Chasing Calloway

Twenty - Lucky

Song Of The Chapter ||  we can't be friends (wait for your love) - Ariana Grande

𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐓

Thirteen Years Ago...

The first time I met Annie, she had a bruise on her cheek. A friend from my childhood threw the ball in my direction. I didn't catch it. I watched as it flew through the air in the direction of a girl with blonde hair on the playground.

My friends and I shouted for her to look out, but the girl was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice the ball coming at her until it hit her square in the face. I ran over to help her. It was the right thing to do, and my Dad had taught me to always do the right thing.

She had fallen safely in the grass, with her hair splayed over the green.

"Hello? Are you okay?" I ask her, my body covering hers from the sun.

Thankfully, she opens her eyes, and she looks at me, taking in every feature of mine with her eyes. I'm worried she might have a concussion or something until her face turns into a big dopey grin and she says the weirdest thing I think anyone could ever say after being hit in the face.

"Never better!" She responds with a toothy smile.

I only had one thought at that point.

What a weirdo.

Still, I help her up and promise to help take her to the nurse's office. It was the right thing to do. As we walk in silence, I begin to recognize her. She was in class with me, first grade classes weren't super big. But I had never talked to her.

"I think you're the only person in the whole class that I haven't talked to." I say with a smile. She only nods in response and keeps walking. "It's kind of hard to talk if you don't say anything. I don't even know your name." I add. Two seven year olds walking down an elementary school hallway, both have no idea what to say to one another. One talks too much, the other talks too little in my opinion.

As we come up to the door of the nurses office, I decide to open it for her. Because it's the right thing to do, of course. And as she walks through the doorway, I hear a small whisper from her.

"I'm Annie." She responds quietly before rushing into the office. I follow her in, eager to get more information out of the only person I haven't talked to. Even if she was a weirdo.

"Annie! Wait up! I'm Garrett!"

| ★★★★★ |

A few months pass by and Annie and I talk more, but not more than you would talk with an average classmate. The normal "Hi!" "Can I borrow your pencil?" and "There's gum stuck in your hair."

Okay, maybe I have only said that last one to Annie. She got picked on every now and then, and I don't think she had any friends in class besides me. If you could even call us friends. She was a weirdo afterall.

But still, I knew it was the right thing to do, so I said hi to her everytime she said hi to me. I even invited her to my eighth birthday party. Well, I invited the whole class. But you should have seen the look on her face when I told her about the invite. It was like watching fireworks for the first time. She yanked her purple marker out of her pouch and started scribbling the details on her arm so she wouldn't forget them.

What a weirdo.

| ★★★★★ |

The day of my birthday party, the whole class showed up. So did Annie.