Shrug

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

You see that tiny dot in the world map, on the upper side of Canada in a province called the Northwest Territories? That's Yellowknife, the unknown city where I live. When people think of Yellowknife, they think of either a yellow knife, or the capital city of an unfamiliar Canadian territory. It's not really a city, really. Just a bunch of shabby buildings here and there, and we have enough of what we need. The drug store was just down the street, and popular fast food chains like Subway and KFC were to our convenience.

The only thing about the city that attracted tourists was the aurora borealis. You know, when you sit outside at like 2 am in the morning and you wait for some colourful lights to appear in the sky? That was one of the, I guess, fortunate events we had. I never stayed up to see them though, since I'm always too pooped to even stay up for New Years. Since it's such a regularity in the town, nobody really talks about it. But when tourists leave for their flight home, their overall impression of the city was always 'isolated and nothing to do'.

However, Michelle's funeral was nowhere near that.

Oops. Did I skip too far? I had to spill the beans sooner or later, anyways.

And no, Michelle didn't die because I stole her boyfriend. The old me would've never done something like that.

It was two weeks into Michelle and York's steady relationship and I had already emptied my wallet to Nancy. For the first time since York arrived, Michelle and I were hanging out with Jessica the dumb blonde and Jenna with the big boobs.

We never hung out with people like Rachel and Nancy from our lunch group, except for when eating lunch. It sounds weird, but we were all different now, except for the fact that we played in the snow together when we were young. Nancy was with her drama friends, and Rachel always stayed within her Aboriginal group. I missed hanging out with them, but Michelle claimed them 'too different from us'.

And apparently Jessica and Jenna were 'similar to us'. The double J's were kind of like Michelle, but they were the followers. They chirruped to whatever Michelle said like baby birds following their mother. What made me unique from those two was that I didn't speak up too often.

We were at one of the only two malls in Yellowknife, in one of the only young fashion stores in the city. It was the only store that pumped out loud pop music like high school parties Michelle would describe to me sometimes when she's missing 'home'. The store was overpriced, but thankfully Jessica's mom owned the store so we always got insane discounts, which were one of the perks to being friends with a dumb blonde.

"What do you think of this tank top?" Michelle waved a light pink crop top that looked like it would fit a puppy. It probably reached almost past her belly button by the looks of it.

"I think it's too small," I said.

"I think it's perfect," Jenna intercepted at the same time. Her eyes were literally sparkling as she added, "York would totally love that."

I held my tongue, trying not to point out that it was still winter with inches of snow still falling. I wasn't even sure how the teachers were going to react to her outfit. With the way Michelle was looking at the top, I knew that she was going to buy it, opinion or no opinion.

"You think?" Michelle looked at the fabric in her hands with longing, and then started picking out the same top, but in different colours. "Which colour do you think is his favourite?"