The girl stretches and sighs. The pencil is in her hand again, she's scrawling down her thoughts; they seem to flow so easily. Her hand must grow tired, I wonder, from moving so quickly. How does she do it? Her handwriting is thin and beautiful. I search through the files in my brain to remember her name. Kristen, I think; yes, definitely Kristen. She looks up, almost as if she heard her name in my head, and stares at me. I feel the urge to look away, but something prevents me from doing so. She looks so friendly, her smile brightly burning a hole through my wicked conscience. She looks so worn down; I can see the strain in her muscles as she turns back to her paper.
It all comes back to me with a jolt of electricity. She's the one Stacy was talking about, I remember. It's so strange how this girl, this Kristen, sitting in front of the teacher's desk with her head bent parallel to the paper on that table, is the evil witch that Stacy despises so much. She looks so friendly.
It's been a while since she's been in school; that's why I have such difficulty remembering her name. Something happened with her brother, I think. He was that kid who was expelled for--what was it? Gang involvement, I think that was it. He was hit by a car, or something like that. She's tutored at home now. Wait; what's she doing in school then?
She shifts her weight uncomfortably in her seat. She can feel my eyes on her, it's evident. Looking up, clearly flustered, she stares back at me. I can't break the gaze. God, her eyes are so sad. Sad and green, they're boring a hole right through me.
I feel a small tingle of something I can't describe, it slides through my spine, it's thick and it hurts. I want to shove myself up from my chair and run to her side, tell her to explain. I need to take her in my arms and stroke her auburn hair, tell her things will be okay in the end. Her eyes harden and her gaze turns to fire. She rejects my help, she wants nothing to do with me or my affection.
I feel your pain, Kristen. I am human too. What happens to you happens to the world; you are one significant grain of sand in a desert of pain. We all have our stories, Kristen. We are our stories.
Kristen's shoulders lose their edges and hardness. She draws her leg up to her chest and gently drops her head to her knee. When she looks up after several seconds, I see that her tears have left a gentle patch of moisture on her jeans. The eyes that once bore a hole into me are now soft and tired. I watch her hand hastily wipe away the ever-present stream of conscious pouring from the green creeks in her eyes. Her lips part. My lungs tighten.
"I have no story," she screams, so quietly I almost don't hear. "I am not a sob story."
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