted how my life was, how predictable and safe and dreary... until my father died in a car accident and my mother took off to live with my grandparents. I knew that day that nothing will ever be the same again.
I am in college now. Living through the earnings my father had worked for twenty years. I am living alone in a small apartment building near my College University, far far away from home.
I want you to understand that I was not ready to be alone in the world. To be a lady, to be motherless and fatherless. I have not mourned enough for my father's death, and my mother's departure. I am at a loss of words and I am lost entirely as I stand here by my window, looking out, watching the raindrops as they fall and land on the dark brown soil of the front porch.
I had taken up Arts in Midland University, something I knew would be safe and easy for me. At night, I would wish I could show my parents my works and cry myself to sleep. Well, I grew in the year my father died. I had eaten so much that I gained some weight, and I look pretty normal now. I had also grown curves, to my dislike. They say you become a woman when you start college, but I am still stuck in my dull world. I am just simply Mia Kunis, with the boring brown features and pale skin.
ONE"Miss," I felt a tap on my shoulder during class as I was looking out the window, finding inspiration. "Excuse me, miss?"
I looked up and saw ice blue eyes, though somehow they felt very warm and gentle. I shook myself and answered, "Hm? What is it?"
"Nothing. Its just class has ended five minutes ago, and here you are still in your seat." He smiled, rather childishly at me. A crooked smile, with a line of healthy white teeth.
"Oh." I stood up and gathered my things. "I didn't realize--"
"Well, you were daydreaming for a long time. I almost thought you were dead." He cut in.
I looked at him in disgust. Oh, how I wish I was dead! The nerve of this man. He seemed to notice my reaction, and held his hand out.
"I didn't mean any disrespect, am sorry. Would you like me to walk you out? Where's your next class?"
"Who are you and why do you care?"
"James Nathaniel. I'm in almost all your classes."
"Does that matter? You don't know me." I said, as I hurriedly walked to the door of the empty room.
"Would it be so bad if I wanted to?"
I stopped at the door, hearing his answer. I looked back at him, and wondered. He was in almost all of my classes, yet he isn't at all familiar to me. He was good looking, with pale blonde hair to boot. He wore a black shirt, and black slacks. I looked at him and stared, and questioned myself -- and hid back to my shell.
"Yes." I answered, as I quickly dashed through the hallway and ran out to the Campus Garden.
In my shell, in my solitary safe shell, I see myself alone. Boys have never attracted me, or boys were never attracted to me. In my safe solitary shell, I was comfortable... at ease. I was okay as long as I was familiar with the emotions I felt. I was no longer at ease as I sat down under my favourite tree. I was not familiar with the emotions that were coming in waves at this very moment. These were a mixture of emotions I had not come across in the nineteen years of my existence -- was this happiness? I felt my cheeks burning, and my lips curling up into a smile. Was nineteen years of being invisible coming to an end with this boy -- this James Nathaniel from my Art Appreciation class? But I didn't understand what he meant by wanting to know me, because I was just a normal girl. A normal girl who knew nothing about boys.
For the next two weeks, he had been sitting beside me in class. Perhaps he was helping me focus during classes, or making me incredibly paranoid in my actions. He was a very funny man, confident yet a great gentleman, the girls loved him... many girls, I should correct myself. These girls consist of more than half of my class, a sixty, maybe even eighty percent. Who was not to adore this man? He was handsome and smart, elegantly dressed, he made everybody smile. It made me more uncomfortable when he kept me company throughout these two weeks, when girls were looking at me in quite an alarming way. I could read those looks in a second --
Is this strangle little nobody his girlfriend? Are they together? Who is she? Probably an
Oh my God, what a mistake in addition. I admit I didn't like the attention from the others, I resent it. Another thing I have to admit is that I do
like his attention.
He was very opinionated. He drew conclusions and theories from my paintings. It was a bit annoying on my part, but one day I realized these conclusions were not of just my paintings but of who I was.
"You're very lonely." He said, looking down on my latest painting of a purely black canvass with a tiny translucent girl with its back towards us. A mixture of black, and purple.
