She looked nervously at the crowd of birds in the courtyard as her father continued to drive through the rocky-road. It was only them two, her uncle had driven Peter Benjamin early to his ceremony, he always was neurotic about his seating chart. He had sat in the same spot every ceremony since the first he could remember.

Sigrid played with the bottom of the tray with a hesitant finger, the silence in the car was unbearable but she didn't want to make the effort to speak to her father. Nine times out of ten, she was speaking to a wall. An old, grunting, decaying wall.

She whispered to herself for the entirety of the car ride to Welton, mostly about how the goods were burning holes into her flesh and making up random lines to fit into a poem. She had her notebook on the other side of the seat but she didn't dare to reach over because her father would grunt at her to stay put.

He wasn't fond of the idea of her writing, doodling, and being vulnerable in a black-leather notebook when she could have been doing something important. Like getting her education and using her money to become a nurse, or a teacher, or even to marry into an even richer family. He was opposed to the idea of his only daughter becoming a writer, it just gave Sigrid more motivation to go against what he said.

He should've been smarter; for a lawyer, he father was horrible at convincing the people closest to him.

The car came to a full-stop once she began to open the bottom of the tray to retrieve a pinch of blueberry coffee cake, she was starving from the delicious smells mixing together in the backseat. Her father turned off the car, tutted his head, and then got out as if saying 'well, what are you waiting for child?'.

Sigrid opened her car door hesitantly while having to multitask, her father watched unamused with his arms across his chest and snarled. "How slow can you be?"

He was always in a hurry but never made an effort to help. Sigrid closed the door and nearly dropped the tray, "Sorry!"

She didn't mean it by the ignoble glare she gave the gray-haired man. He swiftly took the tray as she started walking into the building, she was slowly falling down from poor balance. Her hands were now free and she excused herself to go to the bathroom, her father opposed the idea, to which she grunted and continued walking anyway.

In the main room, all the boys in the academy were taking their seats for the first ceremony to start, Mr. Hall stood outside of the room as he waited for his daughter to come back. His plan was to walk in, sit on his side of the seating chart, and have his daughter wait outside with the burning tray in her hands. Headmaster Nolan always had negative thoughts about girls being at Welton. Sigrid was as girly as it came, to him, Sigrid was a walking disaster to all the touch-deprived, haven't-seen-a-girl-since-first-grade, disillusioned boys.

She went to the bathroom as quickly as she could because there wasn't a girl's bathroom and she would have been embarrassed to be caught by a boy. She washed her hands twice, one out of disgust by how poorly it was maintained and the second to wash off the germs from the sink. She grabbed a towel and opened the door with it before wiping her own hands and throwing it in the trash bin. Mr. Hall was already impatient even though she had only been in the bathroom for about five minutes. She gave him a superficial grin and took the tray in her hands. She got on the tips of her toes and kissed his cheek.

"I'll go wait in his dorm room so the Headmaster doesn't see me, don't tell him I'm in there. I want it to be a surprise."

Every single year was the same, Peter Benjamin wouldn't see her in the main room and he'd get anxious that she wouldn't come and then he'd jump on the walls when it turned out that she was actually in the dorm waiting with fresh food.

Peter had a problem with his memory, he'd forget that he had a loving sister that would do anything for him to have a good year, he'd forget where his dorm room was, and he even forgot what his name was once. No one could pinpoint what it was that Peter had, when he went to the doctor's he'd forget everything that happened that led to him forgetting. Or so he says.

Forgetting for forget should they say? No one knew.

She got noticed by a few boys that were late to the ceremony, she shyly waved hello to some of them while blushing, they all looked at her in awe. She nearly tumbled when she realized she had looked at one of them for too long and the boy had turned to say something to his friend. She heard a faint laugh in that general direction and she turned to the direction of Peter Benjamin's room and began to speed-walk. Her yellow saddle shoes gently clicked against the wood floor and her hair swung side-to-side as she picked up her pace.

In her head, the laughter was getting louder but they had already quieted down and walked into the main room. She set the tray down on a nearby table as she jumbled with the lock to open the door. Mr. Hall always reserved that specific room to fit with Peter Benjamin's neurotic persistence, but he never trusted his daughter enough to have her own key so she learned how to pick locks on her own. She easily opened the door with a stray bobby-pin and walked in, picking up the tray one last time and putting in on the stationary table.

She threw herself on one of the beds and then contemplated whether or not she should go back to the car to retrieve her notebook. She probably didn't have enough time to break into the car, she picked herself up to get a piece of the cake and then sighed through her nose in defeat. "Another year, another worthless batch of cake that would probably be given away anyway."

