Narcissus (and Echo)

She put on the headphones, selected shuffle. Nothing happened. She played around with the iPod for a bit, but couldn’t get it to go. Typical. Just when she needed some music to suit her mood, she couldn’t get any. Although she didn’t actually know what kind of mood she was in. She was bored with most of her music anyway, so maybe it didn’t matter. She took off the headphones. Finlay could fix it for her when he tracked her down later, as he surely would. Like a stalker he was, Finlay, but not in a horrible way. He didn’t give her the creeps or anything, he was just boring. And he did have his uses.

Last May Day she and the other History of Art girls had gone up Arthur’s Seat to wash their faces in the dew, because that was what you did. Chloe, or someone, said it was a tradition: you washed your face in the dew and then you saw the face of the man you were going to marry. But someone else, Imogen probably because she knew a lot of stuff, said that was wrong, it was just supposed to make you more beautiful. Well, anyway, some of them saw their boyfriends’ faces and some of them saw farmers or merchant bankers or chaps in the army, but she didn’t see anybody. She thought it was all a bit of a bore but she went along with it, they were her friends after all, not that she liked any of them much.

She checked her phone. There were six text messages, one from her mother and the rest from Finlay. Silly boy.

She couldn’t be bothered reading them, let alone replying. He’d find her at the café they all went to anyway, so whatever it was he had to say, he’d tell her then. It wouldn’t be anything. She could see his silly puppy face, all eager expectation. Chloe thought he was sweet. She was welcome to him. Later.

She got out of bed and went to the bathroom. ‘Who are we today?’ she said to the mirror, turning her head this way and that. She didn’t have a clue.