"I thought we were talking about my painting."
"We are." He looked back at me, his face hidden behind the shadow of the day's departing light. "You are your painting."
I gave him a questioning look, a stare, a raised eyebrow. He pointed to the canvass, making a circular pattern on the background.
"This." He whispered, "Its like solitude, loneliness, sadness. Black. And this." He pointed now to the little girl, looking out into the black abyss. "This is you. Alone. A child wanting somebody to hold you. The colors, black and purple. Its like a bruise. You're hurting."
"So, I should change the colors, is that what you mean?"
"No, its not that you should, if its not naturally changed."
"What do you mean?"
"Art is a reflection of who we are. We paint what we feel, we paint what we think, what we believe. This is you, and this is what you feel. You're hurting." He explained to me, still standing under the shadows.
I stayed silent for a long moment, drinking the words in my head.
You're hurting, these colors are like a bruise. I never thought of it like that, I painted what I saw in my head. I felt a sudden pang of pain in my chest, and I sat down on his bed.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked him, clutching my aching chest.
"I can't pretend I don't see the truth in your art, Mia, because I see it. I don't want to act like I am just your critic, because I don't want to be just that. I see this and I see you, and I want you to know I see you."
He made a step towards me, and I asked him to stop.
"Who are you to judge me? Who are you to say you see me, you don't know me at all." I raised my voice, bile building up in my throat. "I am not a girl who you can just charm and then I'm all yours."
"Is that who you think I am? These past two weeks, these two weeks, was it nothing to you? Is it not enough to be your friend?"
"I have to go." I rose from his soft bed, avoiding his eyes, and made my way to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow. You don't have to fetch me."
TWOThe following day, I found an envelope on the door with my name neatly scribbled on it. When I opened it, I found the same neat and orderly writing on sheets of pretty scented paper. I sat on my bed to read it with still my pajamas on.
You paint the canvass in colorsBlack and purpleBruised little girlWho are you looking for?I see you in my dreamsI want to save you.
Dearest Mia,
Judging from your last words, I expect that you will not talk to me at all starting today. I have been with enough girls to understand that. I know you are aware of my reputation, they say I am a womanizer. I want you to know that there is more to me than that.
The day I saw you, you were wearing a white dress and ballet flats. Your hair were a light brown under the sun. I was looking out from the window of my class that day, and your hair had caught my attention. You looked up at me, as if you saw me, I realize you really did not. But what I saw in you was a new beginning, you are the person who can see me and know who I really am. Gossip is fast in our school, and I was afraid you would hear it first before I got to you, but lucky was I that you were not even interested in them.
I want to formally introduce myself to you, sadly, in a letter. My name, as you know, is James Malachi B. Nathaniel. I am a son of a successful Britishman named Matthius Nathaniel, and my mother Isobella Bradley. We live in London, I was born there on the 8th of July, 1978. I am twenty years old now. I took up Arts in a different country, because my father Matthius would have not approved of it. Arts was my passion, poetry was my forte. He did not understand it, he wanted me to be a businessman as he was. I was a constant disappointment. To him, I was wasting my brilliant mind to something that did not matter.
When I moved here and started my classes, women flocked to me. They befriended me, charmed me, even seduced me. I was taught to be a gentleman, I was afraid to hurt these women. I entertained them, but time and time again something would happen. They would want something more than I can offer, they would be jealous of other women, and others I do not want to talk about anymore. They think of me as a boy with blue eyes and blonde hair. That is how they think of me, they see me through my body and not see my soul.
Mia, I am terribly sorry if I may have scared you. If you feel that I am pushing myself too much to you, it is that I am too desperate. I wish we could be friends, because we are very much similar yet different at the same time.
I hope you can forgive me, and forgive me again that I have to end with such a plead. I will wait for you at school; if you smile at me and make eye contact, I will know of your decision. Take care.
With love,
James
I didn't know how to react from this letter. I didn't know why I was in such a rush to take a bath and go to school. I didn't understand how I was feeling, but somehow I felt myself forgiving him in an unspoken way.
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