Right before lunch, Charlie lingered at her locker, watching Ellie pull notebooks out of her backpack and stuff them in her locker. She quickly took a few puffs of her inhaler and walked toward Ellie. It was now or never.
Ellie had texted her this morning asking if Charlie could bring her Egypt book.
Charlie had borrowed it during a sleepover at Ellie’s last summer. She’d forgotten she even had the dumb book.
After getting the text, Charlie couldn’t finish her breakfast. She didn’t know if it was a gesture of friendship or if Ellie was going to scream at her in the hall.
After those weird messages about getting her ears pierced, she didn’t know what to expect. Sienna and Ellie had ignored her ever since those texts, sitting with the track kids every day. Charlie had stopped eating lunch in the cafeteria. Instead, she brought lunch from home and sat in the empty science room and read her book.
Even though she knew it was dumb, getting the text from Ellie this morning had filled her with hope. A silly hope that she and her friends wanted to make up with her. She missed them. She would do well for a while and then out of the blue burst into tears.
Glancing down the hall, Charlie watched Ellie at her locker. The walk down the hallway grew eerily long, like in a bad dream. She was in motion, moving one foot after the other, but it seemed like time had slowed.
When she was about ten feet away, Ellie looked up, noticing her as the crowd heading to lunch thinned. Charlie smiled, even though it felt fake, like her lips were cracking in a grimace. She could hear her blood rushing, pounding in her ears. She wondered if everyone else could hear it.
The other voices in the hallway grew slightly distorted, sounding as if they were traveling down a tunnel. Ellie met her glance and for a split second, it seemed as if there was a spark of something hateful there, but then it was gone.
“You got my text,” Ellie said and smiled. She had lipstick on her teeth and her breath smelled like eggs.
Relief filled Charlie when she saw the smile, starting at her feet and working its way up her body. She reached into her bag and thrust the book at Ellie.
“I’m sorry I forgot I had it.”
Ellie waited a long second before she reached out and took one edge of the heavy book. They both held the book until Charlie realized her hand was hovering empty in the air before her.
“I’m starving,” Ellie said, shoving the book in her bag and slamming her locker. “Let’s go eat.”
She turned her back and walked away, obviously expecting Charlie to follow and just like that, their tiff was over.
Charlie’s eyes pricked with grateful tears as she followed her friend into the cafeteria.
Sienna’s eyes widened when she saw Charlie trailing behind Ellie in the cafeteria line. It sent a tremor of anxiety through Charlie. But Sienna quickly smiled and Charlie’s limbs relaxed.
Even though the worst was over now, her stomach was still doing somersaults. She grabbed a piece of garlic toast and a tiny dipping bowl of marinara sauce and put them on her tray, even though she knew she wouldn’t eat it.
Sliding into her old seat across from Sienna, she gave a meek smile.
Sienna was chewing and gestured that she couldn’t talk until she swallowed her bite. They sat awkwardly for a few seconds until Ellie scooted in next to Sienna and made a face.
“The salad bar today is disgusting,” she said. “I swear I saw a bug in the lettuce. Barf. That’s why I got the wings.”
“Yuck! Thanks a lot, Ellie.” Sienna pushed her own plate of salad away.
“Your jeans will thank me this weekend when you can button them.”
Charlie usually scolded her friends for talking about weight or dieting, but their friendship now seemed new and tenuous, she quickly took a bite of her bread, munching it until it dissolved in her mouth.
She was embarrassed to feel so meek around her longtime friends and wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it or not, but they did seem to give each other a strange glance once or twice when they thought she wasn’t looking.
Charlie brushed it off, relieved that her friends were willing to leave whatever problems they had behind and get back to where their friendship had been a few weeks ago. She would even bite her tongue about the way Ellie was eating. It was making Charlie feel nauseous.
Ellie didn’t always have the best table manners, but today she was especially gross. She dipped her chicken wings in a small pile of ranch before sticking it partly in her mouth. She gnawed on it a while, running her tiny teeth along the edge of the bone, ripping off little tidbits of remaining meat and then sucking on the bones, making a sound that sent a wave of nausea through Charlie. She wouldn’t look. So gross. But it wasn’t Ellie’s fault. That stepmom probably didn’t have any manners either, so how could Ellie be expected to learn them?
After the bone was picked clean. Ellie licked her lips and turned to smile at her friends. “Oh my God, I love wings. Besides just this once won’t hurt.”
Charlie decided not to point out that her friend still had a little dot of ranch dressing on the corner of her mouth. Ellie might take it the wrong way. Right now, she’d do anything to keep this restored peace and if it meant placating Ellie, well so be it.
“Can you guys come over after school on Friday?” Ellie said. “I thought we could take the city bus over to Sanctuary Lake and maybe swim.”
Ellie’s eyes shone. Swimming in the town reservoir was forbidden. But there were a few spots that were secluded and the high school kids would sneak in and splash around.
“Yes, I want to go,” Sienna said, shooting a glance at Charlie.
Sienna and Ellie looked at each other and then looked at Charlie, waiting.
“Count me in.” Charlie didn’t know if her Dad was going to say okay, but nothing was going to stop her from hanging out with her friends again.