“That’s Kelly’s seat, I’m sorry.” Pat’s green eyes traveled from the empty seat in front of her to the mouth that had just spoken, framed with wavy blonde hair. It presented a perfectly straight white toothed smile that seemed to feign politeness, but suggested a bit of annoyance. Pat stood frozen for a second
with her lunch tray in hand, then slowly began to move her feet. She started for the very end of the table, which was empty.
She heard the thud of a shoe against a table leg across from her as a girl with a black shirt and slightly green hair plunged down and emptied her tray onto the lap of the blonde. She was not smiling any more. The blonde bolted straight out of her seat and stood rigid. A clump of macaroni fell from her jeans and left of yellow trail down her pant leg. Lunch rooms
have an eerie tendency to become silent the instant a tray hits the floor, and the cafeteria of John Adams High was no exception.

“I’m sooooo sorry,” said the green haired girl on the floor, trying to stifle a laugh. A few others around the room didn’t stifle anything, and the blonde was infuriated.

“Do you have any idea how much these jeans cost?” she screamed.

“About as much as a hair bleaching and manicure at the beauty shop?” the girl on the floor responded. A few more giggles sporadically burst throughout the room.

“They cost more than your trailer, you gothic freak,” retorted the blonde and the entire room rolled with laughter. She kicked some food at the girl on the ground and headed toward the bathroom. Conversation resumed around the room as
usual.

The green haired girl gathered herself off the ground and sat in the chair previously occupied by the blonde. Pat hadn’t moved.
“Have a seat. I don’t think Kelly’s going to be around any time soon,” she said sarcastically. Pat hesitated and nervously fondled the crucifix around her neck, and tucked underneath her shirt. It was a reaction that Pat frequently had in uncomfortable situations. She tentatively decided to sit down.

“What junior high are you from, I don’t think I ever seen you at Carter.”

“I was home schooled,” Pat responded, eyes fixated on the table top.

“So this isn’t just, like, your first day of high school, it’s your first day of school? That must suck.”

Pat’s eye’s darted uncomfortably around the room and noticed the blonde and a clique of other girls sporting Abercrombie and pointing toward them. One mouthed something and distorted her face, and the rest laughed. The girl sitting across from Pat was aware of their presence, but offered them none of her
attention.

The bell rang. The room began to clear out, and Pat had an urge to follow the mass. She started to get up.

“So, do you have a name?” The girl across from her remained seated. “My name is Pat.”

“I’m Christalena, are you going to eat that brownie?” Pat shook her head.

“Thanks. Uhl thsee yah-arwound,” Christalena said with her mouth full. Pat nodded and tried her best to smile before she turned and began to walk away. It was the closest thing to a conversation that Pat would have for the rest of the
school day.

She passed through the doors of the lunch room in a hurry to catch up to the mob running down the hallway. She resembled a straggling cow in a herd of cattle, and nature isn’t kind to the stragglers.

Predatory animals tend to prey on the young or the weak, much like a group of seniors prey on an underdeveloped incoming freshman. But when an animal in its prime strays from the group and trails at a distance, whether due to injury or some other reason, it is quickly targeted and picked off. When a group of
predators attack a straggler, it is not immediate. They spread out and separate it further from the group, until the animal begins to run in panic. Isolated from the group, it has no protection. The straggler sprints as the countless hunters drive it to the point of fatigue, where it inevitably ceases to flee and
succumbs to the hungry pack. Predators, in order to survive, have a primal need to pick out the young, the weak, and the stragglers. It is a predator’s nature to continue living by
singling out another creature for prey.

However, nature does not consist only of predatory groups and herds of potential prey. Some creatures, like a bear, are not dependent on hunting to survive.

They can find other methods of obtaining food such as foraging, but the wolf cannot. It needs meat. The bear does not rely on killing to live, nor does it depend on a group to survive. But it will defend itself when provoked, and predators usually tend to leave it alone.

The bell rang as Pat took one of the few remaining seats near the front of the classroom. A boy was fiddling with his pencil to the right of her, and the blonde’s group was to her rear left. Pat recognized the boy from her church, and as she set down her bag, she was pretty sure her face registered with him also.

The boy silently turned his attention back to his pencil.
As the teacher began to speak, Pat began to glance around the room. As she peered over her shoulder she met the eyes of the blonde. Maybe she would forget about the ugly scene at lunch. Pat gave her an insecure smile. The blonde broke eye contact and became oblivious to her presence. Pat, feeling somewhat
rejected, turned back around. She certainly sensed no receptiveness from that side of the room. Her stomach became a little uneasy.

