Fell with you

Chapter One

"What?" The girl asked, gripping the half eaten sandwich like a lifeline.

"I like you," Armani replied, hiding behind the curtain of her hair. Her face was as red as the apple sitting on the table.

"...I'm a girl," she said.

"I know, I'm sorry." She didn't know why she apologized. It felt right.

"You're gay?" Came the question, laced with as much venom as a fourteen year old could carry.

"Lesbian."

"A different name doesn't make it better, fucking homo."

She looked up. The eyes that glared down at her weren't the bright honey drops that glinted every morning when she saw her. It was darkened. Cruel. Judging. This wasn't the same girl she had an intense crush on for a year. She was different. Cold.

"Is that why you always sat behind me in class? So you could stare at my ass, you creep?"

No. She did that because she was scared she'd see her awkward fumbling when she did literally anything.

Instead of those words, what came out was a dull "I'm sorry."

"Fucking great," she yelled, intentionally grabbing the attention of everyone in the lunch hall. "First, some weird creep puts a dumb poem under my desk and now a fucking homo is asking me out?"

All the ears were up, listening to her rant.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, wishing the ground to swallow her. For the seventh time that morning.

The girl grabbed her bag and the leftover sandwich. "I don't ever wanna see you again, fucking gay bitch."

Armani looked up. It wasn't middle school anymore. This was college. She was in a lecture hall with her book wide open and a lecturer stood at the podium talking about something she couldn't hear over her airpods. The students sitting around her were barely paying attention too. Understandable. This was literature. No one liked listening to people ramble out old English.

"Miss Ani?" A faint voice called. She pulled out her airpods to find the lecturer looking at her. The students had all turned their attention to the thick black woman with a giant afro and a very gay piercing. "Can you read the next paragraph for the class?"

Armani stood, fumbling with the book on the table. She finally managed to find the lines she was supposed to read. Looking into the now blurry letters that filled the cream coloured pages, she could hear them muttering.

Loner. Black. Lesbian.

She wasn't sure if it was them or just her self hatred but it was loud and she couldn't breathe.

"I..." She stopped, breathed in and placed a hand behind her back. "He..." Again, she couldn't move. The entire class seemed to peer into her very soul, dissecting all that she was and tried to be. It was suffocating.

"Miss Ani?" The middle aged woman called, a frown of concern etched on her face. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine!" She screeched, far louder than she had intended. Now, the muttering was real. She could hear them clearly. They weren't holding back.

Armani bit her lip, tasting the lip gloss that filled it. Her nails dug into her palms and her legs were sweaty beneath her plaid skirt. She could feel the chills on her back. She was not fine.

"Can you follow my finger?" A voice whispered beside her.

For the first time since she entered the hall, she looked sideways.

"Read where I point," the person said, placing their ringed finger right on the word.

Armani turned back to the book, feeling the cold fingers of fear caress her neck. She read. "'He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking'." It was short. Yet longing filled the words by each letter.

"Thank you, Miss Ani," the lecturer called before shifting back to the class. "Now, if you look at page three..."

Armani sat back down, taking big, deep breaths. It was over. She was fine. Her fingers curled around her wrists, circling the bracelet hanging on it.

"You okay?" The voice called again. Armani faced the person, determined to thank them for their help. Instead, she froze with her words.

The lines of the book she read played out in her head, mirroring exactly what she saw. What she felt.

She was beautiful. Black hair that framed her face with a perfect wolf cut. Ears lined with three earrings each. Brown eyes that lifted at the side, similar to the cats that sat outside her window on rainy days. Her nose was prominent, raised against perfect porcelain skin. Her lips tilted at the side as if hiding a secret joke that only she could hear. Only she could laugh at. She wore a turtle neck but Armani saw it. A tattoo.

A semi colon.

"Am I that beautiful?" She joked, her lips lifting in a smirk that sent shivers down her spine.

She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. She gaped, her lips bobbing up and down in silence.

She laughed again. Butterflies fluttered.
"Well, I'll see you later, sugar," she said, rising to her feet.

Armani looked around to see that the hall was half empty. The class had ended and she hadn't noticed. The stunner left, her hips swaying slightly from her baggy jeans. Armani watched her, still enamored until she was out of the hall.

The air beside her seemed to have gotten cold from where she had left and she found herself wishing she had stayed a bit longer, even just for an extra minute. She had fallen. Badly.