Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I hadn't realized that Thea Foster was there at the party that night, but that almost seemed to be a reoccurring thing with her. Half of the time, I didn't realize she sat behind me in AP English until I heard her chair adjusting or the teacher called on the raised hand casting a shadow over my desk. If she attended Chanler freshman year, then I didn't realize she was there then either. I didn't know that much about her other than her name was Thea Foster, she took AP English, and during an icebreaker game on the first day, she said that she wanted to hear others' perspectives on the classics and something about chess.
I might have glimpsed her around the halls at school, sidestepped around her to get to the paper towels in the restroom, offered a polite smile if she glanced in my direction, but there was nothing about her that really stood out. She was white, around my height, with platinum blond hair halfway down her shoulder blades. Her complexion was clear like an opal, and just as pale, but her eyebrows and lashes were tinted dark. She had round eyes, wide with dark blue irises that were almost unnervingly steady whenever she spoke, like her attention was entirely captivated by whoever talked to her. She seemed nice enough, usually carrying a sweaty ice coffee in one hand, a little chatty but not overwhelmingly talkative. Just...around, normal I guess.
I could see through the shifting willow tendrils that she was wearing a black swing dress with an oversized light blue button-down draped over top, billowing in the strengthening breeze at her sides. Her curled hair was tucked behind her ears.
And she was chasing after Bridgette.
It wasn't like Bridgette and I were as close as we used to be—the kind of close I had thought we could be again—but I had never heard her mention Thea Foster before, not freshman year or this past week. I vaguely remembered Thea asking Bridgette a question about her album in AP English—and that weird, almost glare Bridgette shot her a few days later for some reason—but it didn't seem like they were friends. In fact...it didn't really look like Bridgette was friends with anyone. She was always in someone's orbit, listening and nodding along to conversations that felt more one-sided in hindsight, each one seemingly about her music and rising stardom, but I never saw her with anyone for more than a few minutes, like her interactions were fleeting stops and there were no destinations.
But tonight, her footsteps were purposeful as she stormed away from Thea Foster, hands clenched into tight fists at her sides. Nightfall shrouded her expression, but strands of her hair were stuck to her cheeks and tangled in her choker necklace. Her crochet crop top swung around her midriff, cut-off shorts bunching around her legs against her stride.
I took in a shuddering breath as the sound of her footfalls neared the willow tree, the weeping tendrils brushing over my forearms wrapped around myself and covering me from her trampling the overgrown grass. I felt as rooted to the ground as the tree with moss stretched across its creased bark, almost desperate to step forward and through the willow leaves to her, to that moment that would've been so easy for me to imagine. I'd tell Thea Foster to leave Bridgette alone, and Bridgette would thank me before realizing that I was upset too, our red swollen eyes finding an understanding that would've finally bridged this gap between us. But I felt stung and wounded, retreating deeper into the tree's shadow, because none of the moments I imagined happened, and I couldn't bring myself to smile with my shattered pieces one more time. At least, not tonight.
