“I’m sorry,” I whispered to her. She didn’t even look up from her notebook, so I figured she was still ignoring me. “Sorry,” I tried again. She continued writing, I was about to try for a third time when she answered, still writing.
“Did your mom make you apologize?” she asked coldly. Yeah, she knew me that well.
“No,” I whispered back, aware Cody was trying to listen in.
“Did your dad?” she accused, still unbelieving.
“Yes, but I am,” I told her truthfully.
“You should be,” she agreed and didn’t say another word to me. We took a break from our projects today and learned about the Victorian era of literature.
“Were you talking to Michaela?” Cody asked with confusion as we walked to History.
“Yeah, I just told her not to stalk me.” I grinned, Cody laughed at that. History was my favorite subject, the class I did best in. It was boring as usual, but only because I had a teacher like Mr. Renner and he was awful. Mr. Renner the perv, was making another sexist joke about how women should stay in the kitchen. No one found it funny but Trent, who laughed and agreed. Everyone tried to ignore them. Emily, Mickey’s friend, passed me note. I looked down at it confused, the folded paper had my name written on it, we were not friends and we’d never spoken before, so why should I read it but the small neat cursive was so familiar I had to open it. Written inside, was one word. Okay.
Mickey never wrote anything longer than it needed to be but it always had to be grammatically correct. Like instead of using the number two, she would write two, and so on, there were no abbreviations with her. It was one of the many things I loved about her, but still the note shocked me. She forgave me. Why? I’d never apologized for other many things I did, but now I wondered if I did, would she forgive me? Could things be the same as they once were? No, I knew they’d never be the same but maybe, just maybe, they’d work. I quickly wrote back a message, it felt important to get it right, this was the most important thing I’d written, ever. Emily looked surprised when I tapped her on the back and handed her the folded note, she took it and put it in her pocket, looking shocked and blushing now.
“So, where were you on Saturday?” Laura asked, eating a pack of saltine crackers. That was all she ate for lunch every day. First of all, doesn’t that get boring, the same thing everyday and second of all, how did you live off that? She was as skinny as she could get; no muscle, no fat, the only thing under her thin pale skin was bone. I took a bite of my 6-inch sub, feeling sorry and then answered.
“Home.” And then took another bite. I saw Derek get in line at the cafeteria and then leave with a pizza, salad, and two chocolate milks. My eyes followed him down the cafeteria and to Mickey. He sat down beside her, I had to move my head to see them after he sat but I didn’t miss that million-dollar smile she graced him with. She used to give me that smile all the time and it made me jealous that he got the same one. But then again, he did give her chocolate milk. How did he know her love of chocolate milk? It was the only type of milk she drank and a secret that I still kept: is that sometimes she even put it in her cereal. Well when she had cereal, which wasn’t very often. I couldn’t get over that smile all throughout Math and Science, and then when we had gym and I had to watch Derek and her flirting as my team played against them. Derek stole the ball she was dribbling and held it up high, higher than she could reach. She tried to jump up for it but still couldn’t reach. Sam, Lloyd, and Derek laughed as she struggled.
“Derek, give me the ball,” she ordered, trying to grab it.
“This is too much fun.” He laughed. Finally, she gave up looking annoyed and poked him hard right in the belly button. That made me laugh.
“Ow,” he said, protecting his stomach with the ball. She took that as a chance to snatch it from him. “No fair,” he complained, rubbing his stomach, which made me laugh again. Mickey stuck her tongue out at him and turned away.
“Oh, and I’m not making you any more cookies.” She smiled. His eyes widened along with mine. She makes him cookies! Mickey made the best cookies and she was making them for him! I didn’t care how big he was, I wanted to pick a fight.
“Come on Mike, please. I was just messing around,” he begged. She looked at him and shook her head. Haha! I remembered a similar scene, but it involved a lollipop. We were both eating lollipops and I decide to steal hers; she didn’t poke me but she stole mine and started eating it instead, it had never annoyed her and she never threatened to deprive me of her cookies. So why did this annoy her? “You make the best cookies! It’s not fair at all!” he argued. That made her smile. “Please, I’ll do anything,” he continued to beg.
“Okay fine,” she said giving in. No, you’re supposed to be strong and never bake for him, much less talk to him, the arrogant jerk. Dammit! Mrs. Larson blew her whistle, capturing everyone’s attention.
“Play ball!” she shouted. Our teams got into place and then we began to play. Derek had the ball and scored right away, dodging everyone and scoring from twenty feet away. Everyone had to score before someone could try to shoot
