Friends

I just looked at her, standing there in the middle of the crowded hallway. "We can't just not talk about it," she had said, and I knew she was right, but I didn't want to admit it.

"There's nothing to talk about," I said, my voice low and tired. 'This is all just getting worse.' "This is exactly the kind of stuff I was talking about. Look at us."

I gestured around at the other students who were definitely slowing down to watch us. 'Another scene for the gossip mill.'

"You shouldn't be doing this, Nina," I said, finally looking her in the eye. "You have a boyfriend. He just punched me in the face for you. Chasing me down the hall probably isn't a great look."

I was trying to give her an out, to give both of us a way to just walk away and end this. But the moment I mentioned Tyler, her whole expression changed. The desperate, out-of-breath look was replaced by something else. Something sadder.

She shook her head slowly, looking down at the floor. "I don't," she said, and her voice was so quiet I almost didn't hear her over the noise of the hallway.

"You don't what?" I asked.

She looked back up at me, and her eyes looked tired. "I don't have a boyfriend," she said. "Not anymore. I broke up with him this morning, right after I walked out of the classroom."

The words just hit me. 'Wait, what? She broke up with him?' I just stood there, leaning on my crutches, trying to process that.

"Oh," was all I could manage to say.

The way she said it wasn't triumphant or angry. She just sounded defeated, like she was talking about something that had been inevitable. Like she had really thought he was the one, and now it was over. My stupid drama had ended her relationship.

I felt like an absolute piece of shit. 'This is my fault,' I thought. 'I did this. I ruined everything for her.'

She must have seen the look on my face, because she took a small step closer.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her eyes still on me. "For all of this. For dragging you into my problems. I shouldn't have yelled at you yesterday."

"It's fine," I said, shaking my head. It felt like my throat was tight. "You don't have to apologize. I was the one being a jerk."

'I'm the one who should be sorry for everything,' I thought.

We just stood there for a few seconds in a pocket of awkward silence while the rest of the school flowed around us. She was looking at me like she was waiting for me to run away again, and I was looking at her thinking about how I'd messed up her entire life in the span of a few days.

I couldn't just leave her like this. Not after what she'd just told me.

I let out a long breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. 'How could I say no now?'

"Okay," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "We can talk."

Relief washed over her face, it was so obvious it made my chest ache. "Really?" she asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. But not here."

I gestured toward the main doors with one of my crutches. She nodded back, a small, sad smile on her face.

We started walking toward the exit together, me limping and her matching my slow, awkward pace. No one said anything for a while. The silence wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't as tense as before, either. It just felt… heavy. We were two people with a lot to say, and neither of us knew where to start.

We finally made it outside into the afternoon air. I stopped for a second, just breathing.

"Are you heading home?" she asked, her voice soft.

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Can I... walk with you?" she asked. "My house is that way too."

I just looked at her. 'I guess this is really happening,' I thought. "Sure," I said.

And so we started walking, side by side, down the sidewalk away from the school. My crutches made this slow, scraping sound with every step I took, and for a minute, that was the only noise between us.

The silence felt heavy, and I didn't know what to say to break it. 'What do you even say to the girl whose relationship you just blew up?' I thought, my mind completely blank. I risked a glance over at her, and she was just staring straight ahead, matching my awkward pace without a single complaint.

"Sorry this is taking forever," I finally said, mostly because I couldn't stand the quiet anymore. "These things aren't exactly built for speed."

She shook her head, not looking at me. "It's fine," she said, her voice was still really quiet. "I'm not in a hurry."

Her saying that just made me feel worse. We kept walking, and with every step, a sharp ache shot through my ribs. I tried to ignore it, to focus on just moving forward, but it was getting harder to breathe evenly. 'This isn't working,' I thought. 'I can't think straight when it feels like my whole side is on fire.'

"Hey, hold on a sec," I said, my voice coming out a little strained. I stopped and leaned heavily on my crutches, taking a slow, careful breath that did nothing to help the pain.

She stopped with me, turning to look at me with concern in her eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just..." I shook my head, frustrated with myself. "I'm sorry, I can't really walk and talk about this stuff at the same time. My ribs are killing me." I nodded down a familiar side street. "The park is right there. Can we just... can we go sit down?"

"Oh my god, of course," she said immediately, her expression softening. "I'm so sorry, I wasn't even thinking. Yeah, let's go sit."

We turned down the side street, and she instinctively slowed her pace even more, like she was afraid I might fall over. It was a lot quieter here, which was a relief. We found a bench pretty easily, and I carefully lowered myself onto it, letting out a long sigh as the pressure came off my legs. I set my crutches down next to me, my hands shaking a little from the effort.

Nina sat down at the other end of the bench, leaving a good amount of space between us. She was twisting her hands in her lap. I just watched her for a second.

"So," I said, because someone had to start. "You, uh, you really broke up with him?"

She nodded, still looking at her hands. "Yeah. It was… it wasn't working. It hasn't been working for a while, really. What he did today was just… the last straw." She finally looked up at me. "It wasn't your fault, Kofi. I don't want you to think that."

"It feels like my fault," I said honestly. "If I hadn't gotten in the middle of things—"

"You didn't get in the middle of anything," she interrupted, and her voice was a little stronger now. "He did. And my friends did. You were just… there."

We were quiet again for a minute. I thought about what she'd screamed at me in the hallway yesterday, about her friends pushing her and how she hated it.

"I'm sorry about what I said yesterday," I said quietly. "About the rumors and all that stuff. It was a shitty thing to say. I didn't know…"

I trailed off, because I didn't know how to finish that sentence without sounding like an even bigger idiot.

"It's okay," she said with a little sigh. "You were kind of right, anyway. I do have that reputation. I just… really hate it."

"I get it," I said. "I mean, I don't really get it, but I believe you."

A small smile touched her lips for a second, but it disappeared just as fast. "You said you didn't want people whispering about you," she said, looking at me again. "I'm sorry I brought all of that to you. That's the last thing I wanted to do."

"It's fine," I said, even though it wasn't. "I guess I'm not very good at dealing with… people."

"Me neither," she admitted, and that surprised me. "I'm really not. I just pretend I am."

I looked at her, really looked at her, sitting there at the other end of the bench. A popular girl in school, and she felt the same way I did. It was a weird thought.

"Well," I said, a small smile forming on my own face. "You're a way better actor than I am, then."

She actually laughed at that, a real, genuine laugh. It was the first time I'd heard it since we were in the hospital, and it made that tight feeling in my chest loosen just a little bit.

"Thanks, I guess," she said, still smiling. "So, can we start over?"

I looked at her. 'Start over?' I thought. 'What does that even mean?'

"I know I messed things up by yelling at you, and you messed things up by being a jerk," she said, and her smile was a little teasing now. "But can we just… forget all that? And just be… friends?"

She said the word like she was testing it out, like she wasn't sure if it was the right one to use. I thought about it. I thought about all the drama, the pain and the awkwardness. But then I thought about talking to her, how easy it was. I thought about her laughing at my stupid jokes.

"Yeah," I said, and the word felt right. "Let's be Friends."