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11| Bonds

Friday | October 21st, 2016 | 2:45 PM | Eliana

The last bell rang, and I hurriedly packed up my stuff. The school week had been grueling, and I was eager for the start of the weekend.

"Eager to leave, huh?"

Standing next to me was a smirking Katerina. She had made a speedy recovery from whatever sickness she had last weekend. Her hand had healed up too.

I chuckled. "Like you aren't? You finished packing up before me."

The two of us filed out of the classroom with the rest of our classmates. The only bad thing about leaving class so quickly was how crowded the halls were. I was always getting bumped around by people that were bigger and taller than me. Sometimes I even lost my footing and almost face-planted on the tile floor.

"I really hate how crowded the halls are," I complained, maneuvering through the crowds as best as I could. "I hate being short."

"It's not that bad," she argued. "You just gotta learn how to shove people out of your way."

She demonstrated by shoving some girl off to the side, making her tumble into a guy, and they both fell to the ground and caused two other students to trip over them and they fell as well.

"See?"

"Kat! You can't just do that. They could've gotten hurt."

She shrugged. "Am I supposed to care or something?"

I shook my head as we continued the journey to my locker. We arrived at my locker without any more incidents caused by Katerina. She said she didn't need to go to her locker, so we left the school as quickly as possible.

Oddly enough, we were silent as we walked home. I started to think about last Friday again. Katerina had been so angry that day when I just so happened to catch sight of her through her open window. I was being honest when I told her she scared me. Just seeing her look so animalistic...

I shook my head, banishing any further thoughts from my mind. Katerina was still Katerina. No matter how much she classified herself as a monster, I would never call her that.

I still couldn't help but wonder what could've made her so upset. She still hadn't told me, and I hadn't asked about it. She would tell me when she was ready.

I suddenly felt myself being yanked backwards, my backpack meeting Katerina's front. A truck sped past us, its horn blaring.

"You really need to start paying attention before you seriously get hurt," she said as her warm breath ghosted across my ear.

I let out a shaky breath from how close she was. "Sorry. I was lost in thought. Thanks for saving me."

"What were you thinking so hard about?"

The walk signal appeared, and she moved away as we made our way across the street. I bit my lip, wondering if I should just keep my thoughts to myself. I didn't want her to think I was thinking negative things about her, but I also couldn't lie to her.

"I was thinking about last Friday."

I looked out of the corner of my eye to gauge her reaction. Her shoulders were tense, and I immediately felt guilty for even bringing it up.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up," I said quickly.

"You don't have to apologize, Ellie. It's fine," I peeked at her again and she was looking at me. "I'll tell you what happened that day."

"You don't have to if you don't want to."

"I want to."

She smiled at me, and I couldn't help but smile back. Everything about our friendship was weird but the good kind of weird. Anyone else would say that we were moving way too fast with our friendship. I think what me and Katerina had was unique and was perfect the way it was. Sometimes you just have people in your life that you just instantly clicked with.