She was walking alone. But there were too many people around. I couldn’t just stop her with all these people around.
I was sure it was her.
It had to be her.
I followed her away from the cafeteria. To her locker, in a corridor far from mine, far from Jack’s. She put down her backpack. She was spinning the combination.
I didn’t know what I was going to say. I walked right up to her. She turned to look at me.
It was her. It had to be her.
“It’s you,” I said.
“Excuse me?” she replied. She didn’t look exactly the same, but she looked the same enough. She was chewing gum. She didn’t seem to know me.
“You’re the one who’s been sending us the photos,” I said.
She looked at me like she didn’t know what I was talking about.
“I think you have the wrong girl,” she said. She opened her locker.
“Why are you doing it?” I asked.
She looked back at me, annoyed.
“Doing what?”
“The photos.”
“What photos?”
She doesn’t know.
She knows.
“Stop it,” I said. “I know who you are.”
It has to be her.
“Look, freak,” she said, getting mad now, “I have to go to class. I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. Because I have no idea what you’re saying.”
It’s her, right?
“Ariel,” I said.
She shook her head. “I’m afraid I’m not Ariel. Sorry.”
She was taking a book from her locker. She was closing the locker. She was going to go. She was going to vanish again.
“No—stop,” I said.
It has to be her.
“Are you crazy?”
A girl in the cafeteria. “You must be crazy, too.”
I didn’t know what I was doing. But I felt I needed to do it.
I grabbed her backpack and started to run.