Legend

Twenty-One

TWENTY-ONE

TOMORROW CAME, finally. I’d been waiting for it. I felt so refreshed when I woke up that morning. It was about seven fifteen. When I’d cleaned myself up for the morning, I sat down to eat a bit of food for breakfast. I could just relax for a while. Finally.

Afterwards, I put on my best jeans and my favorite black shirt, slipped into my newest, most comfortable black sneakers. I combed through my hair, deciding I wanted to let it down today; I always tied it up in a ponytail at school. I put some hair gel on to make it… stay neat the best it could. I practically never, as in: NEVER put on makeup, but today I decided to put on some lip gloss and light makeup. Not the kind that make the whole face red, like Portia’s, but the kind that just brightens up the facial features, and that you can’t tell that it was even used.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I actually, for once, felt pretty. Satisfied, I began to creep out of the house, when Zxander called, “Where are you going, Krissy?”

Dang it. I had hoped Zxander wouldn’t notice my exit. I didn’t think he’d wake up this early. “Going for a walk.”

“Alone? That’s unsafe. Go with someone else.”

“No, not alone.” I said. “With… Amandla…?”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. She’s coming over in a while.”

Oh, right. I should’ve thought about that. Oops. I turned around to face him. “She is?”

“Yeah, she…” He stopped as he studied my face. “You look different. Is it…” Great. I just remembered. Zxander was really sensitive to these things. I never put on makeup, so when I did, he noticed. “You… you put on makeup! For what?”

“Ugh! Fine.” I admitted. “Justin and I planned to meet up at the main gate and take a walk around town.”

“Oh.” Zxander said.

“Look. Just let me at least some fun okay? I’m growing up; I’m not always going to be your baby sister.” I pointed out. “What’s more, what about Amandla? She gets to see her ‘Zxan’ without me there.” I teased.

He sighed. “Okay, yes.  You’re right. My baby sister is growing up. I’ll let you go.”

Yes! “Thank you!” I quickly hugged him and left.

I checked my watch: seven forty. It was roughly fifteen minutes in a walk from home to school, so I would have five minutes extra. Good. I didn’t want to be late. I paced myself as I normally did, at normal walking speed. But then, unconsciously, I sped up, until I realized I had broken into a run. After what seemed like a short amount of time, I reached the main gate. I was too excited to notice how long exactly I took.

Justin was already waiting there. I checked my watch and realized I was ten minutes early. And Justin was even more than ten minutes early.

“Hi,” I greeted, and I watched Justin’s hair flick around as he turned to face me.  I wondered how long he’d been there. “I hope you didn’t wait too long.”

“Oh, no.” He said. “It’s okay. I didn’t.”

“Okay, then.” I replied as I saw him looking me up.

“You look… different.” He said, as I felt his gaze move from my hair slowly all the way to my sneakers.

“How different?”

“Your hair… your face…” He began.

“And what’s wrong with it?” I asked.

“Nothing.” He blurted out. “Just… you look pretty...uh… prettier.” As I felt the small heat in my cheeks that indicated a blush coming, he added, “Let’s go then.”