"Kristi!" Sam called out, as she was heading toward their first hour German class.
For the past several days, she'd very adeptly avoided him, and ignored his pleas for her to talk to him. She even proved to be much faster than seemed possible. As long as his legs were, and as fast as he'd always thought he was, he had never managed to catch her, or even come close to catching up with her. Knowing it was a futile effort, he still tried.
Rounding the corner, he found her standing there, waiting. At first, he was shocked, almost running right past her.
"Kristi." Now that he'd finally caught up with her, he was at a momentary loss for what to say.
"Sam," she replied, looking up at him. This time, he could read her expression, with absolute clarity. She was curious, but waiting. She wanted to see what he was going to say. What was he going to say?
"I'm sorry for whatever it was I did to make you upset." He decided to go with the simple, direct approach.
"You do nothing to upset me. You did what you are. That what upset me. I am not good person to know. I sometime mean, what you do call evil."
"I don't believe that," he said, and a small smile formed on her face, as she looked down. It was her usual half smile, which was all he could ever remember her giving, in the way of smiles.
"You not know me much," she said, her voice very soft.
"I want to get to know you better."
"I go to library and study with you," she said, and darted back into the crowd. With her unexpected departure, Sam thought of her being like that really slippery fish when you just pull it out of the water and are trying to hold it. Actually, that might not be quite right, either. She was even more slippery, when she wanted to be.
"Wait," he called, and worked to catch up with her. Amazingly, he did this time. He was pretty sure she'd allowed it, which was still a mystery to him that she could move as fast as she obviously could.
"How are you so fast?" he asked, when he finally caught up.
"I am small. I can move around people more easy than you." He thought about that, and although he knew there was some logic to there, it didn't seem like the entire explanation. She wasn't that small. Sam couldn't think of any other reasonable explanation, though. Images of superheroes floated through his mind, his imagination providing an explanation.
"What about going to the mall and hanging out, instead?"
"You need to study, and I need get better knowing English."
"We can talk at the mall." Moving to the side, with the ease of a gymnast doing a well rehearsed routine, she stopped dead.
"You want girlfriend. I not be that for you, but I will let us be friend, but should not. Sam, you are nice. I like you, but I am not good person to know. Also, I am not from here and one day not long I go home," she said, and again darted off. By the time he caught up with her again, she had made it to their German class.
"I'd like to see Latvia, one day." Her head jerked up and she levelled an intense stare on him.
"What?" He asked, worried he'd messed up again.
"I read people good, know what they think, what they do before they do this. You surprise me...too much. It make me...nervous." This time, he smiled at her, making no effort to hide the smugness he felt. He knew exactly what she was talking about, and felt oddly victorious she felt the same frustration.
He wasn't sure he should, but Sam made a rash decision and asked, "Why did you get upset with me when I tried to defend you?"
"Because it cause me heart hurt. I know you get hurt if little girl's boyfriend get mad at you. I will not let you get hurt, so I hurt him before he do. Also, I not want you hurt by me. People near me get hurt."
Sam stared at her a moment, trying to understand how the girl beside him could hurt Blake, one of the largest kids he knew. Then he recalled the look on Blake's face when she drug him away. Blake had looked like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. Somehow, she must've done something to him, but Sam couldn't for the life of him figure out what.
"Guten morgen Klass," Frau Voss said, ending any further efforts to discover what she meant.
Class went very smoothly, Sam feeling a lot better with Kristi speaking to him again, outside of required German conversation. She'd actually managed to avoid that, as well, most of the time she'd been avoiding him.
As they left German, Natalie was waiting. She had a smug smile on her face, as well.
"Little Kristi. Poor thing, will never look like a real woman. Poor flat chested nerd, buying your jewelry from the dumpsters. Do you wear Hello Kitty panties, too?" she said, very sassy.
Kristi ignored the barb, and tried to walk on past, but Natalie blocked her. Making one more attempt, Kristi tried to step around her, but again, Natalie moved in front of her. Kristi then stepped back several paces, and lowered her eyes a little. In some weird way, Sam saw something in Kristi's expression that actually looked scary, despite the girl's smaller stature.
"You are ignorant, childish bully. Do not make me mad," Kristi said.
"You gonna let her say that about you, Natalie?" Mia asked.
"Hell no," Natalie replied, and moved to close the gap between them.
Kristi moved forward, at a slight angle from Natalie's movement. When Natalie attempted to adjust, Kristi very adroitly stepped to the side, her hand moving behind Natalie and using the girl's own momentum to slam her face into the wall. Kristi's moves looked a lot like a dance, to Sam.
