The Care Taker

She sat outside the care taker's storage space. This was her spot now. The only spot she hadn't been bullied in. Probably because it smelled a little like sick, and a lot like dirty water...

She'd used this spot for several weeks now, and as she watched the care taker wander back and fore his duties, she often wondered if he was lonely. He didn't seem to have many people talk to him, and when anyone did talk to him, they were always just asking him to clean this, or fix that. She secretly wondered if he noticed her. She ashamedly wondered if he liked her. She didn't really care, but he seemed to be her last hope. He was that crush you have when there's no-one better around, but your hormones are telling you that you have to love someone, and it has to be now. But she reasons that the same could be said for any school crush – or at least in this school...

Care Taker Man rushed out of his tiny room, and she thought about his name. It was a big school, so it seemed he was just another face in the crowd to most people. She had never heard his name – not even from the people who spoke to him most often – and she found this sad.

Her lips formed the name Peter, before she took another bite of her home-made sandwich. Peter was a good name; old-fashioned, wholesome, befitting the quietness and gentile nature of the man she'd been so carefully watching. Urgh, she disgusted herself.

She closed her eyes as she took a long drink. Her food seemed tasteless, but she didn't mind, because she was distracted. She was lost in two eyes that had never actually looked into her own. She'd never been close enough to tell their colour, but she dreamed they were a hazel brown. The little black specks on his imagined iris' danced on her eyelids and she emptied her Dr Pepper. She missed those eyes when she went home, so she savoured them while at school.

Peter came back, with less white roll than when he left. Undoubtedly another spillage. And as the word spillage sprang to her mind, her inner poet leapt at the chance to write a love story of how he would spill his feelings to her one day... Maybe he would write her a note? And leave it in her spot? Or maybe he could finger-write a message on the window, instead of cleaning it as he usually did? She sighed, longingly feeding herself from her tub of grapes.

A clatter came from within the closed room, and her mind jumped from one fantasy to another, as she pictured herself running into the room to save him from whatever had fallen and trapped him. Maybe he would need CPR? Maybe he would have to thank her somehow...

Sadly, her disaster fiction faded almost immediately, as 'Peter' walked confidently out, wiping his brow with his sleeve, and huffing. It clearly wasn't a fun day, as she watched his muscles – which were much smaller than she remembered – move under the strain of movement.

Knowing he was gone again, she tried to recapture the image of his helpless body awaiting her rescue... but it, too, was gone. She tried another angle, hoping to get one last kiss from his lips before the bell rang for class. Now, she was laying helpless. Maybe she'd fainted? Maybe it was the heat? He'd lift her in his arms, and carry her to a bench, where he would lay her down and whisper for her to wake up, as he dabbed her face and forehead with a cold, damp cloth. Her heart quickened, and her breathing slowed as she fluttered her dream eyes open, ready to be with her saviour...

And the bell rang. Hastily, she packed up her bag, and worked up to a run to her next class. It wasn't even in this building, but the run will have been worth it, because she'd spent another lunchtime happy. Not alone, but loved. And that's all she's ever wanted, even for a little while.