He Changed in a Day

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© 2013 Kimberly I.A. Smith. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 1/4/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0308-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0309-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012924284

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

About the Author

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

—Genesis 2:16

Acknowledgments

First of all, I want to thank God for blessing me with the inspiration to write this book. I want to thank my mom, Ms. Rebecca A. Smith, and my dad, Mr. Gregory Young for helping me with this book and never giving up on me, even though they didn’t really know what the story was about. Really, they are the only ones I told about this book, and they still encouraged me to write it, even knowing nothing about it. I also want to thank every single teacher I have ever had because without their kindness, guidance, and strictness, I would not have the education I have now. Everything I have ever written I have poured my soul into, and it makes me so happy to know that there was always a deeper meaning to them.

I also want to thank Suzanne Collins for writing the Hunger Games series. That really was a beautiful series that truly gave me another look on life, a new view that I used when writing this book. I also want to thank Ally Condie for writing the Matched trilogy. And last but not least, I would like to thank Louis Lowry for writing The Giver. That was the first dystopian book I ever read and it absolutely changed my look on the things that we choose to value as human beings.

I would love to pour my heart out to everyone, but one cannot do so when your heart belongs to so few. God bless.

Thank you,

The Author

Introduction

My writing has always expressed a message. It doesn’t often reflect on me personally but on what mood I am in, and, honestly, when I wrote this story I was just dying of boredom. I originally wrote this story in my notebook in the winter of 2011, when I was twelve. The notebook version of this book was only ten pages long, so of course I ended using the rough draft as a guideline for my book, steering away from it to add a lot of characters and scenes that I hadn’t originally planned out. This story is a work that I value for its plot and characters and what I went through to write it. I ignored all the voices telling me I couldn’t and focused on my own voice saying I could. I have written since I was very young, and I cannot even begin to tell you how many times my teachers called home, stating that my writing was inappropriate or frightening or absolutely odd (and a little disturbing) for a child my age. Oh well, C’est la vie.

Still, I kept writing, and it shames me to say I enjoyed watching people read what I wrote, watching them bend over it and their eyes widen and they look at me, wondering what was hidden inside my mind. I, of course, had no idea myself, and I still don’t. All I know is that my writing has changed someone’s view on life, and that person is me. My writing is written by someone within me, someone who reads constantly and writes vigorously. A person who is hidden so precisely that I cannot coax her out; I can only wait until the time seems correct to her. And that is the person I can be when I write. My life, like all lives, is not perfect. But I can change into anyone else I want, and my motto is, I write to be myself; I read to become someone else. I believe you can become anything you want, as long as you believe you have the strength to endure the passage. And one thing kept me going on this book—well, two things, actually: my faith and my need for recognition.

I know this may sound vain and shallow, but I did, more than anything, want to know people knew me. I wanted something to show my parents other than a good grade or a well-written paper. I wanted to show them a career, and I wanted to show the people who told me I couldn’t that I could. And I wanted to rub it in their faces and prove they were wrong.

They say the quiet ones are usually the ones who have the most going for them; the ones who study hard and try. I don’t believe that. I believe they may be quiet because they’re afraid they will say the wrong thing like I was some days. And they sometimes are the ones who make it to the top. But the true thing that drives them? The need to be known as something more than the weird kid in the corner. Behind a smile can be a talent more advanced than you can imagine, and I am not speaking of myself. I am speaking of the strong that choose to hide it, and the intelligent who take it on in modesty. Those are the people I often reach out to in my stories, and I try to vary it depending on my mood.

In this book, I started out having no idea who I was aiming my message at, and I still had no solid idea what my message was once I typed the last word. I had to read it over and over again just to get a good idea. I was hoping that after writing this story, enough people would be able to decipher their own message from it. Still, even as I write this, I long for something. I long to know, I need to know, what will happen if this book flops? If it is left in trash cans and basements and on dusty bookshelves? Then I suppose I will start over from scratch, fabricate a new story that is meant to help but has a grimness to it that I cannot seem to escape in my writing. I take pride in my talent, my subtle maturity. And yes, I do realize that even as you read this book, you may view me as a sick and twisted person with a dark view on the world, but I assure you this is not true. I view the world and its beauties, as well as the world and its darkness, and I have since a young age. Because I believe that you cannot truly enjoy the beauties of the world before you realize the horrors and the sadness. Things are never as they appear, so do not judge me by my writing.

