Remember

Alexia

I sigh as I swing my mom's old book bag onto my shoulder and open the door of my room. I race down the stairs, hopping steps two at a time hurrying faster each time knowing Clementine and Tohru will scold me for being late, each in their own way, but not that much-they're too nice for their own good. People often take advantage of them, which upsets me, they're my friends and I don't want them to be everyone's slaves. Though I must admit, I have usenet heir pity a few times to win an argument.

As I'm leaping the last four steps, my breath hitches, and I fall onto the stairs in a clumsy mess. My mind's in chaos, my thoughts swirling everywhere and I realize in a panic that my inhaler is in my room. I call out weakly but a part knows no of me knows no one will hear me because they are all at school like the perfect people they are.

While I love to run and leap and jump and twirl, I have asthma and that degrades on my running and jumping and leaping and stuff. I am almost always late to class but the teachers "understand" why I'm late. I hate that so much, I just want to be normal, be treated like everyone else. Everyone says it helps me, but I don't want help. They're all perfect so they don't understand that not everyone has money and an abled mom. Yep, my mom has polio, my dad and my brother are dead and I have asthma. They say I'm sitting in the catbird seat, but really the teachers are just pitying me. I hate that they totally think they know what it feels like to be me. Well, Clementine and Tohru do at least, but that's because they're or-

I am shocked out of my current thoughts as I feel someone shaking me and yelling "Get someone! What if sh..." then I drift off, not really caring what's happening.

Clementine

I sigh, quietly, as Tohru and I am waiting for Alexia outside our English class. She's not patient at all but will make people wait hours for her, not that I mind.

I look down as Joanie is striating down the blue tiled floor with her "friends". Gosh, her "friends" are so fake it's scary but Joanie is the scariest out of all of them. I grimace as she stops and slowly turns her head while glaring at me. She stalks over and asks in her annoying squeaky voice of hers, "You're that annoying girl's friend-Alexia, right?" she pauses then answers her own question, "Oh wait that girl has no friends, she is such a loner and she has no money why does she even go to this school?" She laughs with her clones, as if the joke's actually funny.

I feel Tohru tense up next to me and I feel my anger boiling up, but I know I would never do anything, that I could never do anything. She's too popular; I wouldn't get even close to her before her posse stopped me. So instead I spit out a reply, "Says you. We are her friends for your information; she has friends who care about her, unlike yours." You're the one with no friends, I silently add in my head after.

Right when I've evaluated the situation, I feel a body whiz passed me, probably a jock late for class. But when I hear a body slam into a wall, my eyes see that Joanie has been shoved out of the way and has her back against the brick wall. When I gaze around, I see that the culprit is Galen, the most normal person in the school, not too popular and not too nerdy. Then he walks away, as if he's totally oblivious to the commotion he just caused about a girl, to another girl, he's even whistling. What the heck???

I look up at the clock, because people are going to their classes now and I realize I'm already five minutes late and Alexia still isn't here. I don't get why; she always wants to be normal. The only reason why she wouldn't be here is if she overslept or, or, or...ASTHMA! I race out of the English building rushing to her dorm and hear Tohru following closely behind along with someone else. Hopefully, it's anything but her asthma because if she had an asthma attack without her inhaler, that would be terrible. As I fling the door open, I see Alexia in a mess on the last few stairs. Oh god, I think, we play the game of who can jump the last number of steps at once. As I look at her face, I can tell she's barely breathing.