Aphrodite

School was never a place where people were open with their feelings. You go to a giant building and lock yourself in for 8 hours, trapped with people you never really have and never really will care for. You don’t share things with them, and they don’t care. Sure, you have friends, but once you’re allowed out of your jail cell you’ll realize no one is really there for you and no one really cares.

I learned that the hard way.

Anabel was something else, but what that something else was totally depended on the situation she was in. In reality, she was lonely, and she was lost, and she was scared, but in the hypothetical world we all like to live in she was alive and she was free and she was incredible.

At school, she was the confident girl who could stand on her own, never needing anyone unless they were doing her some kind of favour. I didn’t fit in with her picture perfect life, I realized all too late, which was evident in the way she insisted we sneak around whenever we were out in public, especially at school.

“It’s more private if only we know,” she would say, smiling her sickly sweet, devilish smile that would turn my brain to mush and steal my ability to complete logical thoughts. We weren’t the only ones that knew, nothing in Anabel’s life was a secret, but her poisonous words latched themselves onto my brain and I agreed, thinking that hiding underneath the stairs or in the third floor bathroom that everyone avoided like the plague was a smart idea.

She hadn’t thought it through all the way though, when she showed me all her secret hiding places. She didn’t think about the fact that I would know where to find her when she went missing in first period or that I would even care enough to, and she definitely didn’t think about the fact that I might walk in on her doing something that she tried to hide from every living soul to ever exist.

“Anabel?” I called, walking into the dimly lit room. There was a sniff, followed by a strangled sob, and then silence. Her breathing was heavy, but she tried to cover it up, not knowing she had already given herself away.

I hadn’t thought much farther than finding her, so I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room for a minute, contemplating what I could do. She didn’t make an attempt to come out and I wasn’t sure whether or not to make an attempt to make her, but my heart overpowered my brain and I walked over to the stall, pushing the unlocked metal doors open, and looked inside.

She was curled in a ball, shaking slightly and rocking back and forth. I bent down and wrapped my arms around her and she collapsed into me, her sobs taking over her once again. I couldn’t tell you how long we stayed there in an entangled mess on the third floor bathroom, but her breathing slowly steadied itself and she sighed, looking up at me as she moved herself out of my arms.

I got up, moving backwards out of the stall to let her out, and she took a deep breath, walked over to the mirror, fixed her makeup and walked out. I stood there for a moment, not entirely sure what to do, and then followed her, moving quickly in a hope to catch her.

But she was gone, and I was alone in the echoing hallway, searching for her through thin air.