And yet I fall

1: Naomi

She is small, with straight, black hair in a ponytail and hazel eyes. The teacher doesn't introduce her to the class, just nods in direction of me.

"Hi," she says. Her fingers tighten around the straps on her backpack. I look up at her through my bangs.

"Hi," I manage to mumble.

She sits down, trying to not use more space than absolutely necessary. I try again. Her nervousness is too familiar to me.

"Cass," I say, and hold my hand out. Awkward as always.

She smiles, while still biting her lower lip. She's got a dimple in her left cheek.

"Naomi," she answers, taking my hand and shaking it once. Her voice is soft, like clouds and caramel and the soft kind of rain. I smile back, even though my nose twitches and I look stupid.

She doesn't say anything else that entire class. I don't either.

—————

I stand up, as the last one. I don't look up on my way to the door, so I don't see Naomi before I bump into her.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" I blurt out. She shakes her head.

"It's okay," she assures me.

I wait for her to say something more, but when she doesn't, I walk past her out in the hallway. She follows, and somehow, we end up walking beside each other.

"Uhm," she mumbles. She's biting her lip again. I don't say anything.

"What's your next class?"

So she actually is asking me. I didn't think I even looked approachable.

"French," I say.

"Oh. I have Maths,"

Her accent stands out in the crowded hallway. I am almost about to say 'and what am I supposed to do with that?' but I don't. I want to be friends with this girl. I don't know why, but I really do.

So I offer to show her the way to her class. As if I didn't have my own I have to go to. As if there weren't twenty other people she rather could have asked. And she smiles again.

———

Somehow, we end up meeting each other before entering the canteen. And somehow she ends up sitting down beside me without asking. Elly with the high heels glares at me, as if Naomi should be her property.

But Naomi isn't one of the popular, I don't think. She's the other kind of new kid. The kind that'll never really fit in. Just like me.

Sarah sits down beside me, sending Naomi a strange look. I don't introduce them. But I haven't put on my headphones to block them out, either.

"Naomi," she says, twisting her hands in her lap. Sarah rises an eyebrow at me.

"Currently Sarah," he says. "But I'm a boy,"

Naomi smiles, but not pitying or 'understanding' - more a smile that says that she honestly don't really care, but she's glad to know so she won't misgender him. And I don't think that I've ever seen Sarah so relieved.

He leans over to me and stage whispers:

"Can we keep her?" Which makes her giggle.

Suddenly, Ben is there. He has very heavy eye-makeup and lip ring, and I don't know what Naomi is thinking. I chew on my headphone cord.

"Cass," he says.

I look up at him. I know exactly what he's going to say, but I don't want him to say it.

"I know that it was you," he says.

Sarah looks alarmed. Naomi looks straight at me, as if trying to read my mind.

"It wasn't," I mumble. "I wouldn't have."

Ben's nose is turning white in anger.

"I worked on that for at least two years! And now it's broken again!"

I look down at my food. I wish we got served that horrible kind of food most schools have, so I would have an excuse to not eat. I pick up the banana, then put it down again. Naomi is watching me, Ben is staring.

"I didn't even touch them, Ben. I swear I didn't." My voice is somehow shrill, my throat is dry.

Sarah stands up with the excuse that he's going to the bin.

"Then who was it?" Ben says.

He's about to attack me when Naomi coughs.

"What is this even about?"

Ben looks at her. His eyes are normal nonchalant now.

"I bought a stereo, and I've been fixing it and upgrading it for a long time now, and then I have a few people over, and it's completely in pieces."

Naomi frowns, then nods, slowly, as if she's not really sure.

"But why would Cass have done it? Weren't there more people?"

I still say nothing. I just let a girl I just met, defend me to another as she knew me. But she doesn't. She doesn't know how I am.

"They would never," Ben snorts.

"I don't think Cass would either," Naomi replies quickly. She is standing up now. "I also don't think you should accuse someone of doing something in that way - especially if you're not completely sure."

Ben rolls his eyes. "Who even are you?"

Naomi seems to get enough of his rudeness.

"Naomi," she says. "Pleasure." Her irony is thick in the air. What a wonderful girl.

He huffs. "Ben. You're that new student, aren't you? Hah. You should hang with the freaks, you know. You'll never get out."

She rolls her eyes now. "I don't really care. Cass is the only nice person at this entire school. So sorry, but this is not about me, really - it's about wether she smashed your stereo or not. And I don't think she did.  So bye."

He raises his eyebrows in my direction. He will come back.

Naomi sits down again. We sit in silence for a few minutes. Sarah comes back, just playing with his phone.

"Thanks," Naomi mumbles when I don't say anything. "Oh, it was nothing, anytime!"

I bite the inside of my cheek. "Thank you, Naomi. You really didn't have to, though."

She waves it away.

And suddenly I have a new best friend. Because Naomi is extremely likeable, though I am not, so I don't fully understand why.

But she called me the only nice person, and that is the biggest compliment I've ever gotten.