“…so everyone get up and move the front of the room and I’ll call out the seating chart,” directed the teacher. Pat’s stomach lurched.

The entire room stood up in one fluent motion, with the exception of Pat, who moved with a bit of hesitance after everybody else. She suddenly had no desire to chance a closer seat to her new acquaintance.

“…Angela Baker, here…” While the seating chart was barked out, Pat’s eyes jumped around the room in an effort to match faces with names. She sensed a need to identify with somebody. Anybody.

“…Timothy Gladson, right there, Jesse Kirkland, behind him…” A barrage of names and faces cascaded in front of Pat’s eyes as Mr. Hampton called them to their seats.

“Patricia Matthews, right back there.” Pat obediently shuffled to her new seat in the second to last row and set her backpack down.

“…and right behind her, Brooke McBride.” As chance would have it, the blonde strode down the aisle past Pat and took the seat behind her. Pat sunk in her chair. She felt a breath of warm air exhaled on her neck.

“That trailer trash punk is going to pay for my jeans, and I don’t mean with money, because I highly doubt that she has any,” Brooke hissed. “So I suggest you avoid her if you want to maintain the reputation you have now.” Pat sat with
her eyes fixed straight ahead like a deer looking into headlights.

Reputation?

Do I even have a reputation?

The next four periods seemed endless. Pat sat in her seats, riveted to the hands of the clocks in each room as her instructors went over the same monotonous classroom rules. Tick, tick, tick….ring! Pat focused her eyes and came out of
her dazed state. It was 3:00, and time to leave. She stood up and hurried to be the first out of the room, and hopefully out of the school. She’d had enough to last the entire week.

Pat half jogged through the noisy hallway, half pushing her way through circles of students standing around talking in the center of it. As her arm collided with someone’s bag, she wondered if she had ever felt so alone. Ironically, she hadn’t ever been in a building filled with so many kids.

9216. She repeated the number in her mind as she approached the long line of busses in front of the school. Her eyes swept across yellow train and spotted the number toward the front and to her right. She adjusted her direction and took long, quick steps to swiftly reach her passage home.

As she came closer, she became aware of how light her shoulders felt. Her hand reached for the strap of her bag and found nothing. She shook her head in frustration and swiveled around, heading back to the school doors.

I took it into the last class, I know that. It has to be next to my desk. The crowded hallway had thinned out, and she wove her way through it with much more success. She passed a drinking fountain and turned into her empty U.S. History classroom. She stopped to recall which seat position was hers in this classroom, and then veered down the third row. There was no backpack.
She glanced over the rest of the room. Empty. A slight panic arose, and she rushed out of the room. She blindly turned the corner without looking and collided with a green haired girl.
Pat was jolted backward and started to fall, but the girl steadied her. “Whoa, slow down there!” Christalena exclaimed.

“I--, I’m sorry,” Pat stuttered. “I was just looking for-”

“Your backpack,” Tonya finished, proudly hoisting it up. “I sit right back there,” she said pointing, “and when I saw you leave without it, I tried to catch up with you. But you were moving like a bat out of hell! And I thought I didn’t like school!”

Pat laughed, audibly, for the first time that day. It relieved some nervous tension. She reached for the bag. “Well, um, thanks,” she said putting it on her shoulders and starting to walk away. “I have to catch a bus, so I’d better go.”

“Oh, there’s no way you’ll catch that now,” answered Christalena. “I rode those last year, and they leave five minutes after the bell rings. That was 30 seconds ago,” she said, looking at the clock on the wall. Pat stopped walking. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists. She was ready to give up, but she
was at a loss of who to surrender to. She half smiled and shook her head at the thought.

“Well, I can give you a ride home if you want.” Pat’s head told her to say no, but her gut wasn’t so sure. She stalled.

“You have a car?”

“Mmm hmm. Well, actually, it’s my mom’s car, but she’s letting me drive it to school.” Pat thought about the entire day, filled with spilled macaroni, crowded hallways, and an endless list of names that seemed to pay no attention to her, despite
her effort to care about them. Then she thought about the walk home. What a way to top it all off. Well, I can’t call Mom to pick me up, she’s at work for another two hours. This girl has actually been pretty nice to me. In fact, she’s the only one who’s been nice to me.

“Okay.” She had said it without meaning to, and wondered for a second whether it was out loud.

“Cool, I’ll show you were I’m parked.” The two passed through the door and walked down the hallway, side by side. It was the first time all day that Pat was going somewhere without following someone from behind.

