With Wings

3

Over the next few weeks, Opal and I very slowly, tentatively built a bond.

She didn't exactly have trust issues, per se; it wasn't that she didn't trust people, it was that she didn't need and she didn't want people. She didn't want them to get close to her and she didn't want to get close to them. Hence the slow, tentative bond.

But then there were the moments that she forgot; the split seconds in which she forgot that she was supposed to be drawing herself back in; and those moments, those rare, bright, harsh laughs and those revolutionary, heart-breaking, breath-snatching smiles, made everything worth it.

So I stayed.

I stayed with her.

I stayed with her even when it seemed like she didn't want me there; because I figured out after the first three or four days that if I left she'd be freezing to me next time I saw her, but every time I stayed she thawed just a little bit.

I stayed with her even when it meant that the entire lunch hour would be spend in complete, awkward, twitchy, fidgety silence; because I eventually learned that silence could be good and calm and peaceful and healing if it was spent with her, and I eventually allowed myself to be still in the silence.

But mostly I stayed with her because doing so made me feel like I was a good person - oh, look at Alex, being so nice and kind by sitting with this girl even though she clearly doesn't want him there; oh, look at nice, kind Alex, isn't he such a good person?, oh, wow, Alex, it's so nice and kind of you to sit with this lonely, sad person day after day after day -

And day after day after day, Sam would ask me, "Are you going to sit with us today?"

"No," I always said. "But I'll come with you to the diner after school."

And she would nod, just once, her face tight and serious; but then she would break out into one of her smiles and tease me about this "fledgling romance" with Opal.

It wasn't a romance at all, actually; not even a fledgling one. It was just me finally discovering that I could belong with several people, in several places. It was me finally discovering that I didn't need to belong to a whole, complete, fully-functioning family to have a home because I could have homes everywhere - vastly different types of homes, but homes nonetheless - that were whole and complete and slightly dysfunctional and made me feel good about myself and who I was: a home with Sam, the sparkly, shiny, golden girl; a home with the drama kids, loud and rowdy and wild and over-dramatic and inexplicably joyous and always spontaneously blaring music with way too many expletives and dancing in a way that was intended to be sensual and provocative but just ended up looking ridiculous and made us all roll on the floor crying with laughter; a home with the guys on the track team, overwhelmingly white but somehow seeming to see past my skin colour, involving me (or trying to involve me, without making it seem like they were trying too hard, which I liked) in their crass, vulgar, laughter-filled conversations about girls and sex and parties; a home at the diner; a home with my brother; a home with Opal. And when I looked back on that year, that, I realized, was the most important thing - being with Opal helped me, finally, realize who I was.

But it wasn't a romance. Opal and I just talked, and sometimes we just didn't. When we did talk, we often struggled to find base with each other. Her views of the world were vastly, dramatically different from mine, and I found it dangerous and fascinating; so, of course, I wanted her opinion on Everything™. The problem, essentially, was that my Everything™ was vastly, dramatically different from her Everything™. I was well-versed in virtually every movie that had ever been made and every screenplay that had ever been written; Opal knew absolutely nothing about drama, didn't even recognize the names of Sean Penn, Cary Grant, Johnny Depp, or even Leonardo DiCaprio, for Pete's sake. I was obsessed with YA fantasy; she pretty much exclusively read realistic fic, poetry, and classic lit - she hadn't even read Harry Potter (!!!) or Percy Jackson. She didn't even watch any sports.