It Hurts | ✓

Chapter 4

It felt much better to walk to school with Riley than without her.

"You okay?" She asked me quietly after we had been walking for three whole minutes in silence. We are almost never in silence.

The answer was no. No, I wasn't okay.

The world had paired me up with George Palmer, and not only that, but laughed in my face and wouldn't even let me have him. Not that I wanted him anyway. Just, someone else, I suppose. Anyone else. Maybe someone I hadn't known yet. But I never realised I wanted that fairy tale happy ending. Most people got it. I was a good person, Riley was a good person, what the hell did we do to piss Society off?

"What? Oh, yeah. I'm fine. Just, uh, tired." I lied.

"Uh huh," Riley replied dubiously.

We walked on for a couple of seconds in silence, until Riley said,
"It'll be alright. I thought you didn't care about having a soulmate. You didn't need the colour."

"That was before I'd seen it," I replied. "I hate not seeing it."

"Me too," Riley mumbled. I whipped my head around.

"What?"

"What?"

"Riley!"

"What?"

"You've seen it?"

Her eyes widened. "No, what makes you say that?"

"Uh, you just said 'me too' when I talked about the colour. That means you can relate to me. How could you relate if you hadn't seen the colour?"

"D-Did I say that? Just a force of habit as a sort of reply I guess. I haven't."

"Riley, come on. We both know you're a horrible liar."

She sighed.

"You did have a necklace!" I shouted.
"You had one, and it broke off!"

"Please, Amber, I don't wanna talk about it."

"Why not?" I asked.

I realised too late that I should have stopped. A tear rolled down her cheek and she brushed at it with her sleeve. She started frantically wiping her eyes, but as fast as she was wiping off the tears, more kept coming.

"I-I'm sorry," I whispered.

"It's okay," she sniffed. "I, um-"

"No, no, it's okay. You don't have to tell me."

"N-no, I will. I should have told you before. I just didn't want to mention it." She took a deep breath.

"You know that girl that was, uh, executed, for walking down the road holding hands with her soulmate, who was also a girl, about three years ago?"

"Uh huh..?"

"And then the soulmate just said sorry to the police and fled?"

"Yeah?"

I had remembered that story. It had really made Riley upset when she heard, probably because she herself identified as a bisexual.

"I found my other half at fourteen. And I really loved her. I know I was young, but I was sure I did. But they took her away from me. I was a coward. I said sorry and ran. She stayed put. She shouted back. She tried to fight for our cause. And they took her away. I'll never see the colour again." And she broke down sobbing.

"Let's take you home, it'll be no good you going to school like this," I told her, lifting her up off the pavement where she sat with her head in her hands.

"But I've already left you alone for a whole day!"

"I'll be fine," I assured her. "Don't worry about me."

All this time I had thought the world had been cruel to her and made her without a necklace, without an other half, but I was wrong. That meant the world had paired her with someone, even though her sexuality was socially unacceptable. The world had broken its own rules. Society hadn't realised, but I had. Riley must've. And so must've Riley's girlfriend.

Everything was so confusing.

When I had walked with her back home, I had to run so I wouldn't be late to school. As soon as I could see other people walking, (ugh, people) I slowed down. Running to school before school actually starts? So uncool.

But if you've only got a minute? Leg it. And that's what happened.

There was a shout somewhere in the large crowd ahead of me, and all at once everybody broke into a run. It was pretty comical actually, a massive herd of teenagers sprinting and piling through the school doors.

After ploughing through the hallway-that-crushes-your-shoulders-and-cracks-your-ribs, I finally made my way to my locker. No colour in that hallway. Where was George? Then I realised what I just thought and scolded myself.

Why would you want to see George, Amber? God! Get a grip. This stupid colour thing is all you can think about. Just get over it.

But then two people I really didn't want to see showed up. Imogen and Mirella.

"So you think George likes you, hmm?" Mirella said.

"'Scuse me?" I grunted. "George hates me. I hate him. Is that not obvious?"

"But you're soulmates," Imogen pointed out.

"Thankfully, I do not care for this ridiculous system of soulmates, especially when mine turns out to be the likes of George Palmer. Plus, he didn't see the colour."

I muttered the pronoun, so it could've sounded as 'we' instead of 'he'. Then they wouldn't be able to tease me saying I liked George. Which I feel the need to point out, I did not.

"So your necklaces matched, but you didn't see colour?"

"Yes, Mirella." I said, very slowly and carefully. "Besides, why do you care so much?"

"Because Mirella likes George," Imogen blurted.

"I do not! You do!" I tried to refrain from laughing at the comical scene in front of me. The girls kept squabbling, and I rolled my eyes.

"Why don't you just go ask him about it instead of me?" I suggested, bored.

"He's not here today."

"Tomorrow then," I insisted, still bored. "I don't care. Just leave me alone."

Imogen opened her mouth to reply, but I had decided that was enough stupid for one day, and I turned and walked away, not without dramatically slamming my locker door to shut them up for a split second.