I wasn’t looking forward to going back to school. It wasn’t that I hated it or anything, but the past few days had been so carefree. I was worried that as soon as I went back to school, I would get sucked back into the black hole of work Richie and I had promised to stay out of.
I was also dreading the spotlight that would be following me. My name suddenly popped back into the headlines for the one week I was in the hospital. It was one of those “former celebrity has near-death experience” sort of things. I had always wondered why the public was so fascinated in celebrity lives after they “fell from grace,” but it wasn’t too big of a deal.
Still, I knew that people’s eyes would be on me as I hobbled down the hallways. It was a good thing that Richie was always around to assure me that everything was okay.
Well, almost always.
It was my first day back and I just wanted to be done with it. I could practically feel the eyes drilling into my back and hear the whispers echoing down the hall when students didn’t think I could hear them. I was on my way to the last class of the day, the only passing period that I didn’t see Richie. For some reason, this made me feel more vulnerable than usual; I guess I just got used to him being around me all of the time.
Stupid dependency.
Well, it wasn’t all that bad. Class wasn’t very far, even for a gimp like me. Then again, I seemed to have forgotten that the world was against me, and whenever I thought something was okay, things always went terribly wrong.
I was only a few feet away from my classroom and, not surprisingly, all my books decided to come crashing to the ground. The fact that I was on crutches and couldn’t easily just pick up my books made the situation all the worse. To top it off, my least favorite person had to come traipsing in on my misery. I had totally forgotten that we had our last class together.
I didn’t even bother to look at her when telling her off. “Look, Patrice, I’m not in the mood to-“
It was then that I stopped myself, confused at what was going on. Part of me thought that I was going crazy because I could have sworn I saw Patrice Johnston help me pick up my books. Had the world gone mad?
She stood up and so did I. The polite thing for me to do would’ve been to thanks her. However, I was a bit too suspicious of her to let my guard down just yet. “What’s going on?”
Still holding my books for me, Patrice immediately put on her trademark sneer, which I was surprised wasn’t on her face earlier. “First, you were a rock star and had the gorgeous Nat Wolff drooling over you. Then you found Richie and stole his heart, too. Then you quit the band, and you’re in the headlines for, like, ever. And just as the magazines began to get tired of talking about you, you go and almost get yourself killed. Five seconds later, you have the world clamoring to see if you’re okay, and you’re not even conscious to see it. You go back to school and the spotlight’s still on you.”
“So? What’s any of that have to do with you being nice to me all of the sudden?”
I probably sounded like a bitch just then. I must have really been a messed up person, not even able to take a small act of kindness. Oh well. Patrice didn’t seem to mind.
“Well,” she grinned in a non-devilish manner. “I can’t let you have all the attention, can I?”
I looked at her carefully for a moment. In that one second of silence, I saw a dozen emotions run through her eyes - amusement, sarcasm, and strangely enough, compassion.
Her kindness was no joke.
Seeing me confusion, she laughed aloud and winked at me. “Hurry up. We’ve got to get to class!” she chirped, carrying my books into the room for me.
For some reason, I couldn’t help but smile at her as she walked off with my textbooks. Patrice had matured a lot since the last time I actually had a chance to chat/argue with her, which had been almost a year ago. It was an incredible revelation for me. Time had been passed by so quickly and I had missed so much. Perhaps Patrice and I could never be friends; we were just too different. However, the idea of not hating her was rather appealing. Getting along with her? Now that was almost as good as it could get.
Enemies to acquaintances. It was nice. Maybe old grudges just went away with time. Maybe everyone needed some time to themselves to realize their mistakes and become bigger people than they were minutes before. Maybe all we really needed was another chance to get it right.
Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t too late for me to tie up all my loose ends, either.
