She instantly goes quiet and makes this ‘oh’ face like she just realized she messed up.
I don’t want her to feel bad, though. “It’s okay,” I say. “They died when I was like eight. It was a long time ago.”
“Still, I’m sorry. Let’s act like I didn’t just put my foot in my mouth. By the way, I’m Simone!”
“Nice to meet you, Simone.”
“So like, scale of one to ten, how hard is this class?”
“Um, I don’t know. It’s pretty easy to me.”
She tilts her head at me. “Well, then, I guess I picked the right person to sit next to. Will you let me copy your work?”
I chuckle. “Yeah, sure.”
One of the boys I hate in this class, Marcus, walks over and stands in front of our desks. “Hey, new girl, what’s your name?”
I roll my eyes, but I know she doesn’t know how much of a jerk Marcus is, so I don’t say anything. I wouldn’t in front of him anyway. I’m not stupid enough to give him a reason to taunt me.
She turns fully in her chair to face him and smiles. “Simone,” she says, raising her brows in question to him.
“Why are you talking to the weird girl, Simone? You know, can come sit on the other side with us,” he says, nodding his head over to his little group of friends.
“Weird?” she asks, tilting her head, looking irritated now. “She’s not weird. Why would you say that?”
He looks confused because everyone knows I’m the weird girl, and no one ever questions it when people call me that. “Yeah, you made friends with the weird girl. If you want to save yourself from the embarrassment of being around her, I would do it now before it’s too late.”
I shrink down in my seat, hating the way this conversation makes me feel. The way they always talk about me like I’m not right here, like I don’t have feelings.
“Ew, I hate mean kids,” she tells him. “So, no thank you. She’s my friend now, so I guess we’ll just both be weird together.”
Friend? Did she just call me her friend? They just told her I was the weird girl. Why would she want to be friends with me?
“Whatever, when you realize how much of a freak she is, don’t come running back to us.”
Simone rolls her eyes at him. “And whenyourealize how cool she is and how much of a jerkyouare, don’t come running tous.”
He scoffs and goes to say something else, but the start of the period bell rings and our teacher tells everyone to take their seats.
When the teacher finishes talking and starts passing around worksheets for us to do silently, she leans over and whispers, “You’re not weird;they’rethe weird ones. Ihatebullies.”
I just give her a small, shy smile. “Thank you.”
* * *
At lunch, instead of walking straight to the corner of the cafeteria like I always do—to my usual spot against the wall, alone with my food—I feel a hand tug at myarm.
“Come sit with me,” Simone says. “I don’t know anyone else. And we’re friends now, so you can’t leave me alone on my first day.”
We end up sitting together near the big window where the sun hits the table just right, making the surface feel warm. She has a packed lunch with a juice box, a fancy Lunchable, and a little bag of grapes in it. I have a PB&J sandwich that I had to make myself this morning, thrown into a grocery bag by itself.
“You have any siblings?” she asks, popping a grape into her mouth.
“Yeah, I have an older sister, Camilla; she’s seventeen.”
“Whoa, cool! I’m an only child. It sucks. I always wanted a sister. I even used to beg my mom for one, but she said I was enough of a handful on my own and that she couldn’t handle another one of me.”
We both laugh.
