Kissing Lily

Have You Seen The New Girl

                “Did you see the new girl?” my best friend Amy asked me as she picked at her greasy cardboard triangle the school called pizza.

                “How could we miss her?” Joelle made a disgusted face, “Who wears all black? And who dresses like that?”

                Amy, Joelle, and I sat around the same table we had sat at every lunch period for the past four years. In a tiny school where everyone knows everybody, traditions get made and carried out repeatedly. Our tradition was to sit at the very back table in the far corner, as far away from the cheerleaders and the basketball players as we could get.

                In third grade my best friend Amber moved away. Finding myself suddenly all alone, a square peg in a round pegged school, I found myself drawn to Amy and Joelle. They weren’t popular either, but the pair friendly, and I could relate to them.

                Amy was short and slim, with blue eyes and short blond hair. She was cursed with genetically bad skin and slightly crooked teeth. Joelle was her opposite, gigantically tall, very full figured, with long black hair that reached her butt and dark haunting eyes.

I was somewhere in the middle, average height, average build, with dark shoulder length brown hair and hazel eyes. My mom insisted that if I wore a little makeup I’d be gorgeous, but I was happy just blending in.

                “Rumor has it that she’s a witch,” Amy leaned in and looked at us mischievously, “Chantelle heard the secretary say that the new girl was expelled from her last school for using the science lab as her own little witch kitchen.”

                Joelle’s eyes widened as Amy spoke, “I’d believe it. I couldn’t tell if she was street walker in that getup or if she’s a goth. I don’t know where’s she from, but she needs to be told that she can’t dress like that here.”

                “Oh come on,” I couldn’t keep quiet any longer, “I didn’t think she looked that bad, and since when is anything that comes out of Chantelle’s mouth the truth.”

                Amy looked disappointed that I wasn’t going to jump on the “I hate the new girl” bandwagon.

                “Well I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” Amy frowned and shoved a bite of cardboard pizza in her mouth.

                The cafeteria went quiet. I looked up, startled at the sudden silence, and saw her.

                The new girl was walking through the front of the cafeteria. She had her back black still slung over one shoulder, but she carried a paper sack lunch in her hand. Her red curls bounced as she walked, as did her curvy chest.

                Despite having the attention of everyone in the room, she seemed oblivious of the attention. She sat down at an empty table, and dug a novel out of her bag. I watched as she opened her sack and withdrew a red apple.

                Book in one hand, apple in the other, she took a big bite, focusing her attention on the book’s page. I found myself mesmerized watching her full red lips as she chewed. For a minute I wondered if this was how Adam felt, watching Eve eat an apple, unable to tear my eyes away.

                Around me, conversations resumed. I gave myself a mental shake, and did my best to choke down my own cardboard pizza. I noticed that people were still staring at her, and every so often I allowed myself to stare too.

                Thankfully, Amy kept her mouth shut, but I could feel her energy boiling beside me. Amy loved to gossip, and usually I did too, but for some reason I didn’t want to say or hear anything mean about the new girl. Somehow, I knew that when we finally spoke, we would get along, and like a magnet, I found myself pulled to her from across the cafeteria.