Suri pouted. Whereas Mateo was a scholar and an athlete, Jenny was a bit more interested in other things: makeup, fashion, boys. Her grades were still stellar in comparison to Suri’s, mostly so her parents would stay off her back, and her fuller curves and weekend house parties ensured that her name was just as renowned as Mateo’s was.
Above all else though, she hated it when something was talked about more than her. Like a certain pink haired girl being dropped off on a Monday morning in a luxury car by some hot guy that no one had ever seen her with before.
Jenny gestured for Suri to speak but the teen choked on her words. In her panic Suri looked to Mateo for much needed assistance. The boy uselessly rubbed the back of his head and smiled at her apologetically. He wasn’t going to be of much help. She should have known better.
Mateo had been entranced by Jenny since she had joined their class in the middle of sixth grade. He word was law.
“You did kind of ghost us,” he tried, “But I think she just means to say that we were worried about you.”
“Shove it, Mateo,” Jenny said, flipping her straight, black hair over her shoulder before returning her glare to Suri. “He’s old, Suri! I can’t believe you’re hooking up with an older guy.”
“Whoa, he is not my boyfriend.”
“Then who is he?”
“I, um, well—”
“Is this because of what happened with your dad? Because that was like forever ago.”
“You know what, we’re going to be late to class,” Mateo interrupted before Suri could do more than glare as the words left Jenny’s stupid pink lips. Maybe he could be of some help after all.
Rising to his feet, the boy waved his hand to shoo Jenny away. She flipped her hair over her shoulder again, huffing in annoyance as she stomped her way right back down the steps. Mateo readjusted his coat as he prepared to follow her, but Suri could tell that there was something brewing in his frizzy topped head.
“I’m here for you,” he said finally, beginning to move away. “Don’t ghost me like that again, okay?
She rolled her eyes at the realization. “Sorry. I lost my phone.”
“Again? Yikes.” He began to descend, the school bell ringing challenging what he yelled out as he joined Jenny’s side once more. “Go to class before your brain completely freezes over!”
The teen frowned at them both as they walked away in tandem.
Leave it to Jenny to say something so totally off base. Trenton was definitely not her boyfriend; the thought alone made Suri shudder. Besides being way too old for her, he was cranky and uptight. Not exactly someone Suri wanted to spend her time with.
And he was nothing like her father.
Suri tried not to let the girl’s implication bother her. Or the cold. It felt like the temperature had dropped several degrees out of nowhere, leading her eyes to drift up. The tilt of her head caused the tendrils of hair that usually fell into her face to fall away, clearing the only thing obscuring her line of sight towards the cloudless sky.
That’s why it was so odd—the cold. It was the middle of winter, but she had been sitting there for hours, and with the sun rising in the sky it should have gotten warmer, not colder.
She frowned, her head tilting back down before her head turned to overlook the field. When her eyes caught sight of the girl watching her, she jumped with a start. She had sworn she was alone, or at least not expecting a small, chubby faced girl staring at her in the middle of the field.
Wait. That couldn’t have been right.
“Hey, um,” her eyes narrowed at the girl questioningly, “Are you lost or something?”
The smile that formed looked all wrong on that chubby face; Suri should know. As she stared down at the child beginning to twist excitedly at the waist, she began to recognize her as the girl who had shattered her thoughts several days ago. The sweet girl, with the airy little giggle. What was she doing here?
“Uh, I don’t think a kid like you should be here. Where’s your dad?”
She shrugged, hopping onto the first bleacher. “Where’s yours?”
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