They stepped out of the school doors and came into the parking lot. It was fairly empty, and the air lacked the pressure that Pat had been experiencing all day. As they stepped onto the blacktop, Pat looked up to see a bright red, freshly
waxed Mustang rev its engine and wildly approach them. Brooke was in the driver’s seat. Pat and Christalena stepped back up the curb onto the grass simultaneously. As Brooke tore by, she shot Christalena a scowl of cold disgust.

Christalena stepped back onto the blacktop and shrugged it off, offering it no more attention. Pat, confused, yet impressed on some level, took a few long steps to catch up with her. They came to rest at a rusted out, ugly, gray car. Pat circled the car to the passenger side and realized that she had never in her life been near a car this ugly. The front right fender was crunched in and the rear bumper looked ready to fall off. Pat peered inside a dirty window to see the ceiling dotted with thumbtacks, which held the fabric in place.

“Oh, the passenger side door doesn’t open from the outside. Just wait a sec.”

Christalena pulled the passenger handle from inside gave the door a ram with her shoulder from the inside. It popped about four inches open. Pat gave the door a couple tugs and made her way inside. She almost wondered if the car would even start. Christalena turned the ignition and the car gave a surprisingly low, clean rumble. The surprise was evident on Pat’s face.

“My older brother is a mechanic and keeps it running pretty good,” said Christalena. She put it into drive and they started to move. Pat’s stomach remained uneasy.

“It looks a little rough on the outside, but under the hood it’s got more than that piece of crap.” Pat looked out the window as they passed a senior putting his bag in the backseat of a sporty yellow Saturn, subwoofers pounding hip-hop beats.
They slightly hesitated for the stop sign at the parking lot exit and, with a punch of the accelerator, tore around the corner. Pat glanced at Christalena.

“The signs with white around the edges are optional,” Christalena said in a mock-serious tone. Pat’s hand involuntarily shot up to her crucifix and felt it through her shirt. She laughed apprehensively as they crossed a bridge and came
a little closer to the one place that she felt safe: home.

“You rode the bus last year?” Pat questioned as she looked up from her lunch tray. She didn’t feel completely comfortable around Christalena, but as she looked around the cafeteria, she felt even less so. Backpacks were strewn on chairs across the lunchroom, reserving seats for people still in line.

“Yes I did,” answered Christalena.

“But you’re in U.S. History with me, and isn’t that a freshman class?”

Christalena shifted in her seat. “Yeah. Well, I kinda hafta take it again.”

It was Pat’s turn to shift uneasily.

“But that’s just ‘cause Jackson is a moron, you’ll discover that pretty fast…” Her voice trailed off and her last words were barely perceptible. Her head panned slowly from her left to right. Pat had the feeling that she was, along with the majority of the rest of the lunchroom, no longer existent before Christalena’s eyes. Pat’s head turned to see a fairly short, dark haired boy sitting
down at the empty end of their table. He wore a blank, solid navy tee and long blue jean shorts. He kept his face low. However, Christalena seemed captivated by it.
Pat turned to see Christalena’s mouth slightly agape. The entranced girl quickly recovered herself and said, faintly blushing, “There’s no reason he should be sitting alone.” His eyes, still remaining low, swept across the lunchroom
for any friendly faces near open seats. As he came to Christalena, his eyes noticed the two open chairs to the side of her, and simultaneously, she shot him an inviting smile. He shyly turned his attention to the lunch in front of him.

This only encouraged Christalena. “C’mon.”
Christalena was out of her seat and walking toward the empty seats at the end of the table before Pat could utter a response. The boy’s diffidence reminded Pat of herself the previous day. She quickly got and sat down in the seat next to him. Christalena was already seated across from him and talking.
“Well Matt, I’m Christalena, and this is Pat.” He looked up at her, his reticence now transformed into confused happiness. He didn’t seem to know what to think of the attention he had suddenly gained, but it certainly wasn’t a bad thing.

Pat noticed his eyes were a captivating shade of blue, and his dark hair was gelled down and combed over his forehead. She heard the sound of liquid. Brooke stood towering over Christalena’s back and was emptying a carton of
milk directly into her lap. Christalena whipped her head around and, seeing the culprit, decided not to give her any reaction. Her faced remained blank, but began to turn a deep shade of red. Pat couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or anger. Brooke’s face wore an expression of sheer elation.

As the carton trickled its last few drops, Brooke tossed it and hit Pat on the left shoulder, spotting her shirt with milk. The blonde turned, deliberately elbowing Pat in the head, and walked away with the distinctive look of a child that has just convinced their parent to buy them a new toy: ecstatic, and victorious. Matt had already gotten napkins and handed them to Christalena, whose
face continued to be crimson and expressionless. Pat sat stunned and motionless.

