Great Girls(Victoria Pedretti)

C. 8🕰

"Jesus Christ, Salinger. I told you to do one thing," Claudia scolds, slamming the window shut as I stood in the doorway with a guilt-ridden look on my face.

I covered my face with my hands, "God, Claud. I'm sorry. I completely forgot about it."

"You are so lucky half of the snow melted," she says, walking back to her bed. She was in black sweats and a black hoodie. "I know it's my fault. I'm sorry." I apologized, closing the door behind me as I threw my light knapsack on my blue tie-dye bedspread.

"What were you doing anyway? You said your class ended at 3:30," she confronts me as she crosses her legs and grabs her silver Dell laptop.

I walked over to my side of the room, where my small closet was. I opened the brown door, and when it swung open, the light was on, even though I knew for sure that I had turned it off when I left for class.

I squinted in suspense and spun around on the tips of my toes. "Did you acquire something?" I inquired with my hands on my hips. "No," she bluntly answered without looking up from her laptop screen.

I knew she was lying because she hadn't made eye contact with me and avoiding contact was something that Claudia was a pro in.

I didn't take her word for it. Instead, I proceeded to pick out a knitted sweater for my weekly dinner with my mom.

When I got accepted to Hartley my senior year at Marin Brown High School, I was ecstatic, and my parents were too. However, my mom and I agreed that even though I lived on campus, I would have dinner with her one day every week. It didn't matter what day it was. She just wanted to see my face and know that I'm still the daughter she birthed in the parking lot of a pizza joint.

I resorted back to my closet when Claudia spoke up and said, "I did borrow your lavender cardigan for my Physics class."

I sighed, "Did you at least put it back?" I pulled some hangers back to see what I was working with. "Of course, I did. Right after I spilled barbecue sauce over it." She replied.

I turn my head around, "Claudia. That was my favorite sweater." "Don't worry, Sallie. I just put it in the laundry an hour ago."

"What?" I screamed. My nostrils flared in anger as I ran to the door, swung it open, and sped down Lilah Wing like no other.

This is the second time that I have run down this hallway. I am not doing this again.

I was a sprinter. I was a cheetah. I was pissed. I know Claudia and I are close, but this is the last straw. She is not permitted to borrow any more of my clothes. That's right. My closet was no longer going to be American Apparel. It was going to be Sallie's apparel and only mine.

I rushed into the laundry room, and I ended up pushing past someone who was carrying a basket, "Sorry." There were two people in the room: an Indian girl with short black hair and a long flowy red dress. In the corner, there was a boy with shoulder-length wavy chestnut hair. He was taking his clothes out of the dryer and conveying them to his basket.

Next to him was a washer, and that washer looked like it was mixing up a grape soda. "Shit. Shit. Shit," I rushed over to the machine and did not think once to stop it from moving. Without hesitation, I popped open the door. As suds spilled out from the washer that was still going, I jumped and waved my right arm around to catch my sweater that was flying in the spin tub.

"No!" I shouted.

While I was jumping up like an animal in a zoo, trying to gain the attention of a human, a shadow began to fall over my shoulders. An arm with veins the size of a thin pretzel stick had reached over my hand and grasped my sweater in a swift motion.

"Got it, " the boy said, handing my wet sweater to me as he paced to the corner of the room, grabbing the mop.

He threw the mop head on the floor, allowing the strings made from yarn to soak up the mess I had made on the red and white tiled floor.

When he cleaned up the water, he glanced at me with his beady green eyes and shut off the machine.

When it stopped, the only noise you could hear was our shallow breaths. His eyes fell onto my lips, and mine did the same.

We were unsure if we would kiss, but we leaned in, and we kissed with our noses.

When I heard a gasp, our faces smacked against each other. I turned to the launderette's exit, and standing there was my mother.

"Mom, what are you doing here?"

"Salinger Reagan Child."