Heal All Her Wounds

Ithil sits by herself by the door of her graphics design class, sewing a yellow eye on a Heartless from Kingdom Hearts.

For once no one disturbed her, but they began to wonder if she’s one of those kids that would shoot up the school once she was pushed over the edge, or if she’d use that needle in her hand to stab the first person that made fun of her in the eye. Ithil just thought that people have grown to ignore her and move on with their lives after yesterday’s events; that they had listened to the usual goofy kid that became abruptly serious and have left her alone.

Feeling a light tap on her foot, she jumps a little and sticks herself with the needle before quickly pulling it out and looking up to see Matt. She smiles, happy to see him.

“Oh, shit. I’m sōrry, I didn’t mean to make you stab yourself,” he quickly apologizes while sitting down next to her.

“It’s okay, I do it all the time—when I sew.” Ithil replies while cutting the string with her safety scissors and putting the needle in the spool. He just nods and looks her plush Heartless.

“You play Kingdom Hearts?” Matt asks.

“I’ve beaten I and II two times.” Ithil states matter-of-factly while placing the spool in a red felt pouch and trading the Heartless for a medium sized Christmas tin and holding it out to him, “Here you go.”

“It’s not Christmas, yet.” Matt states taking the tin and opening it to see two baker’s dozen of chocolate chip cookies.

She shrugs and says, “I know, but I did tell you that I would make it up to you for standing up for me.” Ithil is one of those people who will give thanks through baking, and will give her friends presents for their birthday, Christmas, Easter and Valentine’s Day.

“Yeah, you did.” He says while grabbing a cookie and putting the top back on.

“I didn’t know how you like your cookies, so sorry if it’s too soft.” Ithil looks at her chipping black nail polish on her long nails, hoping that he likes them; but, hears a funny, yet exaggerated, noise of delight coming from the boy next to her.

“These are really good. Thank you.” He says with a smile before finishing the half eaten cookie.

She smiles back and the bell rings. Ithil sighs and gets ready to stand up when there’s a hand in front of her face. As quickly as he ate the cookie, he was already in front of her with his hand out to help her up.

“Thanks.” She takes his hand and he pulls her up before they walk into the classroom; their teacher eating breakfast at his desk as they walk in and greeting them, startling Ithil.

“You jump a lot.” Matt says laughing.

“I get startled easily.” Ithil looks down at her feet while she walks to her computer across the room from Matt’s designated spot due to their last names. She doesn’t notice that Matt was following her to her computer.

“You make an easy target.” He says jokingly, but she doesn’t find it at all humorous and looks at her keyboard.

Ithil remembered a time when nothing scared her; when she wasn’t startled when someone randomly greeted her or when a friend tried to get her attention. Yesterday was the only thing that reassured her that she was gaining progress, but this morning she began to doubt it.

“I was kidding. I’m honestly more surprised that you’re more startled without your headphones on.” He felt bad for making her lose her smile and she could tell when he stated that second fact.

“I guess when I’m not distracted, I get more vulnerable.” Ithil knew that she was beginning to sound like a pessimist, which was not something she wanted to do in front of Matt, or at least not yet.

Matt didn’t know what to say, and began to wonder if she was just a downer. He didn’t really like being around people who were always down on themselves, but he didn’t really know her, so he couldn’t judge. He was sure there was a reason for her being down.

Kids began to pile into the class room, but there was still silence between Matt and Ithil. She wanted to tell him the reason why she switches moods and why she gets startled easy, but what worries her the most is that he’ll just end the friendship and walk away just like the others did when she told them.

Ithil looked up at him, wondering if he was there and much to her surprise he was still there, looking at her thoughtfully.

His grey-blue eyes looked focused, and for once Ithil didn’t mind the stare. She knew he wanted to know more about her and to figure out why she acts the way she does; hell, that’s what all the therapists did when they first saw her.

“I’m sorry for being a pessimist all of the sudden.” Ithil apologizes, pulling him away from his thoughts.

“Oh, it’s cool. I understand, I mean who doesn’t act down every now and then?” He smiles at her reassuringly and he smiles back.

The bell rings and he hurries off to his computer before their teacher begins to call out roll.

Ithil sighs and begins to be doubtful about wanting to be his friend. “He doesn’t need someone like me in his life, and I’m already feeling like I can trust him. I’m not doing that again.” Ithil thinks to herself during the beginning of the role, thankful that she’s last on the list.

“Matt Gibson!” She hears their teacher say for the third time before Matt stops spinning in his chair and yells “Here!”

She giggles, amused by his lack of attention. After a month in the class, the teacher realized it was pointless to stop Matt from spinning around in the chair and as long as he did his work by the end of the class, the teacher didn’t even care.

“Ithil Winters.” The teacher said before Ithil replied with a raised hand. She believed that the teacher thought that she was mute because she never talked, but she wasn’t so sure that he believed it now that he has heard her speak to Matt.

“Okay, good. Start on your next lesson.” The teacher said before he sat down in his chair in front of his computer.

