Assigned Partners

Chapter 27

Trigger Warning- Mentions of self harm, suicidal thoughts, and death.

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Death always changes things in some way or another. Adrienne dying was no different. Three weeks after the incident,  Austin transferred out of the school. I guess him being there was hard after what had happened, and I can't blame him for that. I felt selfish to some degree; I was glad he left. I'm not sure if that makes me a shitty person for being glad that he's somewhere else now, but oh well. He made my life hell, and I can only imagine how much worse it could have gotten if he had stayed. All of his friends seemed pretty bummed out that he transferred, and everyone seemed kind of low.

Adrienne's friends weren't much different except for the fact that any time someone mentioned her they were in tears. The school had brought in grief counselors to help people cope with what happened. People lost someone they had grown close to.

Things in my life were different. I didn't have anyone harassing me anymore. As nice as that was though, I wasn't okay. I couldn't stop thinking, and that's a dangerous thing. It always has been. I still felt guilty for what happened. Two more weeks went by and things with Normani and I weren't great. We weren't broken up exactly, but it had been a few weeks since we last made time to see each other or hang out. I didn't mean to pull away from her like I did. She didn't like it, but it was what was easier for me. She didn't understand.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I replied.

"You don't seem fine," Normani told me.

I just shrugged. I really didn't want to tell my girlfriend that I wished it was me who was dead. I didn't want to tell her that I was cutting more than I had in a long time. Every day, sometimes more than once I was dragging a blade across my skin. I didn't want her to have to deal with me and all that I was feeling. I didn't want to open up. I just wanted to keep it all to myself.

"Well, I am. Just let it go, Mani, fuck. It's not anything you need to concern yourself with," I snapped.

I didn't mean for my tone to sound bitchy, but it came out that way. She looked angry at me. I didn't mean to make her upset, but I did. It wasn't the first time she had tried to pry and get me to talk. I didn't want to.

"Fine, whatever. You know, you've been like this for a little while now and it's really getting old. You're supposed to be my girlfriend, we're supposed to have communication. But it's cool. If you're not going to do that, whatever," she said.

She shook her head after that and walked away. I stayed there at my locker, watching her walk away from me. I didn't chase after her. I figured giving her space was the best thing I could do at that point.

I walked into my art class, and took my regular seat in the back of the room. I wasn't sure what we were doing today. We'd learned a lot of different things the last week or so, and I was excited. Normani walked into the classroom a few minutes after I did, and she shot me a small smile. I felt awkward, but I returned the gesture with a smile of my own.

A moment later, our teacher walked in. She scribbled something down on the board, but I couldn't for the life of me understand what it said. Her penmanship was horrible, honestly. But she soon cleared her throat loudly, gaining everyone's attention. I was paying close attention as she mentioned a new assignment, but I groaned when she told us it was going to be in partners.

I glanced around the room, trying to figure out who to ask. I could ask Normani, but I wasn't sure if she'd even want to work with me. I could ask Sasha, she might be up for it. I could also ask Jack, or Dove. They both seem pretty cool as well. The assignment itself was pretty simple. Everyone would have a partner, and we'd have to use different things like magazine clippings, soft fabric, or whatever else we could find to create some sort of abstract seeming portrait of the person we were paired with.

"I'm going to be choosing your partners by drawing your names out of this bag," Mrs. Hudson told us, holding up a paper bag.

People's names kept getting pulled out of the bag one by one, and mine seemed to be taking forever. When she pulled out the next two names, one was mine and the other was the person who'd be my partner. I was nervous. The class was pretty large, and there was still a good amount of people who still needed to be paired up. She read our names out, and I looked over at my partner and smiled softly.

Once everyone was paired up, people were welcome to use the medium sized stash of materials in the back, and all of us shuffled around so we could sit with our partners.

"Hi," I said nervously.

"What are the odd that this happens?" Normani asked me.

"Maybe it's the universe trying to tell us something."

"I don't know, maybe.." she replied.

"Look, Mani, about before.. I," I began, but she cut me off.

"I shouldn't have kept pushing you, Lauren. And no, I didn't need to you to get all pissy with me, but I should have backed off. So I'm sorry," she said.

"I didn't mean to do that, I was just frustrated. I didn't want to talk, I didn't want to put all of my problems on you and I just.. I don't know. I'm sorry though, too. I shouldn't have pushed you away, you were just concerned," I told her.

We both got up to grab the things we needed, and went back to sit down. I flipped through a magazine with one hand, and scissors in the other. Normani was flipping through a magazine too, but I think she was more interested in reading the articles in it as opposed to actually doing the project.

"Are we okay?" she asked me after a few minutes of silence.

"I don't know. I'd like us to be. I've really missed you." It was true. I missed her a lot. "It's been a long time, or at least it feels like it has been. I really don't want to dwell on it anymore, it wasn't even anything that huge. We've had worse try to break us apart and we survived, so we can now too."

She reached across the table to took my and that had been turning the pages in the magazine. I gave hers a light squeeze. Just feeling her skin against mine again made me feel really good. It had been too long since I had gotten to hold her hand.

"Normani?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really glad about this little reunion of ours, but I have things I need to get cut out of here and I can't do that well with our hands like this," I pointed out with a chuckle.

She let go of my hand and chuckled. "Don't make me look ugly, babe. I know it's meant to be abstract but I don't want you to make me look like some damn alien or something. Don't let me down," she said, winking.

"I won't. But you better make me look okay too."

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a/n: I don't have much to say here. I needed a few months away from this story. I had to get my inspiration back. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'm sorry I kept you all waiting so long. And it's with a lot of sadness that I inform you all that there is only going to be two more chapters of this story, but I promise I won't make you wait months and months to get them.

- Megan