Blaire

"So..."

"...you're pretty quiet, huh?"

Jose says to me. We've never talked before, but suddenly he seems very interested in me.

Joseph, his friend, who had apparently been listening, quickly runs over and grabs Jose by the arm and pulls him away. "Girls don't like to be called quiet." he says. "Why do you have to be so awkward?"

Huh. Okay. Back to class now...

The teacher goes on with her lecture. Boring as ever, as apparent from everyone else's faces. At least I'm paying attention.

"Antithesis is the opposition of words or phrases to each other, as in 'Set honour in one eye and death i'th'other'; 'honour' and 'death' stand against each other.."

Another 30 minutes passes, and then finally the bell goes off, setting us free. I walk to my locker and notice my plant is dying; I put a succulent in my locker so I have something nice to look at, a nice reminder that school wouldn't kill me as long as something could live here, but...

Whispers. Tiny whispers behind me say unrecognizable words. I turn around and Jose and Joseph freeze. Joseph looks at Jose and tries to hide soft laughs, before patting him on the back and running away. Jose makes a face at his friend, then turns back to me and freezes up again.

"Uhhhh.."

"Hello?" I say to him.

There is a really long silence between us, it's really awkward. I turn back around and grab my bag. But then;

"Just once." he blurts out.

"What?"

"You're over watering your plant. Spray it just once a day." he says.

"How do you know?" I know how to take care of plants.

"Do you know what the weather's like in a desert? Too much water is bad for it. It's drowning."

He makes a good point.

I close my locker and start to walk downstairs to the front door, Jose following close behind me. Outside, Leya's mom is parked waiting for me. I look up at Jose, say goodbye, then get in the car. Jose looks like he's still processing what happened, but after a moment he waves goodbye.

"Who was that?" Leya says with a hum, watching from the front seat.

"That was Jose, he's in my class." I reply.

"What did he want?" she asks me.

"He tried to tell me how to take care of my plant." I say with a bit of a sarcastic tone in my voice.

Leya laughs. "Want some water?" she asks.

"Sure." I reply, and with that, water begins to float towards my face as she bends it with the rhythm of her hands. She bends the water straight out of her bottle and steers it to my mouth. I open my mouth, and she sits for a moment, before pouring the water down my throat; making me choke. She gets startled when I cough, and releases the water, getting it everywhere.

"Girls!" her mom shouts, "What did I say about using your magic tricks while I'm driving?"

"..Lemon?" I say, ignoring Leya's mom for a moment.

"Yeah!" Leya says while swishing her water bottle around, "...You said 'don't do it', mom."

"That's right." her mom says. "Now there's a mess that you have to clean up."

We drive a bit longer until Leya's mom drops us off at the community park, we made plans to hang out today. We wave goodbye, then, when she's out of sight, run. Run past the park, into the woods, through the trees with the wind resistance blowing through our hair. We keep running until the sun shines brightest in our eyes and we know we're out of the woods. Breathing in the clean air, we take in our surroundings. This is our territory, this is where we can be ourselves without having a care in the world.