Ithil looked at her syllabus and saw that the next thing to work on is Photoshop.

“Lovely,” She says unenthusiastically. “At least this will be easy.”



When the class was over, Ithil didn’t quickly pack up her things and made herself the first person to leave; instead, she packed up her belongings and walked over to Matt’s station and waited for him so they could walk together. She wanted to start to know more about Matt and they ended up talking about their schedules and Matt was very impressed that she was taking the Metals Workshop class.

“That’s a dangerous class.” He points out as they pass people looking at them, slightly shocked to hear her speak.

“Yeah, but I wanna take it. I do plan on making something with metal, especially if I want to make a Lolita crown.” She says while they reach the end where there’s a fork in the hallway.

“What’s that?” He asks curiously.

“I’ll show you at lunch. Bye Matt.” Ithil waves off as she walks towards her biology class while Matt says, “Bye, Ithil!”

Ithil was grateful that it was easy to talk to Matt because he supplied the topics and the questions to make everything less boring. “I hope he doesn’t expect me to talk like that during lunch.” She thinks to herself while she walks into the filled biology class.

When she looks at her normal table, she notices a tall, lanky girl with red hair that she hasn’t seen in the class sitting at her usual stool near the window.

“Fuck, and I was hoping that I would be sitting alone all year.” Ithil didn’t want to be rude, but she was content with sitting alone. She didn’t have to worry having a partner and often asked the teacher if she could do her projects by herself since she was the odd one out, but now that there is someone sitting with her, she has to work with a partner.

“Hello,” The ginger says enthusiastically while smiling at Ithil. “Sorry for being gone for the whole month. I was in the hospital.”

“He-hello,” Ithil says nervously as she sat down in her stool, not expecting the girl to explain herself, “and that’s fine. I kinda like working alone.”

“Oh, well sorry to have to ruin your time alone. I’m Abb—“ the bell ring interrupting her, but she just continues to talk, “—ey, my father named me after Abbey Road because it was his favorite Beatles’ album. Sad, isn’t it?”

Ithil was thrown off by her friendly nature. After experiencing bullying for the first month and having people judge her, she wasn’t used to someone being so welcoming to her so quickly; but, she just smiles and replies honestly, “No, it’s actually really cool.”

“Well, I’m glad you like it, what’s your name?” The girl’s bright green eyes look at her excitedly,

“I’m Ithil, and my father named me after the Moon in Elvish.” She never had explained to anyone what her name meant because she didn’t feel obligated to, but after Abbey had explained where her name came from, Ithil felt obligated.

“It’s really beautiful, and suits you so well.” Abbey has a cheeky smile showing her perfectly white teeth that caused her freckled, pale skin to glow.

“Thanks...I guess.” Ithil rubs her right hand on her opposite arm and looking up to the front of the class and noticing that the teacher has been looking at them with some students staring at them as well.

“Sorry.” Ithil apologizes, not realizing that she had caused such a distraction and thinking to herself with her head down, “God, this girl is going to cause me trouble.”

“Yeah sorry, I promise this won’t happen again.” Abbey says reassuringly and smiling. Ithil just looks up at the girl slightly wondering how this girl can be so happy.

Through the rest of the class, Abbey kept her word and Ithil was thankful for that, as well as the fact that today was a notes day so she was just able to doodle in the margins when she is finished writing.

Ithil was slowly drawing a tiny version of Oliver Sykes, but she began to focus on her doodle once she zoned out of the lesson. This happens in all of her classes that allowed her to have a notebook out. She’s not a bad student, but she often finds it difficult to study with only half of her notes written; however, she doesn’t try to change it.

“Who are you drawing?” Abbey asks quietly while the teacher begins to talk about the structure of an atom.

“Oli from Bring Me The Horizon. Have you heard of them?” Ithil whispers while drawing the lead singer shirtless and with his brain showing on the right side of his head while he had a cat ear. After seeing the logo for Oli Sykes clothing line, she’s been obsessed with it and often draws him as a half-headed neko.

“My brother likes them, I don’t. They’re too harsh for me.” She is silent as Ithil begins to concentrate on trying to draw Oliver’s tattoos small enough to be detailed. When Abbey silently compliments her, though Ithil doesn’t hear it and Abbey understands. She could see the concentration in the Asian girl’s eyes as she masters the ability to draw out the intricate tattoos so perfectly.

“Did everyone write down the homework?” their teacher asks, and the only words that Ithil hears as she finished the tattoos.

Everyone in the class says yes before she can object and even write down the assignment before the teacher takes it down from the projector.

“Fuck, I didn’t see it.” Ithil silently cursed at herself while she hears the sound of people zipping up their backpacks.

“It’s okay, here.” Abbey allows Ithil to see what she wrote in her little planner, obviously hearing her new bio partner curse.

“Thanks.” Ithil says before quickly scribbling down the assignment and placing her notebook in her bag.

“You’re welcome. I’ll see you tomorrow, Ithie.” Abbey says smiling before walking away.

“See you tomorrow.” She says it under her breath knowing that Abbey couldn’t hear her reply before getting up and exiting the classroom.



