petrichor

Something Missing

Natasha

"Okay, class, don't forget, this assignment in due in a week's time. So, get to it ASAP, I accept no late entries, understood?" the teacher reminded. "Please, if I can pull an all-nighter to do it the night before, why should I do it now?" Amani whispered quietly to Natasha who was sitting next to her. Natasha nudged her friend's elbow jokingly. "Sounds about right." she replied.

It was English, the last lesson of the day before the bell would ring and both were dying to go home. Amani looked at the watch on her wrist and started counting backwards. "And if I'm right, which I usually am, the bell will ring in five...four...three...two...one---" BRRING! the bell rang just as she had predicted.

All the students, two of them included, wasted no time closing their textbooks and putting them into their bags. As children began to stand up to leave, Miss Bennet reminded them that she dismissed the class, not the students. Reluctantly, all of them sat back down. "When all of you're done, we're gonna have a test, so prepare it!" Miss Bennet ordered. "Yes, Miss Bennet." the class said in unison.

When they were finally allowed to go, Natasha was still packing up her things while Amani was already zipping her bag. "Hurry up, you slowpoke!" she said jokingly, "Okay, okay, yeesh." Natasha replied. Lucky pen, correction tape, pencil case, textbook... she thought, listing the items she needed to put inside her bag. "Hey, lets go to the bathroom after this shall we?" Amani suggested, distracting Natasha from what she was doing. "Yeah, sure." she shrugged.

Natasha had always thought her friend was the cool type of person ever since she knew Amani existed, but somehow she never dared strike a conversation with her even though Amani wasn't one of the school bullies or the people she called "stuck ups". Ever since Amani defended Natasha about the whole thing with a kid named Zara a while back, finally, Natasha saw an opportunity to finally talk to her.

First, she asked questions about lessons, then they started to talk with each other more often. Natasha revealed she wanted to be a writer, even showing her friend snippets of her writing (the ones she considered not confidential anyway) or just reading it out to her for Amani to give feedback.

It wasn't like Natasha never had any friends, she had one, her name was Sierra, but they didn't talk as often as before, they said hi in the halls but that was it. Until Amani came along, Natasha hated to admit, but she was that one person who'd gladly let the teachers pick the group project members. Other kids had no problems with her being a third wheel; but having no one to talk to sometimes felt like torture.

"Finally, I can see my bed again." Natasha said as she dried her hands with a paper towel. "Same, but I wanna scroll through Tiktok first, I guess.". They talked about the things they wanted to do when they get home when Natasha took a deep breath and said, "Can I tell you something?" looking deep into her friend's eyes. "Yeah, sure." Amani replied.

Taking a deep breath, slowly, Natasha rolled up her sleeves far enough to reveal her scarred wrist. "I—" Natasha's voice quivered "I cut myself." it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but she felt Amani deserved to know. "I---I don't know shy I'm telling you this, but I haven't told anyone else except you and I thought you should know." she continued without stopping to take a breath.

Silence. Amani's gaze didn't waver from Natasha's eyes, but she didn't say anything. A second passed, then two, three, before---"You did what?" she said in half disbelief, her eyes showing confusion. "I, I told you." Natasha repeated. "Look, I know what I do is wrong, but I can't stop. I wish you know what my life feels like, but like..." her voice trailed off. Her stomach felt twisted as if she had just received punches in the stomach.

"Nat!" Amani exclaimed, breaking the awkward silence between them. "Just why are you doing this?!" she threw her hands up in the air. "I can't even---" she practically yelled, thankfully no one else was there. Amani bit her lip and paced around the bathroom while Natasha watched. Did I, did I just make her hate me? Oh, my god, I'm so stupid! she cursed herself.