Jemma Ray and The Something

If you were waiting in your being for something that you felt all along was going to happen, you would not just forget the feeling entirely when you became older and wiser. So it was with Jemma Ray Ofald. Jemma Ray had felt, ever since before she was born, that, in a spot just under her rib cage and in the center of her stomach, there was a something. She had had no name for it when she first felt it, and so had christened it "the something." Since she still could find no words to express the something that anyone around her would understand, she continued to call it the something when she was fifteen years old. She knew the something was good, whenever she tried to conjure an image of it in her mind she saw honey-light and song. Jemma Ray could see things that other people couldn't, but she had always felt very inclined to keep this to herself because, being a very observant child, she saw that no one else discussed these things, the lights and the sounds and the people. So Jemma Ray was waiting, waiting for the something to take its full effect, as she knew it would, so she could finally be who she knew she was meant to be. It was going to be soon, and she couldn't wait. 

Jemma Ray knew that she was considered "slow." Jemma Ray also knew that this was not the case, as she just found everything a little bit more interesting than everybody else did. She would take her time with everything. Jemma Ray was only a grade behind for her age, and she didn't much notice or care. She was tiny anyway, and she fit right into the freshman class of Shallow Falls High School. Jemma Ray knew she was by no means unattractive, she had big, bright, blue eyes, long blond hair, and delicate bone structure, like her grandmother. She dressed like everybody else, with help from her next door neighbor, Lucy. Lucy was ten years old but had the keen eye of a runway designer, so Jemma Ray always took her advice and always looked fabulous. Jemma Ray had switched to Shallow Falls that year, so no one would know what she had been like in elementary school or middle school. Her mother and father would have home-schooled her, but neither could give up their job, because those jobs were what paid for Jemma Ray's treatment. Back in those days, Jemma Ray knew, anyone could take one look at her and know something was wrong. She never took care with her clothes, talked to herself incessantly, and bit anyone who tried to touch her, and that included teachers. She was biting people still when she was 13 years old. Finally, Jemma Ray's parents found a specialist that knew just what she was dealing with. Jemma Ray had not bitten anyone for three years and 24 days. She had just had her sixteenth birthday, and she could smell summer coming. She knew that this summer would be the summer of the something. Jemma Ray could not contain her enthusiasm. School would be out in a matter of hours, and then she and Lucy could spend all the time in the world together, playing with Lucy's two pretty golden retrievers and discussing the secret of the something. They would no longer be on conflicting schedules, and Jemma Ray was more than grateful for this.

Jemma Ray eagerly stuffed the last notices of the school year into her very plain plaid backpack and swung it over her shoulders with a definite air of finality. She had her watch exactly timed to the clocks of the high school, and she mouthed the countdown of her final days in her freshman year. Ten...eight........four, three, two...

"One!" she breathed, and dashed out of her science classroom door, throwing a "Goodbye, Mr. Dodd!" over her shoulder. Mr. Dodd was her favorite teacher, but she knew she would see him again shortly--one always stays in contact with one's uncle. 

Jemma Ray burst through the heavy double doors of the school and threw her hands up in the sunlight before anyone could see her. She had so much energy and hope for this summer that she could not contain herself. It was alright, though, because kids were whooping and shouting and running all over the place, so Jemma still fit in perfectly. She had had awful experiences with teasing in elementary and middle school, before anyone knew what was wrong with her, and before she had found her specialist, Dr. Larson. Jemma Ray was walking straight to an appointment with her now, because it was Thursday and almost three pm. Part of the reason her family had moved was to be closer to Dr. Larson, and this suited Jemma Ray perfectly. She liked Dr. Larson, but had still not told her about the something. In fact, the only person Jemma Ray had told about the something was Lucy, because Lucy understood. She had told her family things that had happened before, and her mother had looked very concerned while her father looked very pained, so she had decided to only tell them about the something when it became necessary; when it actually started to happen. Jemma Ray wanted to be the most perfect and normal girl she could be, and she usually was. But Jemma Ray knew that the last bit of her strangeness, as she liked to call it instead of illness, was contained in the something. Jemma Ray would just have to wait it out. She knew in her bones that she would not have to wait much longer, and so, with the honey-song bursting in her belly, she pushed open the door of Dr. Larson's office.