And the message that I finally extracted from this story is that just because you know a person does not mean you know his or her story, lifestyle, what the person’s capable of, or what’s in his or her thoughts. Because you never know what your neighbor is going through.

Prologue

My name is Claire Levi. My life was normal, I suppose. I was the weird girl, the one who didn’t have too many friends. I spent my time in the school library, just reading and writing. I lost myself and abandoned my problems in the books I read, and later I found myself and strengthened my talents in the stories I wrote. It’s crazy how one story can change you forever, absolutely change your outlook on life. And some people say that my story has given them strength, that it has helped them through a hard time.

I don’t believe that. My story sickens me, and I can hardly begin to tell you how painful it is to look into a person’s eyes and know what he could very well be capable of, to be able to stare a stranger in the face and think of that person as something evil and dark. That is what my story is—a candle to the darkness. And do you know what that darkness is? That darkness is the possibility that someone that you thought you knew could hurt you so badly.

Yes, my story is long, and it may very well be interesting—to anyone who hasn’t lived it. But to me, it’s just a story of loss that I have lived and relived and cannot seem to escape! But to you, oh yes, to you my story is something interesting and beautiful and inspiring. I will tell it to you again, and all I ask is that at the end of it you do not congratulate me or tell me how strong you think I am. Please do not send gifts to my family or apologize for my misfortunes. I can do that just fine myself. I just ask that you listen and stay silent. Close your eyes and let your emotions flow. And I promise you that my story will be imprinted on your mind for as long as you feel it needs to be.

Chapter 1

I was nearly late to seventh period. Sitting down right before the bell rang, I watched Mr. Plaski glare at me. I smirked back and let out a inaudible sigh as he turned around. Letting my binder fall to my side, I listened to the gentle thud it made against the dull, speckled carpet. The gentle buzzing of the air conditioner coincided with the sound of pens and pencils scribbling against lined paper. No matter how evil Mr. Plaski was, I loved his class. Sit down, shut up, and write, was his motto.

This was the only class in Country Club Society School that I considered enjoyable. For forty-five minutes the only sound was scribbling pens and pencils. Only the occasional cough or sneeze diverted anyone’s attention from his or her writing. Every now and then Mr. Plaski would give us a dead-end assignment on grammar or spelling or paragraphing to pull any suspicions from his class that other teachers may have had. He would then throw the papers away, completed or not. That was the reason a lot of us just handed in papers with nothing but our names on them, which made no sense. Oh, yeah, well, I don’t want anyone to steal all of this effort I just went through.

We all knew the only thing you got graded on was how quiet you managed to stay during the period. That must explain why my grade was teetering between a B minus and a C plus.

Mr. Plaski was a might-as-well-be-widowed type of man. He was always sullen. I could tell he hated us, but honestly, I didn’t blame him. The teenagers at Country Side were all hormone-based idiots with trust funds and their parents’ credit cards. I found them unbearable. Either way, he showed no interest working in a school district. He was young, and judging by the way the other girls swooned over him on the first day of freshman year, he was, in their words, a total hottie. But he still bothered me. It didn’t bother me how angry he was all the time. What bothered me was how he despised everything. He had a beautiful house, which he despised. He had a great car, which he despised. He bought the latest technology every year, which he despised. Despise. Despise. Despise. Cat. Despise. Dog. Despise. Sweet old lady trying to cross the street. Despise.

From the corner of my eye I glanced at him. He sat at his sleek black desk (despise). His short brown hair accented his olive-toned skin. Behind his closed lids sat sparkling green eyes. I had never been able to look at Mr. Plaski for an extended period of time, and I had never wanted to. I had never been like any of the other girls when it came to guys. I acted more like a guy than any of the other squealing, giggling, easily amused girls. But now I stared at Mr. Plaski from the corner of my eye, shielding my face with my long, blond hair, hiding myself from his view; although, with his eyes closed, he didn’t seem like he was going to be looking at me anytime soon.

I suppose after looking at him for a certain amount of time, I saw his beauty. After comprehending every aspect of his facial structure (his straight-down nose, his full lips, his strong, firm jaw line, and his high cheekbones) I concluded with one thought; Mr. Plaski wasn’t hot, he was beautiful.