Without pausing, Kristi walked into the crowd as if nothing had happened. Sam, yet again, struggled to catch up with her.
"That was amazing!" Sam said.
"I tell you before, I hurt people."
"You defended yourself."
"I not always defend. Sometime, I offend,." Sam couldn't contain the laugh, though he tried. The statement was simply too funny.
Seeing his expression, and hearing the little bit of laughter that escaped, she couldn't help but smile and also giggle a little. This was the first time Sam had ever seen a total smile from her, and as pretty as he'd thought her half smiles were, this made those pale in comparison. What was odd was that as she laughed, and smiled, she lowered her face so he couldn't entirely see her smile.
He wondered if there was something wrong with her teeth. Being from a possibly poor country, he knew there was a good chance of it.
Seeing his expression, the smile vanished, replaced with curiosity. She asked, "What you think? I not can tell."
"I'm sorry," he said, his face heating.
"I must know, now. What you think," she demanded.
"I always thought the little half smiles you would sometimes give were pretty, but the smile you just had was beautiful."
As if a light switch had been flipped, her expression grew very somber. "I tell you, I not good friend. Do not want to get close to me."
"You are so confusing," Sam told her, as they arrived at their English class.
"How I confuse?" she asked, as if she was truly confused.
"One minute you seem happy, and seem to actually like me, then the next, it's like you hate life and are trying to push me away."
"I always push you away. Not get close. It dangerous and will hurt," she said, as she sat down. She then began taking out her notebook, not that she ever took notes.
"Why, because you'll eventually move away?"
"That only one reason."
"What other reasons are there?"
"Good morning, class," Mrs. Baker said, ending their discussion. Sam had no intention of letting her off the hook, though. Of course, as had happened over the past few days, or weeks, when class was over, she darted away before he could even get his bag packed. He'd let his guard down, thinking she wouldn't run off like she had been.
Kristi proved to be just as evasive in science as she had been the few days prior, even though he was ready this time. Not only was she good at slipping away, very quickly, she was proving to be just as adroit at shifting the conversation, since she was talking to him again. Attempting to return to the question, he'd find himself talking about what he did in the evening, sometimes talking about his homework. It was maddening how good she was at it. At least, she wasn't actively avoiding conversation with him, just any conversation that she'd have to answer his question, and he knew it.
At the end of science, just before the bell, he shot a hail mary, "We'll meet at the Northlake Mall food court at 6:00, okay?"
"I be there," she agreed, just as the bell sounded. As usual, she darted out, and even though he was ready this time, she was still gone by the time he made it into the corridor.
"Hey, Uncle Jake," he said, when the school day was over, and his uncle came to pick him up.
"You look a little happier, if a little frustrated."
"We talked today, but she's so frustrating!"
"Girls tend to be frustrating. It's one of those facts of life for the male of the species."
"Uncle Jake, I can usually sense what people are feeling, kind of what they are thinking. I don't know how to explain it, but I can."
"But not with her. Am I right?"
"Yeah, and it's so frustrating. One minute, she's friendly, and smiling. The next, it's like she's unhappy and telling me we can't be friends. I know she believes she'll eventually go back to Europe, or maybe somewhere else, but what's wrong with trying to be friends?"
"She doesn't want to get too close, because she knows it'll hurt when she leaves."
"She pretty much said that, but she said there are other reasons, but when I try to ask her about that, she always manages to change the conversation. She's really good at doing that, too," Sam said. Jake laughed, and Sam knew he was picturing it in his mind. He would be too, if the roles were reversed.
"By the way, she said that she's really good at knowing what people will do, a lot of times before they do it, and kind of what people are thinking, but she said I surprise her more than anyone she's met in a very long time."
"So, the frustration is mutual."
"Yeah, I guess, but I wish she'd talk a little more. She hints at things, then she won't talk at all about it. It's like she's playing with me, but doesn't mean to...I don't think. It's almost like it's automatic."
"Sam, it is for girls. They can be subtle creatures, and we, more often than not, don't pick up on their subtleties, and they get mad because we don't, as often as not. It comes with the territory." Sam could see his uncle looking at him with his peripheral vision.
"What?" Sam asked, wanting to end the suspense. He knew his Uncle Jake was deciding whether or not to ask something, and he was pretty sure what it was.
"Do you like her that much?"
"I think so. She's probably the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, even though she looks younger than our age, but she's nice, when she's talking to me, she's so smart it's almost embarrassing, and she's really pretty."
