Looking At Us

60. megan

Confronting Cris was possibly the bravest thing I’d ever done. Or possibly the most nerve-wracking thing I’d ever done. I couldn’t decide which; my stomach was restless. 

     Are we meant to survive this journey?

     I don’t think so. 

     I was so twisted by my thoughts that I turned a corner and smashed right into someone. 

     ‘’Oh!’’ It was a feminine voice, high and exhilarated, like a stereotype blonde’s kind of voice. One that knows all the gossip and has just the right attitude for telling a girl she’s a slut. Something spilled out of her arms and onto the sidewalk, and we both bent down and bonked heads.

     I mumbled, ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ and looked up, and Niomi looked back at me, and something started to collapse inside of my heart. I wanted to cry. 

     ‘‘It’s okay,’’ she said, that stereotype voice. Her hair was shoulder-length and brown, not at all like her voice, and her eyes were green, green, green, even more refreshing than Erick’s. She was, in fact, springtime. 

     I handed her the backpack that had fallen from her arms and we stood. Her pack was full of music sheets, piano books, and Math homework. I’d never seen her at school before. Then I remembered that she had only moved here recently. 

     She narrowed her grassy eyes and said, ‘‘Are you Megan?’’

     I shrugged. ‘‘Maybe.’’ I felt vulnerable. 

     Her smile widened. ‘‘I’m Niomi. I’m Cris’s new girlfriend.’’

     It should’ve hurt. It should’ve crushed me. Cris’s new girlfriend. She could’ve been rubbing it in my face, saying that I was old and useless, but she wasn’t. She was saying it as a way of introducing herself. She wasn’t judging me, or discriminating me, or trying to piss me off. She was simply saying hi, full of innocence and simplicity, fresh as springtime. 

     It would’ve been better if she’d rubbed it in my face. 

     ‘‘Awesome,’’ I mumbled. It started to rain. 

     Niomi grinned, naive and untroubled, and waved goodbye as she walked to his house. And I stood there, in the rain, and I cried, and Harper came to pick me up.

     When I got home, I called Shain. ‘‘The world has ended,’’ I told her. 

     ‘’So it seems,’’ she replied.