Blast to the Past

chapter 2

                          Ruby 🩰
I had just finished school. I was so glad that the day was finally over.

No more torture.

I met up with my best friend Leticia at the front of the school.

She waved at me. "Hey Ruby! How was your day?"

I greeted my friend. "Hey. It was the same as usual."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

I stood there and studied her: her pale skin, brown eyes, and long black hair.

People always give her weird looks because she was hanging out with someone like me.

Everyone thinks that she is white, when she was in fact Asian. I personally don't see how people see her as white.

"Why are you staring at me?" Leticia asked.

I blinked. "Sorry. Just thinking about something. Let's go."

She and I walked to the ballet studio.

When we first enrolled here, the ballet teacher didn't let Leticia go to the first lesson.

"This studio is not for people like you, miss", is what she said.

It took us so long to convince her that my friend wasn't white.

We entered the studio and put our bags in their usual spot in the corner. "Girls. You're late!" I looked up at the clock.

"But Teresa, this is always the time-"

"Clearly you didn't read the flyer on the door. Practice starts earlier so that we have more time to prepare for our recital. Please be on time for next practice."

"Sorry, Teresa", Leticia and I said in unison. We quickly went to stretch and joined the rest of our class to practice our routine.

We practiced and practiced. We were pretty great, to be honest. Practice finally finished and Leticia and I grabbed our things and left.

"Are you able to get ice cream now?" My dark haired friend asked me.

I looked at my watch. The time read 3:30. I had an hour before I needed to get home. "Sure", I answered. "Let's go."

We arrived at the ice cream stand. It was a small white building with a pink and yellow striped awning.

There were blue tables around it. This place wasn't nearly as good as the whites only ice cream shop, though.

Leticia and I walked up to the stand.

"Hi girls", said Glenn, the cashier.

"Hi Glenn", I replied. "I'll take a rainbow sherbet in a waffle cone."

  "I'll have a Neapolitan in a cup", said Leticia. Glenn brought out our ice cream.

We paid him, grabbed our frozen treats, and sat down at the blue tables.

Leticia looked right at me. "So. What happened today? You seem so far away."

I stared at her. "What?"

"Don't act like that, Rube! You seem in a completely different world."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm completely fine!"

But I wasn't fine.

I couldn't shake the feeling that something was supposed to happen today.

Letty rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Let's just eat our ice cream before it melts."

We made normal conversation and scarfed down our ice cream. I glanced at my watch. 4:00.

"Letty. I think we should go now. I need to let my brother in the house. He should be there by now."

She nodded. We got up and threw our trash away and made our way towards my house.

"Do you think your parents will let you stay for dinner?" I asked.

"Maybe. I'll ask them first", Letty replied.

I smirked. "You can call them on my brand new phone! My parents finally bought one!"

"Sweet! Can't wait to try it out."

We walked and talked some more, then I abruptly stopped.

I saw something in the distance. I squinted, and sure enough, there was a strange-looking girl wandering around.

"Leticia, I'll talk to you later."

"But-"

Before she could finish her sentence, I sprinted to the girl. I knew I was going to regret this.