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The others are giggling when they shove Vickie into the empty classroom. Playfully, of course—all of this is playful, not serious, just in good fun, and they’re all friends in the end. They are. It’s just that—
(Where did they even get the key? Swiped it from the teacher’s lounge? She really doesn’t want to get in trouble, Jesus, Mr Kalvin already has that weird dislike for her for whatever reason—maybe because she talks too much, because she’s annoying, something like that. It’s always something like that.)
—it’s just that Vickie doesn’t want to be alone. Never, ever, ever. It feels like she’s wilting when she’s by herself, like something heavy is crushing her rib cage slowly but surely and there’s nothing she can do about it, and she’s content being quiet for the most part (unless she gets activated, as Melissa calls it, and blabbers on and on about music and books and her earrings she crafts, and she’s trying to keep it under control, to stop doing it,okay, she is, but it just won’t work—), but she just needs company.
Vickie has never thought she’s like a flower. She lacks the elegance, and the beauty, too. Rather, she’s like wild weeds, maybe. There’s something cool about that, too, she thinks.
Her eyes are still burning when the door behind her gets slammed shut. Quickly, she turns around, smacks her open palms against the lacquered wood a few times. Once, twice, almost timid—but it still burns in her palms, somehow, impossibly, it still burns—and she laughs, chokes on it, everything blurring together for a moment.
“Hey,” she calls out, and the giggling on the other side of the door is almost distorted, but maybe that’s just because of how her ears are ringing. How her vision is blurring and un-blurring and blurring again, making her nauseous. “Hey, can you let me out? You’ve had your fun, it’s funny, can you guys please—”
And then there’s nothing. No more giggling, just footsteps, and even those fade. Something rises in Vickie’s throat, and she smacks her palms into the door again, moving to rattle on the handle, desperate, but it’s locked. It’s locked. The door is locked. She’s alone.
“Guys!” she calls out again, but she knows it’s pointless. This is just teasing, this is what fun means, and the way her eyes are burning means that she’s weak. That she doesn’t get it. She never does.
Finally, Vickie sniffs, taking a step back. She can’t—she can’t cry, the others will see she cried when they let her out once lunch break is over. But—
But, but, but. Vickie can’t stand being alone. She sniffs again, wipes at her face, squeezes her eyes shut so tight she thinks she might get a headache. But better a headache than dissolving in tears until she’s drowning, better a headache than that feeling where everything is too much and she’s ripping apart at the seams, where—
“Vickie?”
With a sharp gasp, she spins around so quickly she gets dizzy, so quickly colors and light blur together again. Sky blue. Cream. Strawberry blonde. Vickie blinks once, twice, three times, and the smears puzzle together into the picture of Chrissy Cunningham, like stained glass, like a cauldron a witch might use to spy on someone.
Vickie can’t help it, she blinks again. That’s—
That’s, that’s, that’s. What the hell is Chrissy doing here? Another wave of unease rolls over her, and she’s so dizzy she thinks she might pass out. Maybe that’s an acceptable way out of this situation—like that, she won’t experience any of it. Will just lie here unmoving until the door is unlocked again, so that they can both leave and never talk to each other again. Go back to how things are, now, to how things are comfortable, but never good.
Every single time she passes Chrissy in the hallways of the school is too much. Too close, way too close, a sting in her chest that she’ll never, ever get rid of. An ache that echoes in her rib cage, deep, deep, deep, whenever she thinks about it. An ache that makes her cry alone in her bed sometimes, curled up under the sheets, even when she never tells anyone about it. Has never told anyone about it. It’s a secret that sits right in her chest, and always will.
But… this? Chrissy, right here, in this abandoned classroom, during lunch break, locked in with her?
The same question echoes in Vickie’s head again. What is Chrissy doing here? Why isn’t she with all her popular friends, all the cheerleaders, and her boyfriend, and —
(And, and, and, the popular kids laugh at people like Vickie. People with teeth too big and too many freckles and colorful clothes and weird music taste and a laugh that’s too loud and big, clunky earrings. And Vickie loves a lot of those things about herself, but—)
She laughs, nervously, for some reason. Points at the door. “Uh,” she starts. “Door’s locked.”
Slowly, looking at her with wide, grey eyes, like a deer caught in headlights, Chrissy nods. It stings, a little—not because of this hesitant treatment, she’s doing the same, after all. No, it stings, because these eyes are familiar, because they once belonged to her best friend. And yeah, they’d both been just kids, in middle school, but she really thought—
Whatever.
“I,” Chrissy starts, and then swallows her words, hiccups on them. “Uh, are you okay?”
Huh. Vickie really didn’t expect that. Her stomach flips, something tightening inside of her, and she has no idea what to do about it. No idea what to do about any of it, really. What’s going on? Why is she always getting into situations like these? Part of her wants to crouch down and cry, but that’s not impossible for two entirely separate reasons. The girl in front of her, and the girls who locked her in here.
