On Monday at school, I arrived early, hoping to catch Lucas to thank him again since he might not remember what had happened. After parking my car, I walked to the main entrance, passing the dumpsters on the way, since I parked towards the back. Sitting by the dumpsters was Sarah, the only other person who knew I cut.
We had been best friends since we were in first grade, when Sarah had pushed a boy who’d tried to steal my pudding. We’d both gotten a firm scolding, but we’d remained friends since then. Sarah had always been the kind of person who strayed away from anything mainstream. If everyone was going one way, she’d go the other way. She was just like that. One summer in fifth grade, when all the girls had started wearing pink short shorts just because a popular girl had, Sarah wore black leggings. When all the girls wore bows at Christmas on eighth grade, Sarah wore bobby pins or hair clips. When all the girls started getting boyfriends in middle school, Sarah had told me that she was bisexual and that she didn’t want a boyfriend unless he was okay with that. Although we’d been very different people as we were growing up, we’d gotten over our differences – always – until I told her about my scars.
One day, in the middle of my freshman year at school, I’d been having a terrible day. A few girls, the popular, pretty, blonde kind, had been picking on me; pulling my hair, making me drop my books, shoving me into lockers, pinching me as they walked by, that sort of thing. After a particularly bad set of shoves, I’d gone into the bathroom and cut, just a little. Even then, I’d carried around my razor. After I’d finished, I had promised myself that I wouldn’t let them get to me anymore. So, when one of the girls had called me a pathetic loser, I’d said “Hater gonna hate.”
I’d meant it as a joke, a bad defense against the torture. Sarah had gotten angry at me, though, saying that she’d “Finally lost you to the dark side.” Because I’d said something that everyone else was saying. After she’d yelled at me for a while, I had decided to show her why I couldn’t let those girls hurt me any longer. Unfortunately, she didn’t really respond in a positive manner. She’d accused me of falling for “That stupid emo fad.” I personally hadn’t even been aware of an “emo fad” at the time, but she thought it was a serious offense. She’d ditched me for other Indie kids and we hadn’t spoken since.
Looking at her now, I felt a small twinge of… what? Regret? Jealousy, that she seemed so happy? I didn’t know. But she did look happy. She was wearing hipster glasses and a high-waisted blue and white polka-dot skirt with dark boots. Her hair was tied up with a scarf, and she was surrounded by Indie kids, almost all of them wearing hipster glasses and scarves. What I didn’t get was, if Indie kids were so into being different from everyone else, why were they content to look exactly like each other?
I passed them without talking. One of the girls, a pretty brunette who was wearing a gauzy tan dress, a bandana tying her hair back and no make-up laughed, glancing over at me. At her look, a few others glanced in my direction, their smiles turning into scowls as they took in my gray skinny jeans and black hoodie. No doubt they were judging me for wearing skinny jeans when everyone else was, too. But really, I just wore them because, to me, they were comfortable.
Sarah’s eyes raked over me, showing no sign of recognition. After a moment, they turned back to each other and continued talking, one or two of them throwing dirty glances back at me for good measure.
Inside, I went to my locker as kids slowly starting filing into the school. I mechanically grabbed my books and started walking to my first class. How could Sarah forget me that easily? We’d been friends for years. How did she care so little that she could just toss me away if I didn’t follow her rules for what not to say? How was she so happy? Why did she fit in so easily with those people? Why didn’t she care at all?
A girl shoved past me, throwing a glare over her shoulder as she rushed off. That jerked me out of my detrimental thoughts enough that I could focus on just getting to Calculus and learning math. Joy.
A few minutes after the bell had already rang and Mr. Tomlinson had already started droning about numbers, Lucas walked in, obviously frazzled. His hair was sticking up in places, like he’d run his hands through it and he didn’t have his math textbook or a notebook.
“Nice of you to join us, Mr. Parks. Care to tell me why you’re late?” Mr. Tomlinson put a fist in his hip and leaned his other one again his desk.
Lucas mumbled something unintelligible and slid into the only open seat; the one next to mine.
“Well, since you don’t have any books, you’ll have to share with Ms. Robertson. You’d better hope that she’s a good note-taker. There may or may not be a test coming up….” And on that ominous note, he continued talking about stuff that I didn’t understand.
My hand moved almost unconsciously to take notes, and I peeked a glance at Lucas. He was slouching in his chair, staring at the place on his desk where he’d put his hands. As if he could sense me studying him, he turned and caught my gaze. A small smile tugged the corners of his mouth up. I smiled back, then turned back to my notes, unable to continue looking at those deep blue eyes that seemed to stare into my soul.
After class, I caught up to Lucas in the hallway, but before I could talk, another guy spoke to him. I paused, trying to remember who the other guy was. After making certain that I didn’t know him, I inched closer, trying to cut into their conversation without being impolite.
“Luke, dude. You gotta come!”
“Not interested.” Lucas muttered, not looking at the other guy. I didn’t like that the guy called him Luke. It just seemed to butcher his name. It sounded incomplete. Catching on that Lucas was less than super excited about that conversation, I tapped on his elbow lightly. He turned around, ignoring the other guy’s complaints. Seeing me, Lucas’ gaze softened and he leaned against a wall.
“What’s up?”
I just wanted to say thank you again. For Saturday. For helping me.” I restrained myself from face-palming at my butchery of sentences.
“What?” Lucas asked, his blue eyes clouding with confusion.
“Saturday. You stopped Caleb from… being stupid.” I said, trying to clarify, even thought it was clear that Lucas had been so drunk that he didn’t even remember hitting Caleb.
“Um, okay.” Lucas still looked confused, so I tried to elaborate.
“At the party? Caleb was… drunk. And high. And incredibly stupid.” Wow, great job, Daniella. These sentences were way more complete than the first ones.
“Oh, yeah. No problem. I didn’t want him to…” It sounded like Lucas was going to say something, but then he changed his mind, “Hurt you.”
“Well, thanks to you, he didn’t. So thank you again.” I smiled and started to back away in the direction of my locker.
“I’m glad you’re okay.” Lucas smiled back at me and I turned to go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N
Well, this chapter's pretty short, but hey! I updated before New Years! I wanted you to get a little bit of background on Sarah and the whole thing there. If you liked it, awesome! If you didn't, that's okay too, I love comments regardless.
I'm thinking about doing a chapter from Lucas's POV.
And I'm a bit conflicted as to detail or no detail on cutting.
Opinions? Comment down there!
_| |_
\ /
\ /
V
BẠN ĐANG ĐỌC
Emerald Eyes
Teen Fiction“'Haters gonna hate'? How uninteresting and generic can you get?” “What am I supposed to say? ‘I know you hate me, but that’s okay, because no one will ever hate me as much as I hate myself’?” “What are you talking about?” I really wanted to cry t...