“You listen to I Killed The Prom Queen?” Ithil hears a somewhat familiar voice say behind her, obviously commenting on her hoodie.

Looking behind her, she sees the tall black kid that had returned her surgical mask yesterday. She just nods before he talks about how he thinks they’re a softer version of The Devil Wears Prada which makes her giggle since she thinks the complete opposite. She keeps her opinion to herself and states, “I like them too. I’ll wear that hoodie tomorrow.”

“Okay cool, I’m Jay, by the way. Your name is Ithil, right?” Jay asks as they walk into the cafeteria.

Ithil nods before hearing the sound of Matt over-exaggerating and making sounds as if he is getting out of being crushes between bodies as he makes his way out of the crowd.

“Sōrry, I’m late. This crowd sucks.” Matt says, leading them over their table.

“It’s cool.” Jay says before speeding ahead of them and claiming his seat at the end of the table. Ithil can feel her anxiety rise as she remembers that there were about six other people sitting with them.

“It’ll be okay, it’s really nothing to worry about.” Ithil tells herself quietly as she sits between Jay and Matt.

Matt pulls out the tin of cookies that only had three left in it and Ithil looked at him, almost shocked that he ate twenty-three of the twenty-six cookies.

“Yeah, so I ate the majority of the cookies, but you can have the last three.” Matt said while looking at Ithil and Jay.

She politely declined and gave the rest to Jay who wondered how many cookies were in here. He knew about the cookies thanks to Matt that was in his second block, but he never really knew how many cookies were in the tin.

“Thanks, and thanks for baking the cookies. Matt let me have one in math.” Jay said while grabbing the last three and handing over the tin.

“You’re welcome,” was all Ithil said before she found herself in the middle of a conversation about doing stunts at Jay’s house. She didn’t mind it though, and was happy that they didn’t make her talk or join in the conversation. Ithil just pulled out a container that had left over spaghetti from last night and ate it.

Their friends came in a group holding trays, obviously just getting out of the large lunch line.

“Yum, school lunches.” A tall kid with wavy blond hair and glasses says sarcastically while sitting across from Ithil.

“Yeah, they’re the greatest.” A guy with longish brown hair said while taking a seat.

“I got cookies.” Matt bragged while smiling.

“Yeah, and you ate most of them.” Jay chimed in. Ithil just watched as two other guys joined their table and her anxiety began to climb to where she really wanted to leave the table and just go off and sit by herself; but, she hears a familiar happy voice talk to a guy that looked just like her, but a lot bigger.

“Ithil!” Abbey says happily before setting down her lunch and running over to give her extremely uncomfortable friend a hug.

“Hi, Abbey.” Ithil said while awkwardly hugging the red head back.

“You know her Abs?” Matt asked curiously and happily.

“Yeah, we’re in bio together. She’s a great artist.” Abbey says while letting go of Ithil and the eyes are on them. Ithil begins to blush and looks down at her food, disagreeing, “I’m really not that great.”

“We already know this.” The kid wearing glasses said, this surprised Ithil and made her look up questionably. The group gave the kid a glare which made him say, “What?”

“Okay, may one of us had possibly, maybe looked over your shoulder while you were drawing at lunch.” Matt said, trying to step around the fact that they were all curious about her and what kind of things she liked.

“Oh,” was all Ithil could say as she felt her face turn red with embarrassment.

There was an awkward silence until the guy with glasses broke it by introducing himself as Steve and everyone else began to introduce themselves. Ithil just nods, not quite sure whether or not she’ll remember their names, but she’s happy that she’s making herself more susceptible to meeting new people and attempting to make friends.

Abbey hugs Ithil again and says, “We’re definitely going to be best friends forever, I can just tell.”

Ithil smiles happily as the guys start to tell her that if anyone messes with her to go to them and they’ll deal with it. It really made Ithil feel that maybe she had found a great group of people, a great group of friends that she can actually trust and be happy with.

“Thanks guys that really mean a lot.” Ithil says happily while finishing the little dish of left over then putting the empty container and fork back in bag.

“No problem. That’s what friends are for.” Matt says with a smile and Ithil smiles more.

“These friends are golden,” She thinks to herself.

“Come sit next to me. We can talk girly stuff.” Abbey says.

“Oh God, girly stuff.” Matt says before sticking his tongue out and making noises. Ithil just giggles and gets up before sitting next to a curly, short brown haired boy that she just learned was named Josh.

“While they explode things and do dangerous stuff this weekend, wanna hang out?” Abbey asks.

Anxiety began to fill Ithil’s veins with that question and she didn’t want to be rude, and say no. “I’m actually busy this weekend, but maybe some other time,” Ithil lies, feeling terrible about it.

“Oh, okay. Well when you’re not busy we should definitely hang out. Plus, I don’t wanna see one of these guys get hurt.” Abbey motions her head towards the guys and Ithil nods, understandingly.

“I can’t keep lying forever.” Ithil thinks while Abbey begins to talk about how there’s nothing to do in Strathroy.