Paperboy | Fillie

t h i r t y

We sat in silence for a while.

I think the whole thing had given us a lot to think about. Millie had her head on my shoulder, and we had our hands joined like usual.

"Do you think it changed you a lot?"

I glanced at her.

"What do you mean?"

She took her head off my shoulder and looked at my face.

"I mean, obviously you probably aren't the same person that you were at thirteen or fourteen, and I'm not the same person I was only a year ago. Do you think a big part of that is because of everything you went through? With your parents and Iris?"

I thought about it.

"Yeah in some ways. I notice some things I do different, and the way I look at things is different."

She nodded.

"Like what?"

"Well for one, I think I cherish my friends a lot more. I only really have Sadie, you, and Noah but I feel like my friendships are one of the most important things in my life now. I didn't think so much about them then."

She nodded, waiting for me to speak some more.

"And I think from my experiences I learned what I didn't want to be in life. I know that I definitely don't want to be like my dad, and I don't want to end up like my mom either. That's why I ran off earlier. I felt like him and I hated it."

She nodded and squeezed my hand a little.

"I don't think you're like that at all."

Her words were encouraging and I gave a weak smile in response.

"How about you? Do you think you're changed a lot because of it?"

She sighed.

"I like to convince myself that I'm not but I know it's not true. I notice myself doing little things. Like I do tend to get shy when I meet new people and I freak out a little. I do get a little scared being out at night. I get nervous around boys, and not in the same way normal teenage girls would. In the way that I'm genuinely kind of scared of them. Sometimes I feel like they're watching me, like they're going to make their move or something. It's usually just me being paranoid and I'm not as bad as I used to be though."

"How bad did you used to be? If you don't mind me asking."

She shook her head and pointed to her hair.

"I went as far as to shave my head. I figured that maybe if I looked less like a girl then they wouldn't even glance at me. Pathetic, I know."

"It's not pathetic."

I argued against her words and she looked down.

"Now I'm left to deal with this. I miss my long hair."

"I think you look good with short hair."

She smiled at me and looked back down. She brought her hand up and pointed to her chipped nail polish.

"I also gained this tendency to scratch my nail polish off whenever I'm nervous. I'm nervous a lot as you can tell."

I grabbed her hand and brought it to my mouth, placing a small kiss on top of it. She blushed and so did I. It was an instinct I guess, but she seemed to like it.

"You said Iris called the cops that night...where was Sadie?"

"She was sick. Iris snuck over though. My dad never really cared for her or Sadie to be over because he swore I was trying to get one of them pregnant or something. He thought I needed friends that were boys. That's why we hung out at Iris' or Sadie's most of the time."