Feelings

Chapter 6: Apologies {Reyna's POV}

Reyna was shocked. The people around who had been watching the argument were also shocked. Reyna couldn't believe that she had trusted the other people at this terrible school more than she trusted the only girl that had actually taken the time to try and be her friend. She was so angry at herself, and she felt truly awful that she had slapped her. She also felt bad about her past. She watched Thalia as she stormed away, not sure if she should follow her or not. She decided to not follow her and to let her cool down. She started to walk home, and as she walked home, she thought about how much she had messed up. At her old school, she was the one everyone was afraid of because of...well, we'll get to that later. She felt so stupid because she had come to this school for a fresh start, and she had finally made a friend for once in her life, and on their first day of being friends, she had already messed it up. She knew that she should go apologize but frankly, she didn't even know how. She had never had a friend to argue with in the first place, so apologies were definitely a foreign subject for her. She stopped and sat on the grass right where she was and started going through her backpack to read over the notes that she had taken during the day. As she took out her binder from her first period class, which was one of the classes she had with Thalia, a small piece of paper fell out of the binder and fluttered to the ground. Her brow furrowed with confusion as her fingers gingerly picked up the paper. She turned the paper over in curiosity to find a note written by Thalia herself. Her eyes scanned the small paper and they read, "Hey, again, sorry about earlier...I'm kind of mean sometimes. Anyhow, just wanted to let you that you're one of my first friends in a long time, so I'm really sorry if I mess something up or something. Just, thanks for not you know, completely hating me." The note went on to show Thalia's scratchy signature and a phone number. Bingo. She thought. She quickly got out her phone and typed Thalia's number into it. She called. No answer. She gave it another try. Again, no answer. She tried at least three more times, all of which ended with a recorded message. She sighed in frustration and resorted to text message. Her fingers flew against her screen, typing out scrambled words. She was typing too fast. Thank god for autocorrect. It ended up turning out to be, "Hey, meet me at the park? pls? " She sent the text and, not so patiently, awaited a response. Exactly one minute and twenty-seven seconds later (she had been counting), she received a text back. "Fine. Ten minutes from now. If you're not there at that time, I'm leaving." She sighed as she quickly read over the text message. "I'll be there."

Reyna quickly gathered her things and shoved them into her backpack. She made her way to the park as fast as she could, and got there with five minutes to spare. While she waited, she sat on the ground and braided her hair back into two French braids. After a minute, she looked up to see Thalia walking up to her. Her face was a lot more calm than Reyna had initially prepared for, so that was a bit of a relief. She stood up and walked to her. "Thalia...I can't tell you how sorry I am. It was totally out of line for me to go around behind your back to find out personal things about you. I should've just trusted you, and asked you in the first place. I...I have a lot of trust issues, and I was afraid that if I confronted you with my suspicions, you would react poorly. But instead, I am the one who acted poorly. I didn't know how to handle the information I received, so I just...I just got really angry. Will you please forgive me? I'm bad at friendships...I'm bad with people, really." She laughed nervously and looked up at Thalia. Thalia looked at her. Her face looked cold, as if she didn't want to accept her apology. But Reyna wasn't looking at her face. She was looking at her eyes. Her eyes seemed a lot softer than the rest of her face. They held a longing to forgive Reyna. A longing to be her friend. And moreover, a longing that Reyna couldn't figure out. But it intrigued her. She wanted to know what it was. "Please forgive me. I know you want to." She whispered. Thalia looked her straight in the eye, and her eyes hardened from their initial softness of seconds before. "You don't know what I want. You don't know me. You made that very clear earlier. I'm going to forgive you, but only because I need a friend, and right now, you're the closest thing I got. I don't want something this big to happen again, so let's get to know each other, shall we?" She peered down at her. Reyna nodded. "Thanks for forgiving me." She said softly. Thalia looked at her before turning to walk. "No problem." She mumbled. Reyna walked after her. "So, where are we going?"