After church earlier that morning, Anna and I had left walking to my house. It wasn't too far from the church, but on the way, we passed the school, and, of course, Keira's house. We had talked about school, and boys, and Anna's latest love interest. I'd tried to keep on subject as best as I could, but I really couldn't get Keira out of my mind. Why was it that I always thought of her hating me? Why did it bother me so much? I never really knew.
"... And, see, that's why I really don't want to date him." I caught the end of Anna's sentence, though I had no idea who she was talking about. She glanced to her right, looking at me expectedly, waiting for a response. My eyes darted about the ground, as if looking to the grass for an answer.
"Y-yeah, you totally shouldn't get with him, then." I stammered, trying to smooth my voice out as much as possible, to make it seem like I was into the conversation. To my despair, Anna didn't buy it. She stopped right in her tracks, hands on her hips. She pursed her lips, and I could tell she was angry.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Lauren." She snapped. "What the hell is up with you? You never listen to me when I'm talking, you act like you do but you don't." Her eyes narrowed, looking me up and down, when I just flushed and looked at the ground. She noticed my eyes had drifted a bit to the right, but I'd snapped them back to Anna by the end of her last sentence. I shouldn't have looked, because now she looked to her left (she was facing me), and her eyes narrowed even more as she realized who's house we had happened to stop in front of. Her eyes moved back to me slowly, and I flinched at her glare.
"You're fucking kidding me." She hissed, her voice dripping with venom. I didn't have a response. She stepped towards me, and I shuffled backwards. "You're psychot-", I cut her off before she finished.
"The bird." I mumbled.
Anna blinked, a look of ridicule on her face. "What?" She asked, giving me an incredulous look.
"The bird." I repeated, my voice still low. "I was just looking at the bird..." I pointed downwards, to my right, at the lawn of the house we were in front of. Keira's house. Sure enough, there was a bird where I'd pointed. A dead pigeon, its body rigid on the lush grass.
Anna, who'd looked down at the animal, moved her head to look back up at me. Her eyes were still wide, and she blinked in incredulity once more, as she looked at me. I was still looking shamefully at the ground. Anna, recovering her composure, calmly starting walking past me. "Fucking psychotic." I heard her say, under her breath, as her shoulder brushed mine.
I watched as a small maggot wriggled out from the bird's beak, and wondered if it was gasping for air like a swimmer freshly surfacing from the water. "Probably not," I figured, watching the maggot wriggling its way down the dead bird's neck, before I took one last glance at the house, and turned to follow Anna.