pen pal - trixya

chapter 12

(I did make myself cry while writing this chapter, but I'm no measure for anything so I'm just going to go with mildly sad once again! And the sad part is not very long!!)

September 9th, 2015. Friday, 09:30 a.m.

As out of her nature as it may seem, Trixie is not interested in Algebra today.

Her brain keeps running laps around Jodie's emails with all of those beautiful words she writes for her, but mostly she thinks about what she said last about wishing she could give Brooke a gift.

The idea is haunting. You love someone to the moon and back, but you'll never get to give them a birthday gift again. A shiver runs down her spine and though God means so little to her, she almost gives in to her urge of making the sign of the cross, but only shakes her head instead. The whole class is silent. They're supposed to be doing exercises, but Trixie sits with an empty look on her face and her pencil resting in her mouth.

Jodie is right, to some extent. This isn't her problem, she already has enough weight on her shoulders and she doesn't need to involve herself emotionally in the loss of this family any further, but it feels so wrong not to. What can you gift a dead person other than rocks and flowers? Trixie sighs and lowers her head. No rocks, no flowers. Most importantly, what would Brooke want to be given and how could she ever make it meaningful?

It's stupid , she thinks. I never met this girl and she's dead. Why am I making such an effort to make her birthday special? Trixie rolls her eyes at herself. She knows why, but she likes to play dumb. She wonders if other people would go as far as trying to come up with a gift for the dead sister of the girl they're trying to impress or if this is a lesbian thing. Maybe not even that, maybe it's just a Trixie thing. She shouldn't do it, it might be too much.

But then again... It would be a nice thing to do, wouldn't it? Whether Jodie is impressed by that or not it doesn't even matter as much, as long as Trixie helps her have a good time on Brooke's birthday... Right? She should do it, just for the sake of it, for the sake of what it means. She should do it because she wants Jodie to be happy more than anything, even more than she wants to be liked back.

May Dela never hear of this.

The bell rings, bringing Trixie out of her trance with a scare. Dela is already waiting for her at the door when she finishes packing her things into her backpack and smiles a hello, but then immediately knots her eyebrows together.

"What's wrong?"

Trixie wishes that she wasn't as readable as a children's book, but Dela would probably read her just as well if she were an excerpt from Shakespeare written in Chinese. "Nothing," she shrugs, walking next to her friend towards their lockers.

Dela shakes her head. "We're not going there again, but that was a nice try."

Trixie can't fight back her smile. "Fine, sorry. It's, um... It's Jodie."

Her friend stops in her tracks. "Did she do anything to you?"

"No, no," Trixie continues walking and Dela catches up. "We're fine, but I... It's her sister's birthday soon."

"And?"

"And," Trixie sighs, "her sister passed away this summer."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Me too. But the thing is Jodie said she wishes she could give something to her and I can't get that out of my head. Like, I wanna do something about it."