“Of course I’m okay,” Vickie mumbles, perhaps a little more bitterly than is appropriate. Then again, she barely ever knows what’s appropriate and what isn’t at any given situation. It used to be something she shared with Chrissy—but now, they’re so far away from each other there may as well be an invisible wall between them.
The other girl nods again. The loose curls framing her face bounce with the movement, and she’s still so pretty. Always has been pretty—like a doll, with her shining hair that’s not as red as Vickie’s is. With her pretty skin and the pink lips and that smile that makes her eyes crease.
Vickie swallows. She doesn’t know if the burrowing feeling in her chest is jealousy or something else. Maybe it’s always been jealousy. Maybe the innocent admiration twisted into this—or maybe it’s been something else entirely.
In the end, she knows what it is. Has reached out of it so many times, mulling it over in her head, spinning it around and around and around to look at it from every angle. It’s always been just out of reach, just barely in view, but she knows what it is, as much as she tries to ignore that part of her, as much as she always has.
Vickie was in love with Chrissy Cunningham years ago in middle school, when they were still friends. It’s a thorn stuck in her heart forever, a feeling of shame and perhaps something else, and now she’s here, and she’d really rather be anywhere else. Would rather bury herself, perhaps. Run away, like she usually does. Avoid confrontation, and—
“Okay,” Chrissy says, and something about it is so eternally frustrating. What is Vickie supposed to do now? How does she talk to a girl she doesn’t know anymore, and Chrissy fiddles with her fingers, tugs at the long sleeves of her blue sweater, and she’s not supposed to be nervous anymore. Why is she still nervous?
Back then, when they were friends, Chrissy’s hand was sweaty in Vickie’s. She glanced around from under her bangs, lifted her shoulders and kept to herself. It’s the reason she wasn’t that popular back then, despite looking like a doll.
And now, everything is different. Now, Chrissy is a popular girl, the most popular girl, so she’s different. Confident, like the other popular girls. Good at makeup and with boys, and—and—
Chrissy catches her pink, sparkling bottom lip between her teeth. Her front teeth still are the slightest bit crooked. For some reason, Vickie’s mouth is dry.
(Maybe Chrissy hasn’t changed at all. Maybe she still knows her. For some reason, that thought hurts more than any other.)
“Where are your friends?” she settles on, finally, glancing around. And there’s obviously no one else around, the classroom is as deserted as it has been when they got locked in here. Empty, empty, empty, with empty desks and an empty blackboard and Chrissy with her bag on the floor in the corner where she was probably sitting before she got up when the whole commotion started. No lunch box is out. No one is around.
Vickie swallows. Thinks about Chrissy, Chrissy, Chrissy, with the little food in the lunchbox in middle school, with the closed lipped smile after eating, how she politely refused food most of the time when she was at Vickie’s place. Chrissy, Chrissy, Chrissy.
Some things always stay the same, apparently. There’s such an urge inside of her to hug the other girl that it is unbearable; that she has to wrap her arms around herself, instead. Squeeze, once, twice, digging her fingers into her arms. Chrissy tugs at her skirt, rocks back and forth on her heels, stares at the floor, scratches at it with the tip of her perfectly white sneakers.
“I dunno,” she says, so quietly Vickie barely hears her. “In the cafeteria, probably.” And then, even quieter, if that’s even possible, and Vickie sways closer, closer, closer, “I wanted to be alone.”
She doesn’t know what to say to that. What does one say to that? To a girl with a perfect life and a broken little porcelain face hiding away alone in a room, her bottom lip wobbling?
How long has this been going on, anyway? If she—if she looked harder—
No. Once they started going to high school, Chrissy joined the cheer team. She’d been doing it prior to that, already, and showed it to Vickie all the time, with a few other girls who were like an unofficial cheer team since the middle school didn’t have one, but in high school, Chrissy joined the cheer team. Got close to the girls there, and whenever Vickie was with her, the cheerleaders were, too.
The cheerleaders with their sneers and their side-eyes and their talk about things Vickie doesn’t understand. She couldn’t stand it. Chrissy could have—talked to her. Asked her what’s wrong. Asked her why she never wanted to come along anymore.
Swallowing, Vickie tightens her hands to fists next to her body, before relaxing them again. She walks over to the wall—keeping distance between herself and the other girl, but not as much as she could, which makes something else entirely stir inside of her, and what’s wrong with her, anyway?—and leans against it, crossing her arms. She feels unsteady where she’s standing. Perhaps she’ll sink to the floor soon.
“Okay,” she echoes Chrissy’s words back to her, and perhaps that’s mean, but when she glances at the other girl, she smiles a little. Tightly, pressing her lips together. Does she really think she can fool Vickie with that?
The room falls into silence. Vickie doesn’t know what else to say—and though she can’t stand this tense silence, she also doesn’t know if she wants to talk. What’s left between them, anyway? What is there that she can still grasp? Is there still anything?
Chrissy is restless. Bounces where she’s standing, rocking back and forth, tugging at her sleeves and her skirt and sometimes her hair, chewing on her bottom lip until all the lip-gloss is gone, until Vickie thinks she’s going to split her lip.
