Scarlett's Walk (this one's under work)

The girl was always alone, and damn her if that didn’t just bother me. Everyday she was alone whether is was walking to school then back home, eating alone at the lunch table, and I saw her too, sitting there with her meal neatly placed before her, sipping her white milk from a small straw. Why didn’t she just be more sociable or something, anything really other than being so damn alone all the time?

I was rarely ever alone as I had two sisters, one older and one younger. We, my sisters and myself especially, had a way of making sure that we were never alone, be it going to the movies or sitting at the lunch table, but this girl was different. I was pretty and knew it, no beauty queen mind you, but I was no ugly duckling. Scarlett was her name, and she had red hair like her name eluded. My name Betsy, from Elizabeth, was nothing shot of a little dull, but I made due with what I was given, and rather well I thought especially when looking at Scarlett, comparing myself is selfish ways. How many boy friends could I get then throw away? How pretty did people thought me to be? Scarlett wasn’t really ugly, if I had to be fair, but really, she had wild hair, untamed, like fire in the wind and these amazing green eyes that were always cast downward like she couldn’t just look ahead to where she was going. She wore clothes that were defiantly hand-me-downs, but no one knew where they had been handed down from. I suppose she isn't really ugly. In fact, with a little help she might even be decent looking.

I was walking home. It was fall, the start of my junior year, and I was very excited to be close to the real world, graduating soon. I wasn’t sure what the hell I was going to do after school, probably attend community college, planning to waste plenty of money on making my decision. I loved reading and writing and everything that had to do with literature, but I couldn’t figure how on earth I could translate that into a degree my parents were willing to pay for. I could teach, but really, how many people liked teachers and most of the time I couldn’t really even stand to help my little sister with her homework. I couldn’t teach, didn’t really like helping people learn too much either.

So why on earth, when I saw Scarlett that day, being picked on my two boys, did I go over and help her? I loved attention, positive flirty attention, but for some reason I yelled, at the top of my lunges, for them to leave her alone. They were younger boys or at least younger than me, I don't really know or care. They were calling her names and taunting her as if they had the right to.

A breeze blue up leaves around the group. Scarlett's hair touched the wind, like it was waving at me, calling me closer yet Scarlett kept her head down as they continued, so I picked up a small rock or two, and being that my father had taught me to pitch, threw them as hard as I could, knocking one of them in the shoulder. They ran off immediately and I apprehensively approached her.

She looked frightened and thankful, and then she looked at me like she was in awe. I felt uncomfortable as she thanked me, and I said, "it's no problem". After all, when someone “less fortunate” was in trouble you helped, or rather it was horrible, seeing her so helpless like some scared animal. Still, I was on my way home, kids were on their way home around us, and I didn’t want them to see me talking to this girl, so I began to walk then stopped, feeling something tug at me, a feeling I had never experienced before.

“Do you want me to walk with you?” I asked.

She nodded and actually smiled. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

She wasn’t much to look at right there, with tears her in her eyes, but she had a really pretty voice. “Okay,” I said then started walking with her beside me, silently walking beside me like she was some subject of mine who couldn’t talk unless being talked to in the first place.

“So,” I began. “What was that about?” Eek, what on earth was I doing? Was I really that interested in what she had to say or did I feel this need to talk like silence wasn’t enough? It was enough just to keep my mother shut, but I didn’t. I guess it's a stupid notion since I didn’t really care about this girl, maybe.

“Oh I don’t know,” she answered.

“Sure you do,” I countered, believing that this girl had done something, anything to those boys who ruthlessly attacked her.

She was silent for a second. “No, I didn’t do anything. They just do that once in a while.”

“You didn’t say mean things back or I don’t know, look at them funny?”

“No,” she replied plainly.

Impossible, I thought. No one’s cruel for the sake of being cruel, right? Okay, so I made a little list of things that would fix all her problems. She could tame her hair and stand up straight, and look people in the eye like she had the right to do. She could dress better like I did. She could have a plan to not make it so easy for everyone to pick on her. I know, listening in on the conversation in my head, I probably sounded so unkind, but really, the girl brought everything upon herself, right?

“Thank you Betsy,” she said and I found it odd that she had said my name even though we had never talked before. She had stopped in front of a house that was just like my own, a little run down, but it was similar to the one I lived it. Wait, that was my house, and we where standing at the gate in front of my house. She knew where I lived? I found this odd, first my name then my house. Hmm, something was up here, and I was going to get to the bottom of it.

“I know you probably don’t want to walk me all the way to my house, being seen with me isn’t exactly what you want. I know this.”

Wait, what, how did she know what I had wanted like she could read my mind? Yes, walking with her terrified me, immensely terrified me that at any moment someone could just spot us together.

“No,” I said then changed my tone, lying flat out. This was a favor I was doing for her, but I didn’t want her to owe me. “I don’t mind, people can see us together.”

“Okay,” she said as if offering some challenge, but really she had just wanted something from me, a friend or something she could hold on to. “Will you walk to school with me tomorrow then walk down the halls with me too?”

What! Oh, yeah, so what did she want me to do? I must have stopped breathing, but my pride or rather my conscious got the better of me as I answered, "alright, I’ll meet you tomorrow morning". Then she was gone, walking away from me as I stood numb to realization that everything was probably going to end for me, I was done for. Total social suicide.

The following morning I woke, didn’t eat, but dressed in my best pair of jeans and fancy t-shirt with flip-flops and I made sure every dark hair on my head was perfect. I walked outside to wait, expecting to just start walking by myself is she didn’t show up. I was determined to keep my promise though I was scared shitless, and she came, two minutes later. Her hair was pulled up out of her face in a half ponytail, and she looked right at me, and I thought she was very beautiful, small features, a prettier nose than my own.

We walked all the way to school barely speaking, and when I opened those high school doors I felt terror ride up into my throat. She walked ahead of me, waiting as I followed behind her. So, this is how it must have felt, the walk she made everyday in school. She really was pretty and though rather unsociable, very brave. I wasn’t sure if anyone was looking at us or not as I made sure to keep my eyes down the floor, walking beside her like I had promised. I was proud of myself and terrified and then so proud. So this is it huh, I thought, Scarlett’s walk?