Breaking Down The Walls

What happened? Alex looks bemusedly after the fleeing redhead, yet he makes no motion of stopping her. True, maybe he had snapped at her, and yes, she did seem shy in advisory, but that was no reason to just run away like that. He shrugs. Females.

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Desiree tosses and turns in her bed, really beginning to feel sick. Maybe I actually did catch that stomach bug. Her mother brings in a bowl of chicken noodle soup and green tea quietly, kissing her daughter's forehead before leaving the room. The teenaged girl slowly sips her tea, savouring it, and recalls what had occured earlier. He probably thinks I'm an idiot. I couldn't care less. But she did care. She doesn't want Alex to think she's a fool. Any hope of making friends here that I had just cycled down the drain. Alex will probably mock me to his friends, and then the whole school will know. Whatever. She hears Sara call that she'll be leaving for work in five minutes, and Desiree weakly yells back an okay. Moments later, the exhausted girl falls into a deep, dreamless sleep, waking up hours later to someone pounding on her door. Mom wouldn't knock, she'd just come right in. Desiree rubs the sleep out of her eyes and yawns, lazily getting up and stumbling out of her room. She opens the thick oak door and peers at an unfamiliar girl outside of it.

"Hello?" She asks, confused. Who was this girl, and why was she here?

"Hi!" The girl, another redhead, but with much longer hair, trilled. "I'm Amy Thomas! Mrs. Kane wanted me to give you the homework you missed," she said, rifling through her backpack and producing a crumpled piece of paper. "Oops," Amy added sheepishly, handing it to Desiree.

"Uh...thanks. How do you know where I live?" She inquired, still tired and not fully awake.

"Oh, it's in the student directory. I live just two blocks away!" Amy seems proud of this fact, and Desiree just nods, unsure of how to feel about this girl. After a few minutes of awkward silence, Amy pipes up again.

"So do you have a phone?" She pulls her own out of her pocket and glances at Desiree expectantly. Desiree reaches into her pocket and pulls out her cell phone.

"Yeah."

"Can I have your number?" Amy grins. "You seem really cool, and I'd like to get to know you." Desiree internally reels inside. Could Amy be telling the truth? Does she want to be...friends? She hands the other girl her phone wordlessly, motioning for Amy to put her contact information in Desiree's phone. She does so, waving goodbye as she skips two blocks away, presumably to where her home is located. Desiree heads back inside, utterly confused, as she finds herself staring at a new number. A potential friend's number. An inner war wages in her mind, and she eventually makes up her mind.

Hi. [Sent to Amy Thomas at 4:00 PM]

Amy quickly texts back, and Desiree can't help but smile. Around 8:30, when an extremely fatigued Sara struggles to walk through the door, she's shocked to see her daughter perching on the sofa, smiling, with her phone held in her hands as she rapidly types out a paragraph to...well. Her mother doesn't know. She wasn't aware that Desiree cared about making friends here. But it seemed that she'd changed her mind, just like Sara had hoped she would.

"Hey sweetie. Are you feeling better?" Desiree whirled around, so caught up in her conversation and her joy at making a friend that she hadn't heard the door open, and, therefore, had no idea that her mother was home.

"A little, yeah." Desiree clears her throat. They hadn't had a proper conversation in some time now. Maybe now's the time to start. "How was your day?"

Sara blinks, stunned. "My day...my day was fine! Just chopped up vegetables and made apple crisp. The usual chef stuff. What about you?"

Desiree takes a moment to answer. "I met a girl named Amy. She's nice. She has red hair, too, except hers goes down to about here," she says, motioning to her ribcage. Sara marvels at the fact that she's actually involved in a conversation, much less with her mother.

"You should invite her over sometime. She sounds lovely." Sara smiles warmly at her daughter and heads to the shower, too far away to hear Desiree's hushed "yeah. Maybe I will" from the living room. She sends a quick text to Amy, not expecting a reply. She doesn't want to be too optimistic about this whole thing. Alex might have put Amy up to it, to make Desiree look foolish.

Yeah, I'd love to! What about Thursday? [Sent to Desiree Hill at 8:41 PM]

Thursday. That was two days away. Trying to hold back a tiny smile, Desiree replies with "okay" and stretches out on the sofa. Within seconds she's asleep. Today had taken a toll on her, and her mind recognizes it. But for now, she's content.