On Mondays just after the bell for every class she stands for 2 minutes, not saying anything and not sitting down even if a teacher asks her to but until the 2 minutes are up it won't happen.
On Tuesday she comes to class 29 minutes late exactly, and gets in fights with the teachers saying she's only absent if she's 30 minutes late.
On Wednesday she isn't at school.
Thursday she comes to class in some new hat and bright weird pjs with frogs on them, and sleeps for all of her classes.
On Friday she's like a normal person, does her work, keeps to herself, talks to people if they talk to her, and just when you have gotten used to her being normal, on Monday she's back to her version of normal and doing the same thing. She's like a clock.
Wednesday, and she came to school. Half the year has gone and not once before has she come in on Wednesday, but here she is. Sitting in my spot, with a black eye and split lip. "Uh, you're in my spot." Everyone's staring; kids like me don't talk to kids like her.
"Eggs." Is all she says as I stare at her. "Your breath smells like eggs, you forgot to brush your teeth again." I cover my mouth and breathe into my hand. She's right, but she's only 5'4 and sitting down which just makes her shorter, there is no way she can smell it while I'm standing. Everyone towers over her but I'm 6'1 so I'm like a building compared to her.
I sit down beside her and look at her paper. A drawing of a frog fighting with 3 other frogs with devil horns. Did she get beat up by 3 people? I know some of the other girls don't like her and the guys think she's a freak but to beat her up is a little much. Come to think of it, I have known her for half a year and I don't even know her name. "I'm Cole." I say and reach out my hand.
"Sky." She slaps my hand like it's a high five and not clearly a hand shake. "Do you like ham?"
"What?"
"Ham, do you like it?" She moves into the desk more and darkens one of the frog's hands.
"I guess, I mean I don't like it more or less than anyone else." She turns her paper over making me jump at her quick movement and I watch her write down 'might like ham'. "Why are you writing that down?"
"Because I love you." I hear everyone snap their bodies to us and some even gasp.
"Uh, thank you?" I don't know how to react to this. We don't even know each other, we just met.
"Your welcome. Look Cole, I know no one likes me, but you should like me, because you are my soul mate and I love you." Where did this all even come from? She finally looks at me and I see she's wearing colored contacts making her eyes purple.
"Uh, no I don't like you let alone love, I mean we just met and, your you... I just don't like you, you know?" I smile and look around at everyone while they snap their heads away. Freaking gossip vultures. "Why do you love me then?" She looks at me for a while and then grabs my bag from me and starts going through it. "Hey that's my stuff!" I try to grab it back when she rips out my house keys.
"This." She holds my keychain and the little frog on it.
"Because I happen to have a frog on my keychain? Are you for real?" She starts nodding her head violently and I sigh.
"If you like frogs that means I must love you because frogs are everything to me, and so you are now everything to me." Oh god no.
"Well here then." I take the frog off my keys and hand it to her. "See I don't like frogs, if I'm willing to give it away without hesitation then it means nothing to me. So go get a crush on someone else." She takes the frog and looks at it and then me, and she starts to cry. I stand up and look around the room and the teacher comes in.
"What did you do to her?" Mr. Han asks rushing to get her out of the class.
"I, nothing, I gave her a keychain with a frog on it..." Mr. Han sighs and leaves the classroom with Sky.
On Thursdays, she wears a new weird hat and bright pink Pjs with orange and blue frogs on it and sits down in her usual spot not even looking in my direction. Her lip looks worse and her cheek is now cut along with her eyebrow. Everyone's staring at her but for some reason she doesn't seem to care at all. Not like she cared any other day but it must at least bother her a little.
Friday she comes into class with normal clothes, and even makeup to hide her black eye and cut up face. I don't understand why the teachers won't ask her any questions. I mean it's clear she's getting bullied. Come to think of it I would have heard who had done it by now with the way news spreads at this school. If I wouldn't have heard it directly I would have heard it from some girls while walking down the hall or from some tables next to me in class but it seems like no one else knows, or they really just don't care. I decided to follow her home. Her love confession was so out of the blue along with her weirdness I have always wanted to know more about her anyway. I suppose I could just become her friend and ask her but I wouldn't really know what to say to her.
She turns down a back lane and starts running so I run ahead and turn to see she's not there anymore.
Monday she didn't show up.
Tuesday, didn't show up.