How much time has passed? There’s no clock here. Vickie doesn’t own a watch, and it doesn’t look like Chrissy does, either. How long until lunch break is over? Maybe she can quickly get to her bag and stuff a sandwich in her mouth before class or something like that. She’s really hungry.
What is she supposed to do? Whatever is she supposed to do?
As if to save her—or herself, maybe, who knows—Chrissy speaks again. Her voice is wobbling, like she’s about to cry. Vickie tenses her jaw so hard she thinks her teeth may shatter.
“I like your earrings,” the other girl says, unsteady, while Vickie stares at the tip of her shoes. “They’re new, right?” They are. Vickie made them herself. She made a couple for Chrissy, once upon a time. Wonders if the other girl still has those. She doesn’t wear them to school, at least. “Vickie,” Chrissy continues, hoarse. Vickie thinks her knees are going to buckle. “Are you mad at me?”
A laugh of disbelief bubbles out of Vickie’s chest together with something that might be a sob. A wet sound, one that makes her shoulders tremble, one that makes her slide down the wall and sit down on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. She doesn’t know what to say to that. She never knows what the right thing to say is. It never used to matter around Chrissy.
“I’m not mad,” she manages to choke out, letting her forehead fall to her knees, squeezes her eyes shut again until her head throbs. She can’t cry, she can’t cry, she can’t cry. “I’m not.”
Chrissy doesn’t say anything, gives no indication she even heard her. Like this, buried in her knees, Vickie can’t see what the other girl is doing. Maybe she’s back to rocking back and forth where she’s standing. Maybe she’s sitting down, too. Maybe she’s fiddling with her long, pretty fingers or back to chewing on her pink bottom lip. Maybe—
Her breath gets stuck in her throat. Vickie wants so much that it spills out of her rib cage, no matter how much she stuffs it back.
“Why are you friends with those girls?” Chrissy asks, then. Perhaps emboldened by how they have to be together. Perhaps simply talking because she wants to fill the uncomfortable silence, something Vickie can very much emphasize with.
Still, she has no right to ask that question. Melissa and Dorothy were the only ones she could talk to when Chrissy got new, better friends. She had no one else to turn to. What else was she supposed to do? Be all alone all the time? She can’t. Vickie can’t stand being alone. She just doesn’t want to be alone.
“Why are you?” she asks back, and now she can hear how Chrissy sits down. She doesn’t want to lift her head to check. “Why are you friends with those girls? They scare me.”
Silence. Silence, silence, silence, and Vickie’s eyes are burning, another sob rolling out of her, and she presses her lips together to muffle it. Not that she had to bother with that—Chrissy sniffs from somewhere next to her.
Finally, Vickie does lift her head. Furrows her brows—
Chrissy is crying. Sweater sleeve pressed over her mouth, curled up in her corner like she’s trying to take up as little space as possible. “Is that why you left?” she asked, and something inside of Vickie twitches, shatters, falls together again. Her body feels so tight she thinks she might just snap.
“Chrissy,” she says, quietly, and the other girl shakes her head a little. Her name tastes weird on Vickie’s tongue. She hasn’t used it in so long. “Chrissy. What did you think?”
Chrissy shakes her head again. For some reason, Vickie scoots closer, sits next to her, moves to grab her free hand, intertwines their fingers. As soon as she’s done with that, Chrissy grabs her hand so tightly it hurts a little. So tightly it squeezes her bones together, but that’s okay, it’s okay.
“I thought—” she starts, choking on it a little, turning her head away from Vickie. Her face is flushed, and Vickie stares at her profile in awe. This isn’t a dream. Chrissy is really here, and so is she. “I thought you didn’t like me anymore. That you finally got tired of me. That I’m never good enough for the people I let in close.”
The people I let in close.
“I loved you, Chrissy,” Vickie blurts out, for whatever reason. There it is again—there she goes again. Talking herself into things, her thoughts and feelings spilling out of her until she’s left gutted, at the mercy of whoever holds her, but Chrissy’s hands have always been so gentle. “Maybe I still do.”
The other girl sucks in a breath, a gasp that makes Vickie shiver, that makes something hot rush down her spine. Turns her face to her again, and it’s only now Vickie realizes how close they have gotten—that their faces are only inches apart.
And then, then, then, like a miracle or a lightning strike or a fairy tale or a sparkling dream, Chrissy’s eyes drop to Vickie’s mouth for just a moment, and she’s back to falling apart.
“Vickie,” Chrissy breathes out, like there’s something in her chest, trying to claw its way out, like it’s the same thing Vickie keeps in her own chest. Her breath is hot on Vickie’s face. “I loved you, too. S-still do.”
And Vickie has always been too quick with her tongue and her body. Does and says things before thinking them through, stumbling into trouble all over the way, stumbling into embarrassing situations, and it’s no wonder all her friends always make fun of her. She’s… silly. Stupid, maybe.
But Chrissy never made fun of her, and when she presses her lips to the other girl’s, she leans in, too. Chrissy smells like cinnamon, and tastes like strawberry. Chrissy’s hand feels like coming home.