Her feet kicked at the edge of the planter, lip gloss smeared and mixed with blood. She didn’t bother to scrub it away. With her flip phone opened, charms dangling as they clacked together, the warm rays of the sun acted as her spotlight. It was impossible to look away from her, from the dirt smeared across the white sleeves of her uniform, vest skewed and only half tucked in.
“What happened?” She continued typing away at a message, gaze not bothering to meet mine. I kept looking at her split lip, at how it had swollen to the point of pushing up the rest of her face. Her dark hair was a rat’s nest, the opposite of the sleek shine it had been just this morning.
After a long moment of silence, she snapped her phone shut. The noise echoed through the empty gardens at the back of our academy. When her eyes landed on me, she smiled as though I hadn’t been there the entire time.
“Cinder?” Her voice was starlight, as it always was. “I’m going to do it this time.”
“Do what?” She hopped to her feet as if the scrapes on her knees weren’t even there. I kept staring at her lips. I wondered if it hurt to talk. It took all my willpower not to reach out and wipe the blood away.
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She leaned forward, “Find a happy ending.”
“But we…we still have all the time in the world to find one.” The wind came and with it the chime from the courtyard’s clock. It reverberated through campus. Six dings sung the time, just loud enough to drown out her whispered reply.
I wanted to ask her to repeat those words, but she flipped her phone back open, “It’s time for us to start heading home. I have some things I need to do.”
“How are you going to explain that to your parents? The nurse’s office might still be open, we should—”
Her finger laid over my lips in a shushing motion. I could taste her blood and grime, “You worry too much. I’ll be right as rain tomorrow.”
She spun away, a hop to her step. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and I felt it smear against my face. It was not as extravagant looking as hers, framed by the rest of her ruined makeup. My thoughts spun over and over again, until she was gone and I was left alone in the garden.
“A happy ending…” I mouthed the words, hooking one pinky with the other and pretending it was hers. There was a tremble in my hands, radiating down both my arms until they met in the middle. There was only one thing either of us had ever wanted. The rest of it didn’t matter.
I took a deep breath and unlocked my fingers. It was only the first day of school. Things could only look up from here. It was time to go home.