"At least you listed the qualifications in the right order, once you listed them." After a moment, Jake said, "You've said that she looks young more than once, the last time when you told me about her being teased, and the girls saying she was small. I assume this smallness is more than just her height and weight."
Sam felt the heat rising in his cheeks, thinking about that. "Yeah, she's small, and looks like a yunger girl."
"When you say younger girl, I'm thinking you also mean her breasts aren't fully developed."
"Yeah, kind of. She's kind of smaller than the other girls our age, which is part of what the other girls tease her about," Sam said, then remembered what happened earlier in the day. "I forgot to tell you. Natalie started teasing her again after German, and I think she was going to push her or something, but Kristi did some really smooth move and Natalie face planted into the wall. I have no idea how she did it, but it was really cool, and it almost looked like a dance. It was so cool."
"It sounds like she might've had some kind of self defense training."
"It definitely looked like it, and that also reminded me of something else she said. She told me she's dangerous, and I could get hurt, that people near her get hurt, which is why she says we shouldn't be friends. I tried to explain that it was self defense, but she said sometimes she offends."
Just like Sam had, Jake laughed.
"I thought it was funny too, and she laughed when I did. She's got the most beautiful smile I've ever seen Uncle Jake, and that was the first time I've seen a real smile from her, even though she kind of hid her face when she smiled. Before that, all she'd ever done were these little half smiles, which I thought were really pretty, but they were nothing compared to that. After seeing that, how could a little girl like her do something to hurt someone, and why would she?"
"First, I strongly suggest you not call her a little girl, even when she's not around. Usually, people that are smaller than average are very sensitive to those kinds of comments, which makes the teasing that much more potent and hurtful, but it also makes innocent comments from friends seem offensive to them. As for her hurting people, from what you're telling me, I'd bet she's been teased a lot in her past, and I'd bet someone close to her has gotten hurt because of it. That's not her fault, but she probably doesn't see it that way."
"Oh, could you take me to the mall later? I'm meeting Kristi to hang out, at about 6:00."
"You actually asked her out, and she said yes?" His uncle's face showed the shock of that statement.
"It's not like a date," Sam said, defensive. It wasn't a date, but it was just going to be the two of them, and she had said yes. Maybe it was, he thought.
"Actually, Sam, it is if she knew it was just the two of you, and she said yes," he replied, echoing Sam's thoughts.
"She did," he said, almost whispering. He saw the smile on his uncle's face, and smiled as well. Maybe she did like him.
"Now, before you can go to the mall, as planned, you need to ask your mother. Should your mother, for any reason, say no, I hope you have contact information for Kristi so you can tell her you won't be able to make it," Uncle Jake said. Sam hadn't thought about that, and panic suddenly welled up inside him. What would she think if his mom said no and he didn't show up? Would she go back to not speaking to him, thinking he'd just played a mean prank on her?
"Mom, I asked Kristi to hang out at the mall with me at 6:00. Can I, please?" he texted.
"What are you going to do about dinner?"
"I'll eat there."
"Okay. You can go. Do you need me to take you?"
"No. Uncle Jake said he would."
"Alright. I will probably be late, anyway. Have fun."
"Thanks Mom. I love you."
"I love you too."
"She said yes," he told his uncle.
"So you don't have to worry about standing her up. That's very good. I doubt you'd be able to recover if your mom had said no." He knew Uncle Jake was probably right, but now it thankfully wasn't an issue.
Sam couldn't concentrate on anything he tried to do when he got home. His essay was behind, thanks to the drama that had been happening with Kristi, and it wasn't getting any help that afternoon.
His phone chimed while he was sitting at his desk, and making a fruitless effort to work on the essay. Looking at it, he was surprised to see a text from an unknown number. It read, "This Kristi. Should have give number at school. Did not think to do it. Bring school stuff. We help each other. It for study. Now you have my number. I take text any time. Will answer fast unless problem stop me."
"How did you get my number?" he texted back, after adding her to his contact list.
"Record search give it. Easy to do."
"Okay. See you at the mall in a little while."
"See you in a little while. :) "
"I guess it's not a date," Sam said, walking into the living room, his phone held in front of him.
"How so?" his uncle asked.
Sam handed his phone to him. After a moment, he returned it, "Maybe not, but she still agreed to get together with it just being the two of you. Think about that and remember what I said. Take what she's willing to give and don't push too hard, or you might push her away. From what you told me, she believes she's going to be moving away at some point. It makes sense she's cautious about getting close to someone, and that's without the worry about the teasing, and whatever emotional scars she might have from that. In other words, be careful, and not for you, for her."