Wednesday she comes into class and sits right next to me. "I love you." She smiles and I look at her. She seems different today. Her cuts are healing slowly and her eye is more a greenish yellow than purple and blue.
"Why, I don't understand your logic?" She smiles some more and the teacher comes in and starts the class.
Thursday, she didn't show up. People have started to pick on me since I'm the only one she talks to anymore. People are assholes; I can see why she doesn't come to school anymore. I have started to miss her colorful frog pyjamas.
Friday, she didn't show up.
She only started to come on Wednesdays, only talks to me, and always the first thing she said was, I love you. It became so normal that I just started to accept it. Since she would be gone for a whole week it became easier to tell when things had changed about her. She wasn't getting enough sleep anymore. Wasn't eating either. She wasn't coming in with black eyes and cut faces but more of bruised wrists and long sleeves and sweaters. Whoever was hurting her clearly didn't stop. Finally one Wednesday I finally decided to take her out of class and ask what was going on.
"I love you." Was the first thing she said when she walked in. I grabbed her hand and walked us out the class and down the hall to the fire escape.
"What's going on with you? You don't come to school anymore except Wednesdays, you don't wear weird clothes anymore or make weird drawings, and you don't say anything but I love you when you see me. You aren't the weird girl everyone knows you as, now you're the weird girl everyone's trying to forget because you don't look the same, you look dead." Her eyes start to tear up and I sigh. "Sorry I just, I don't know who you even are." She smiles and leans her head on my chest.
"All you need to know is I love you. I'm not someone people should even remember so you forget me along with them too, ok?" She grabs my shirt and I feel her tears leaking through my shirt as I lightly hug her and rub her back. I don't know what's going on but I guess it's time I find out.
At the end of the day I followed her again but this time I could tell she knew I was there. I ran up beside her but she didn't even look at me, just kept walking at the same pace. "Are you ignoring me now?" I ask and she then breaks off into a full on sprint to get away. "What the hell?" I say to her as she runs past some of our class mates and drops her bag and picks up speed. I nearly trip on it and keep chasing after her until she turns down the same back lane and I lose her as I turn the corner as well. I turn around and see the two we ran past slowly walking over to me with her bag. I thank them and start walking home. I'll give it back to her on Wednesday.
Wednesday, she didn't show up, or the next, or the one after that. I carried her bag to and from school every day. I walked to and from the back lane after school hoping to see her. I asked around to see if anyone knew where she lived, if they knew what happened, no one did. She dropped off the face of the earth just like that. Something in her bag started to really smell after the 5th week of her not coming to school so Friday I finally decided to open it at home. I found a whole loaf of bread and ham slices inside. The packaging had finally opened and the mold was what was making it stink. When I cleaned it out I also found 70$, her driver's license, and sin number along with a bunch of printed resumes for herself.
It's almost as if she was going to run away that day after school. Did she still go through with it even without her stuff? Why would she run away thought? Was it because she was still getting picked on, or was it something else? I find a small pocket on the inside of the bag with a long note.
'Monday I stood for 2 extra minutes after the bell for everyone who had lost someone, or something dear in their lives, for everyone I had lost in my life, for my own selfish needs, I stood for those 2 extra minutes for that reason.
Tuesday, I chose to come late to class 29 minutes because Tuesday was when the store had a sale on fruits that would go bad soon, and I would buy them out and give to the homeless usually losing track of time and having to run to school.
Wednesdays, it was too much to get out of bed.
Thursdays I wanted a change, to do something different like wear a weird hat and not bother with getting dressed.
Friday's, I wanted to feel normal, alive but it never worked. Everyone still treated me the same but I couldn't bother to stop trying to be normal.
On Wednesday I fell in love. I wasn't at school, I was at the store, and I seen him. He picked up a frog keychain and smiled at it and then bought it. I didn't know someone could smile like that at something so small, I didn't know smiles like that even existed. For a long time, since grade 5, I was the weird girl, the ugly one, the stupid and fat girl that no one liked. So I planned to run away at 18. If you find this bag, I have either killed myself by now, or I'm still coming to school as normal and you just happened to find out my secret but the first part is more likely.
When Wednesday comes, that was my day to tell him I loved him, when Wednesday came, that was when I was going to die. Stand for 2 minutes, be a little late, sleep in a little more, be comfortable, and try to become what you want, because you don't know when you're going to die.
And if you do, then at least you understood.'
Monday, after the bell rang. I stood for 2 extra minutes.