Suddenly his eyes opened. I let out a barely audible gasp that was just loud enough for Mark Town to look up from his writing to glare at me. I rolled my eyes at him and he reluctantly went back to scribbling in his notebook. I carefully glanced back to my side. Mr. Plaski was still looking at me, his lips pursed, his jaw clenched. He was angry. (Despise.) Why? Angry that I was looking at him? (Despise.) Angry that I even had eyes at all? (Despise.) Still, I looked at him, even trying to twist my face into that focused scowl that held his face. I felt idiotic as soon as I did. It felt like forever that I stared at him, forever before I could pull my eyes from his. The interlocking diamond pattern on his sweater vest was the last thing I saw before I ripped my eyes away from his and stared back down at my paper. I hadn’t written anything yet.

My stomach was not full of butterflies. Butterflies are light and beautiful. My stomach was full of spiders, creeping within me, giving me a sickening feel of crawling; trying to escape me. The dim yellow light of the room glowed against my paper. The empty lines glowered back at me; they taunted me. Often by now I had at least two paragraphs or twelve stanzas. I glanced up at the black-ringed school-standard clock. The red second hand ticked slowly around the inner of the clock, gliding over the standstill numbers. The twelve and the six stood out in red while the minute and the hour hand seemed virtually unmoving. I had about twenty minutes left. There was no way I had spent twenty minutes looking at Mr. Plaski. I glanced to my side once again, staring first at his desk. It was a sleek, black, metal-framed desk with a clean glass top. (Despise.) Only a laptop and a desk phone sat on its shiny surface, their colors and images being only slightly altered in the smooth silkiness of the glass. No picture frames or memories sat on his desk like any of the other teachers’.

A wave of sadness washed over me, slamming down on a bay of pity. Did he have any family at all? Was he just alone? I imagined myself watching him walk into his lonely condo on the top floor of Twin Lakes Tower, its large glass windows glittering in the middle of the night, joining the streetlights and street signs to shine down on the city. A few years ago, kids had made up a rumor that Mr. Plaski was a hit man for the mob. That would explain why he could afford the most expensive condo in the city, but no. High school kids around here needed something to talk about during the summers before their minds turned to mush or they killed themselves doing something stupid. Mr. Plaski was evil, but he wasn’t a murderer.

It wasn’t until now that I realized the numbed movement of my hand against my pencil. I had been drawing. The front side of my sheet of paper now inhabited a lopsided heart. I turned the paper over in disgust, trying not to let it make too much noise as it drifted back down to the beige face of the desk. Then, as if suddenly addicted to him, I peeked over at him again, drawn by my curiosity. He was looking at me. I was about to turn away from him, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He was looking at me, but he seemed … relaxed. It was a look I had never seen on him. He had always looked worried or angry or upset about something. But not now. Now his jaw was relaxed, his eyes didn’t bulge, and a scowl didn’t paint his face. In fact, there was something about the curvature of his lips. Smiling? He was smiling!

I gasped, my lips slightly parting. I looked around the room. This was too odd; I had to look away from him. I looked at everyone else and knew their minds were swimming with possible scenes, characters, and plots.

I looked up again at him; the spiders in my stomach had left to allow my stomach to sit empty and clear as the sheet of paper on my desk. Now he sat working on his laptop, and the bluish-pink glow of the screen sat sickly on his face. I ripped my eyes away and stared at the paper. I’d written a single letter: T. This had been my writing strategy since I was ten. I would write a single letter, then form a word, then form a sentence, and then a paragraph. Finally I would have a whole story stem from one single letter.

T. The sun’s rays came shining down, beckoning me from my home. I remembered! I remembered everything. My happiness was soon deflated once I remembered what I had forgotten.

I needed a name. A name that was so common that no one would be offended if used it. Then I thought of my own.

It all flooded back to me now in a sea that I was not prepared for. Claire. Claire and Anthony.

Where had the name Anthony come from? Then a slender brown plaque with a name simply carved into it flashed into my mind. It read Anthony Plaski. (God, what is wrong with me?)

They were the ones that had ruined my life. Now. Now I sat alone in an uncomfortable bed. A steady beeping sat next to my ear, one of the only sounds in the silent room. A sterile and stale smell floated around my head. I had to get up. Nothing. I tried to swing my legs over the side of the bed. Nothing. I couldn’t move.

The bell rang. I hate the bell!

I listened as pens clicked, notebooks closed, and zippers rasped as students zipped their binders closed. I slowly put my paper into my folder and my folder into