Separate But Not Equal

Chapter VII

"We need a lot more milk, cheese and maybe cereal." I complain, walking down the street with Nieve, strolling to the closest grocery store, with an endless shopping list.

The smell of summer and pollen rushes through my nose, the sun rubbing against my dark freckles. Dandelion twists through the wind, landing in curls of my hair.

I look around hearing loud children crying with laughter and several young couples behind them as they skip past us. Happiness radiating from them so strongly, that I feel a small smile tug at the corner of my lips.

Envy pangs against my chest, and my smile falters, when I remember that throughout my childhood, I've never had the chance of living a life anywhere near as carefree or fun as the children running around, and I will probably never have the chance of being as happy as all the couples holding hands and walking around with large smiles on their faces.

"Hey, Ivy?" Nieve stops, abruptly, turning to face me.

I get snapped out of my daydream looking over at her, surprised.

"Yeah?" I continue walking not noticing Nieve's sudden pause until I try to walk around her.

"I saw you the other day. At Whitby's."

She stands still with her arms crossed, waiting for a response.

"Well, I mean, I do work there."

"No, I mean... I saw you talking to that boy" She blurts out, catching me off guard. "From your school, Christopher, right?"

"Erm, yeah, Christopher Evans?"

"Hm," she hums, fidgeting around with her sleeve which ,I'm sure, she only does when she gets nervous

"What's wrong?"

"It's just that you two seemed close. Like really close. There's not something going on between you two is there.?"

"Oh no, no. With Christopher? No, definitely not," I laugh, awkwardly, avoiding eye contact. Silently urging her to carry on walking, trying to direct everyone's lingering eyes away from us.

Nieve doesn't seem to find the situation as amusing as I do, no not amusing at all, something similar to anger or disgust dances around in her eyes, her fists tighten slightly.

"Don't you think that you shouldn't be like around him?"

"Why?" I furrow my eyebrows.

"Come on, Ivy, you know how people like him are about people like us."

"Yeah, but he was actually being nice that time round."

"Or he was just pretending to be nice, like they all do at first."

"I didn't start the conversation, Nieve, he's the one that came up to me an-"

"Maybe he doesn't want to be around you" She retorts, hotly.

"What?" I question, taken aback by her sudden mood change. "Nieve, what are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about? Your making up excuses for him and you don't even know him," she looks me up and down dismissively. "He probably doesn't know you either."

A small pang of sadness and anger hit me in the chest, stabbing at my slight bit of stabbing at my slight bit of confidence at the blunt comment.

"But, I don't mean it in like a rude way. I'm just trying to point out the obvious."

I stand still looking at her with an incredulous look on my face.

"Okay thanks," I shrug.

"Look Ivy, I didn't mean it like that, and don't act surprised. It's been like this our whole lives. I'm just saying, for your own safety, mentally and physically, you should probably stay away from him. Besides he may have more important things to be doing with his time than speaking to people like y-us. People like that don't waste time on people."