Under Her Skin

Chapter 10

Police Officer: There was a fight in the pep rally. Was Sunny involved?

Me: Yes.

Sunny was getting bumped a lot in the halls. Almost every week, her books wound up on the floor, needing to be lifted off the dry cement. She was getting good at ignoring it, though. One time, the loose-leaf from her two-inch binder flew everywhere. Oh no. She started to panic. Sunny did not want the seniors to deprecate her even more. Quickly, quickly pick them up and pretend as nothing happened. Sunny waved her hands on the sooty gray floors, trying to pick the lined paper up, but failing. Then, a copious voice approached. Sunny's stomach immediately tightened.

"Need help?" She had an accent, and skin the color of chocolate dip. I could tell right away that she was strong. A leader not by position or title, but by the strength of mind and action. She came from the fabric of dark matter, risen from the furnace of a phoenix. She was a Black queen—the most powerful piece in the game. She bent down with her frizzy afro and the two strangers finished the job together before the next class.

"Thank you. I'm—"

"Sunny, I saw in the... um, the videos." The comment made her uncomfortable; Sunny looked to the ground, feeling less than worthy. There was no way she was going to continue to talk to a girl like her. A freak. But the chocolate drop continued to speak, almost as if Sunny was normal.

"I'm Devon," she said, grinned and showing off her white teeth. Sunny widened her grin.

"Thank you, again..." A subtle suggestion of discomfiture roamed in between their breaths, mainly because they were both shy souls. Sunny felt like she should say something.

"Would you want to have lunch with me tomorrow or something?" she said, figuring that it was better than sitting alone.

"Oh... yeah. Sure." Devon looked pleased to get an invitation. The two smiled and headed off to each of their classes with a smidgen of sweetness intertwined around their tongues. Like the vines of a sprouting friendship.

***

They had lunch together almost every day. For Sunny, being friends with Devon was facile and trouble-free. Once in a while, she was expected to put the phone to her ear and "uh-huh" to Devon's long explanations of Model UN. The girl went on and on, while Sunny just stared at the newly uploaded clips. The account was growing to 4000 followers, and her videos were being retweeted, shared, and spread everywhere.

"Hello? Sunny, are you listening?" Said Devon, through the befouled speaker from her phone.

"Yeah, yeah... yes."

"You're really bad at pretending, you know."

"What?" Sunny said, scrolling through the videos of her humiliation, tightening her grip every few seconds.

"Don't look at those videos."

"I'm not."

"There's no point in staring at them if you aren't going to do anything."

"I can't do anything."

"Lie."

"What are you talking about."

"There's always something you can do." Sunny stopped scrolling.

"Like?"

"You were friends with her before, right?"