Her gut held an understandable sense of aversion toward Brooke, but the sense of compassion for Christalena caught her completely off guard. She had an urge to hug the green haired girl, but her mind and self-consciousness held her frozen.

“Thanks for the ride,” said Pat as she stepped out of the gray car and stepped out onto her driveway. She started to slam the door. “Hey, wait!” She stopped.

“Just think about homecoming, I’ll give you a ride to the dance, and I swear, Matt and I won’t care if you come to dinner with us. Hell, you eat with us every lunch as it is!” Pat smiled.

“Maybe. But I don’t have a date. I don’t even have a dress.”
“Well, maybe you’ll find one at the dance. Just give me a call sometime tomorrow if you change your mind and we’ll pick you up. You have my number?”

“I have the student directory,” answered Pat. “Thanks again for the ride.”

“No problem, I’ll hear from you tomorrow then!”

Pat shook her head and smiled, then slammed the door and started up to her house. Christalena shifted into reverse backed out of the driveway. She put it into drive and, seeing the light ahead turn yellow, slammed the accelerator. She watched it change to red just as she passed under it. A police cruiser was
stationed at the intersection and Christalena watched her rearview mirror as the light in front of him turned green. No flashing red and blue lights. She let out a deep breath.

As she made a routine right onto Indian Drive, she thought about how quiet Pat seemed once she was in the car. She’s normally quiet, but as soon as she’s in the car, she becomes a mute! Well, I’m sure she has to be much happier than
she would be riding the bus. She pulled up next to the curb, feeling the jolt as her tired ramped it, then came back down onto the street. She walked up to her single story white house, lined with neatly trimmed knee height evergreen shrubs. Christalena passed through the door and threw her backpack full of homework behind the couch. She wouldn’t touch it all weekend.
She made her way to her room and thought about how well everything was going.

She had never felt better. Brooke had stopped harassing her about a week and a half ago. Over the past weeks, Christalena had encountered sauces from spaghetti to apple, and was glad she usually wore black, because the stains never really showed. She had supposed Brooke would get tired of it eventually, and she was glad that the time had finally come. Christalena was still wary of the look she received whenever she passed her in the hallway though. But she could live with that. She had a car, she had a friend that seemed to share understand her
repulsion of the popular crowd, and most of all, she had a date to homecoming. She was smitten. She involuntarily smiled at the thought of Matt and opened the door to the closet. As light filled the inside, it exposed a dress.

It was ankle length and the shoulders featured thin straps that crossed on the back. From the waist to the ankle, the dress consisted of a glossy, deep cream colored satin material, and the torso was speckled with sequence. It was the only dress in her closet, and was the first to be there in the past twelve
years. She still felt a little unnatural going to such a hotbed of popular culture
like homecoming. Between the nauseating music and the fact that everyone is dressed identically, she asked herself why she was even going. It was ridiculous.

Then she though of Matt. He asked me, that’s why I’m going. She smiled. The phone rang and Christalena jumped in surprise.

“His grandma died?” Pat said, shocked. “How awful! I’m so sorry!”

“Yeah, I guess she lived in Texas, and his family flew down there this morning to see his grandpa. He called from his dad’s cell, and I told him that I won’t go to homecoming then since I can’t go with him, so I just wanted to call you today and let you know.” Christalena’s voice was flat and dejected. Pat wanted
to help.

“That’s terrible, but you can still go.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“In fact,” Pat began, “I’ll come with you. We can both have fun, but we’ll do it stag.”

“Are you serious? You’ll actually go just for me?”

Pat weighed her discomfort with going against her friend’s plight. “Yup. But I don’t have a dress.” She looked at the clock on the wall. 4:56. “What time does the dance start?”

“Umm, 8:00,” answered Christalena.

“Okay, I think I’ll have to skip dinner then, but I’ll just meet you outside the school a little after eight.”

“You don’t have to get a dress just to-”

“No, this will be cool,” Pat interrupted. “But I’ve got to go now, so I’ll see you a little after eight.”

“But-”

Click.

Pat was already in a jog out of her room as she slammed the handset onto the receiver. She was halfway down the stairs when it slid off.

Christalena went over to the closet, her mind in a clutter. Am I going? Why?

Matt isn’t! She threw open the doors and looked at her creamy white dress. No way. She looked down at the cordless phone in her hand and punched the redial button. The handset cackled a busy signal at her, and she tried again. Busy.

She dropped the phone to the floor in frustration slowly turned her eyes to the dress. It stared her down ominously. She took a step toward it in quiet surrender.

