Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
CHERRY GARCIA!
wasn't that bad.
At least, not in comparison to her friends. Her friends were so much worse, spreading hatred everywhere they went.
Being best-friends with Vance Hopper was the furthest thing from a popularity boost. The only way she'd even managed to acquire his friendship was because she'd beat his pinball score.
Cherry walked around with so much confidence that it was difficult to ever imagine her being insecure.
She didn't care about anything. Nothing was ever of significance to her. She was moving through life to reach an end goal she didn't have. She didn't feel like she existed properly.
She had everything everybody else wanted yet she wasn't satisfied. There was an odd distance in her that nobody ever noticed. She wanted more, she craved to live somebody else's life.
Her friends were mean, her grades were all that mattered to her, and she kinda hated everybody else. She brushed off everything she felt, and couldn't figure out how to not do that.
Finney Blake struggled with the opposite of her issue. He felt too much and had no idea why.
He wished there was a way he could look directly at his heart, to study the veins that pumped blood and kept him alive.
It wasn't fair, he thought. How easily life came to others, while he struggled with his own basic functions at age fifteen.
He wanted to feel something. To be something, more than a wisp of air or a passing presence.
It seemed like he was spending his life watching other people live theirs. To him, people like Cherry Garcia were lucky. They had everything he could possibly want.
How could someone so unkind deserve that amount of luck?
Her existence was effortless. From the way she looked at any given second, to the way she was perceived, she had her entire life planned down to the second, and Finney could only feel envious.
He didn't know her, but he knew enough.
Cherry Garcia needed a distraction. She needed something to pull her out of the slow motion of every day.
Finney Blake knew he didn't have an exact reason to not like Cherry Garcia. She'd never done anything to him.
Actually, he didn't think they'd ever had any real conversation.
Nothing as little as a hi in the hallway. He doubted that she even knew that he existed.
His doubts were confirmed when she was pulled into the office by the principal. One empty chair sat between two boys, and she only recognized one of them.
"Cherry, take a seat." The principal gestured, and she did so. "Mr. Hopper here says that you were there when he punched Finney Blake."
The red haired girl scrunched her nose in confusion. "Who's Finney Blake?" She turned to her side, eyeing the boy with a bloody nose.
Finney wanted to shrink into his seat and disappear. Vance laughed at his friends reaction, and didn't bother to cover it up.
Finney had sat behind Cherry in english class for the entirety of the year, and she still had no idea who he was.
"Were you or were you not present at the fight?" The principal pressed.
"Sure I was." Cherry lied smoothly, looking him dead in the eye. "Vance punched him."
Vance sat up in his chair when she said that. He'd only called her in because she was supposed to cover for him. She knew he was on his third strike!
"That's another in school suspension for you, Mr. Hopper. Thank you, Cherry." The principal said, gesturing towards the door.
"Dick." Vance commented as his friend walked towards the door.
"Asshole." She replied.
She didn't bother casting Finney another glance, but he was all that was in her mind.
Maybe it was the way he'd looked away from her in a second. Maybe it was the fact he was showing no interest in her.
Whatever it was, it didn't matter. She had to have him.
