Tapping her ballpoint pen relentlessly against her journal, the young girl made a noise of frustration and flung herself backwards onto the soft but slightly creaky mattress. Renee wasn't a grumpy person by nature… not that she was all sunshine and roses, but she never saw the point wasting her energy when it would get her nowhere… having said that, it really had been one of those days. Her whole body felt like partially cooked spaghetti – not totally limp but not far from it. With colossal amounts of effort she could throw her arms above her head, leaving the journal sprawled open on her stomach and the pen to slip off and fall onto her sheets where she would later find a small blue ink stain. That was about as much movement as she could manage though.
Life really sucked for Renee. Nothing was going the way she wanted lately, not anything. It seemed like very little in her life really went her way. Maybe she could nab the last cookie from her big sister on occasion but when it came to the important stuff, it all just seemed bad. That was a problem for her – because she didn’t get outwardly grumpy, she dwelled on it all in her head and that never went well. Thoughts could travel a long distance in a short space of time, and they could find connections between the most unrelated of memories, events and ideas.
Twisting over in her bed, making the journal slump to the floor too, she did a lot of dwelling in her mind as she twisted a strand of mousy coloured hair around her index finger. It all started with the awful day she’d had. The guy she had been sort of but not quite seeing had dropped her like a stone for some blonde girl. Renee didn’t know her but her best friend had assured her Dan could only be going for the unnaturally pert and disproportionately large boobs. Yet it brought no consolation as she deeply suspected that everything said was without foundation and purely to make her feel better, as she often did when Kristi was talking.
Her talk with the careers advisor had been even better. She didn’t see the point anyway. What was there to say? She was majoring in English, all of her credit classes were as close to English as she could get them and stay within the requirements. Then after college she’d go to post grad school or training scheme or whatever it was her high school advisor had told her to do and get qualified as a teacher. She was sure there were plenty of places she could do that. She would wind up just like her mother, just like her mother had hoped. Never pushed too hard for, but encouraged and hoped. Once upon a time there had been delusions of fame and singing and dancing in the spotlight with all eyes on her, but they had been rudely dissipated by high school and the realisation that she was a little too average and a little too plain. And again, she wasn't the kind of person who pursued something if she didn’t think she could take it all the way. What was the point? Why make all that effort to get yourself nowhere?
Plus, after giving up her singing lessons and choir and all of the rest of it, her voice wasn't up to scratch any more. It was a use it or lose it kind of deal and Renee hadn’t cared enough to keep it. Once upon a time, she used to go twice a week to dance classes and once a week to a vocal trainer with her then best friend Claire. That had stopped in freshman year after Claire had been killed crossing the street (a combination of the guy driving too fast and her not looking properly before stepping out). It had been too traumatic going without her, and by the time she was over it enough to start going back she had lost all motivation to do so anyway because as she had already thought to herself as she lay there in her Snoopy pyjamas, the dream had died.
Well, it hadn’t died. She’d still love to do it. Performing was a rush like no other and though she had never progressed to local talent shows or auditions for minor shows and stuff like that, she still remembered the adrenalin and the lights and the feeling it gave her. Her only real major audition had been the Mickey Mouse Club when she was eleven and after reaching the final five she had lost out to Christina Aguilera, like that didn’t haunt her every time she saw the woman on MTV or wherever. Closing her eyes tightly for a second, Renee really wished she hadn’t let her mind wander to the whole dancing thing because it inevitably led her back to Claire again which inevitably led her back to more brooding and being depressed. She often wondered if she would have given up had Claire lived.
“Come on girl get a grip, it was years ago.” Talking to herself and jumping off the bed, Renee shook her shoulders and arms out vigorously, desperately wanting to just stop the thought process. Thinking all of these morose and self-pitying thoughts wasn't helping anybody. She had her nice little college dorm room and her nice little college life of reading literature in coffee houses and discussing it with her friends, going to alcohol fuelled parties with her friends, and then whenever she went home her mom would have her room at home all made for her just the way she liked it, and she’d get spoiled with all her favourite food. Depression was a no-no and she needed to cheer up. Music would cheer her up. She still liked music. She had her favourite artists all over the walls of her room – John Mayer whose lyrics she loved, *NSYNC who she loved because of their harmonies and because they were all seriously hot, Christina because despite the slight ‘it could have been me’ jealousy she admired her for her outspokenness and independence, and the Smashing Pumpkins because they were just cool. The Beatles were also a college student staple; you had to have some cool retro Beatles poster on your wall.
“Who to pick though? Who to pick…” She pondered aloud. Rummaging through the mess on her desk, papers and books and photocopied pages from critical studies of Lord Byron, plus a few bottles of nail polish, she spotted Matchbox Twenty and figured that they were the way to go. Of course, clumsy her, she just had to knock a ton of papers flying behind her desk in the process, trapping them between the wall and the wood where she couldn’t reach them. Which meant pulling her whole desk out and getting on her hands and knees and getting dust bunnies up her nose.
Groaning, she managed to get her weight behind the desk and push it slowly, painfully out the way, For being the type of cheap, nasty, mass produced furniture dorms generally provided, it was surprisingly heavy. Groping through the small gap with her arms, she dragged her fingers along the bottom of the desk, hoping to scoop it all up and pull it out with the emotion of her arm. She wasn't expecting to hit the cool metal but was pleasantly surprised when she drew it out into the light and saw it for what it was.
A small piece of black onyx wrapped in delicate silver strands, hanging from a chain. A piece of jewellery she had been given by her grandmother, a family heirloom supposedly. Whatever, it was pretty and though she rarely wore it, she had been upset to discover it was missing. The metal now felt strangely warm in her hands as she played with it in her fingers, intrigued by the stone’s dark shine. Her grandmother was another person she missed, somebody who had always sat through her recitals and talent shows in proud delight, cursing any judge who dared place her anywhere but first. Sighing, Renee’s eyes caught the piercing stare of the Christina poster, pouting sexily down at her. She should have known she wasn't getting out of it that easily, the topic was sure to plague her just a little longer.
“You have no idea how lucky you are.” She told the poster, which naturally didn’t change its expression in response to the pyjama clad young woman rubbing the black stone idly between her fingers. “I wish I could be a singer and be rich and famous and have some huge celebrity boyfriend.” Then she smirked to herself as she turned her gaze slightly sideways to John and *NSYNC. “One of you guys would do. Preferably JC.” Sighing to herself again, she gave a little smile and placed the necklace down on the nightstand, coiling the chain around in a spiral before pulling back the covers of her bed and climbing beneath them. Her theory was she could sleep away her blues and be nice and rested for her writing class the next morning.
As she turned off the light and shut her eyes, she couldn’t have noticed the eerie blue glow that began emanating from her nightstand and the small piece of onyx resting there.