She groaned happily when she took the first bite, if she had the choice to eat only one type of food for the rest of her life it would be dessert. It was soft, favorable, and melted in her mouth to make her taste buds jitter. She ate it like it was the last piece of food in the world and stopped herself when she reached over for another slice, it wouldn't be good to give her brother half a tray of food. It was improper, rude.

There was nothing to do except play with the window and fix the bedroom to look more minimalistic. She opened the cabinet on the stationary table and took out a piece of plain paper. There was a red pen for corrections right next to it but used it for her normal writing. She wrote whatever came to mind.

Then she crossed it over and tried again.

She hadn't been making sense lately.

The front door opened and she hid the piece of paper into the waistline of her skirt, she picked up the tray and stood up like she hadn't been doing anything prior. "Peter!" she beamed excitedly, being absent minded to who actually was at the door. Her face fell into confusion when a different group of boys walked into the room and looked at her like she was an alien.

One of the boys, pale and tall, with naturally spellbinding eyes, walked up to her and grabbed a piece of cake with a napkin. "I don't remember being named Peter but hello to you too."

Her mouth opened repeatedly like a fish out of water as she looked at him, he returned the expression comedically and then asked the other boy if he wanted a piece of cake.

She finally stuttered out, "Who are you?"

"Not Peter, that's who," he smirked and sat down on the bed she was previously eating on. "Who are you?"

He was genuinely interested in the answer but her face was going beat-red, her palms were sweaty, and her hands were shaking to hold the tray. She looked at him for a couple seconds before letting out an embarrassed squeak and running out the door.

He heard her saddle shoes pounding against the wood in uneasiness, he looked at Richard Cameron before laughing through his nose. Sigrid dropped the tray outside in shock when she noticed her father had already left her behind, she needed to find another way to head home. "No!" she screamed angrily in the direction she saw her father driving in, he noticed her small figure through the window and sighed to himself, feeling conflicted in a way but put more pressure on the pedal. He hit the steering wheel once he was off the premises of Welton. She looked around anxiously before she noticed a couple at the end of the lot getting ready to leave. They were the last couple to leave.

"Please don't be weird," she whispered to herself before walking to them at an average pace. They turned in her direction when they heard small leaves cracking under her footsteps, they both smiled at her in that pretentious, flaming-rich type of way.

"Hello, I'm awfully sorry to intrude on your departure but I was here to drop off some food for my older brother and I noticed my father left me behind. I haven't got a way to go back home. I was wondering if you could drive me into town if that weren't any trouble? You could drop me off once we get out of Welton territory and I could take the bus."

The man got into the car without saying a word while the lady examined her with her beady, weirdly warm eyes. Sigrid fixed herself under her stare, feeling self-conscious but still managed to smile back. The woman's facial features slowly twisted into a small smile. She opened the door to the backseat, "Of course, darling. Where would you be going? We could drive you the entire way."

"Thank you so much Misses," she beamed before taking her hand to kiss it politely. "I live on Citric and Allard. But like I said, I would be perfectly fine being dropped off by a bus stop, I wouldn't want to impose."

"Nonsense!" the lady tilted her head to show her that she should get in the car. Sigrid did as told and the door shut as soon as both of her legs were inside the car. The lady got into her side and put on her seatbelt, "We live quite close anyways, darling. So don't fret."

She nodded and put on the seatbelt as the man started to drive out of the academy. There was a comfort in their silence even though they were strangers prior to the encounter, the lady looked at her through the rearview mirror, Sigrid was looking as the academy getting smaller through perspective with a small smile on her face. The lady cleared her throat to get her attention, "So what exactly did you drop off, darling? I'm sure you brother was thrilled to have some fresh food waiting for him."

Oh if she knew the mistake she just made.

"Blueberry coffee cake, madam," the woman appreciated her politeness and the way she was so soft-spoken, it was like caramel.

"Mrs. Dalton."

Sigrid's eyes slightly widened, "Oh I'm so sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Sigrid Taylor. My father is Mr. Hall, he's an lawyer."

"Oh how interesting!" She looked over at her husband, impressed. Her husband returned the expression. "A smart man as him must have produced an intelligent young lady. Tell me Sigrid Taylor, what are you being driven to?"

Sigrid pursed her lips and made direct eye contact with her, "My father wants me to be a nurse. It's more than respectable."

"But what do you want to be?"

It was an intrusion to her privacy, yes, but Sigrid answered truthfully when she saw the beam in Mrs. Dalton's eyes that said she'd be satisfied with whatever answer she was to give.

"A poet. A writer of some sort, I've always found it fascinating. It makes me so insanely happy I couldn't imagine myself doing something else."

They both smiled.

Mrs. Dalton pulled out a small card from her pocket purse and handed it over to her. It had a number on it and a name, to which she assumed was her's since it was unisex.

Mrs. Dalton was the result of the butterfly effect. Domino. Well, whatever makes things come together like a tumbleweed.

"Very well then."