Pat stopped her mom’s car door in mid-slam. “Okay, okay, I’ll see you at 11:30.” She shoved it the rest of the way. She looked down at her new $185 dollar purchases. She had never gone to any sort of dance before, and she had no clue what to wear.
Pat ended up with a pair off shimmering silver heels and a matching knee length dress. The front came up nearly to the neck, then wrapped around it leaving an open back. It was a hurried decision and she felt a little edgy about wearing
it in public, but as she looked around the parking lot at other couples entering the school, she realized that she looked the same as everyone else. She spotted Christalena not far from the door, looking as though she were trying to
blend into the brick wall. It didn’t work well with a white dress. She quickly approached her. “Christalena, you look great!” Pat felt like saying something entirely different, like, “Christalena, is that you?” Her hair no longer swung freely around
her shoulders. It was put up and held with dozens of bobby pins. And it was black, no longer green. That was just her hair. The difference in her apparel needs no description.

“You too, Pat.” Christalena had some jumpiness in her voice. She was obviously agitated, but more so, terrified.

The both turned to the paved pathway leading to the doors and began to slowly walk. It was Christalena’s last mile, and the gymnasium was death row. Pat noticed her petrified face.
“Hey, loosen up. We’re going to make this fun.” Pat didn’t even believe herself, but hoped that Christalena would.
Christalena, now self-conscious of her facial expression, shook herself back into reality. “You’re right. We have nothing to worry about.” As they approached the school doors, a steady thud, thud, thud, of bass emanated from the gym. They opened the doors and were exposed to a winding line of couples waiting to have pictures taken. They walked down the line, in time with
the steady thud, thud coming from down the hall. Pat walked side by side through the gym doors with Christalena and waited for her eyes to adjust. Streamers and banners were strewn across the gym, and flashing colored lights
bounced in time with a pulsating disco beat. “This is not music,” said Christalena, looking at Pat.

“What?”

“The music: IT BLOWS!” she yelled. Pat laughed and the edge was taken off their nervous tension. They walked around the herd of dancing clones as the rhythmic thuds persisted.
As they came closer to the DJ booth, a group of about ten kids came in from behind them and started dancing. Pat looked around in panic. So did Christalena. They were surrounded by dancing people. They met eyes, at a loss of what to
do except to start dancing. Pat started first, and Christalena followed suit. They attempted to mimic the girls around them without much success. The girls around them were part of the ocean. Pat and Christalena were drowning in it.
The thuds stopped, and some sappy music began to play. Pat let out the breath that she had been holding. Christalena cupped her hand around Pat’s ear:

“Let’s get a drink or something.” Pat nodded back.
They turned to leave and stopped dead in their tracks.
Directly in front of them, slow dancing with his arms around Brooke’s hips, was Matt. Pat’s jaw dropped, and she stared in horror. Brooke, more blonde, beautiful, and attractive than ever, smirked at them for a second, then turned her attention back to Matt. The implications flew through Pat’s mind.

“Christalena, I’m so-”

Christalena was gone.

Pat ran toward the gym exit, knocking into the back of Brooke, but without caring the slightest bit. She moved as fast as ossible in her high heels, but she felt as if she were running in slow motion. She came to the door and looked to the left and the right. Bathroom. She bolted to the right, falling over herself and nearly toppling. She didn’t care at all.

“Christalena!” she called as she entered the bathroom. No response. She checked the stalls. Open. Open. One was locked. She knocked on it.

“Christalena?”

“Nope, sorry,” answered a high pitched voice. Pat rushed out to the hallway, past the gym, and out the front doors of the school. She searched her mind to remember if she saw where the familiar gray car was parked when she had arrived. She couldn’t remember. Here rapid eyes desperately swept the multitude of cars. The sun was just on the horizon and it was difficult identify the styles or colors of any of the cars. They all blended together. Two headlights grabbed Pat’s attention. They
were about 30 feet in front of her. She ran toward them, stumbling a few times because of her shoes. She weaved
between the flock of parked cars, eyes locked on the lights. They began to move. Please, don’t leave! A screech of tires defied Pat’s plea and she watched the familiar gray car dash
past her, rounding the corner and leaving skid marks. Pat stared as it ignored the stop sign, as usual, and tore down the street with immense speed. Pat sighed in frustration, and, at a loss of what else to do, began to walk home.

Christalena never saw her. She was so entirely engaged in her dilemma that it never occurred that her friend would come after her. She had run out of the school in blind panic, and she continued to do so once behind the wheel of her car. The stop sign never even registered with her eyes. A passing car laid on the horn at the near-miss collision. Christalena didn’t
care the slightest bit. Tears rolled down her face and she fought a sob. Why? Why? Her mind repeated it over and over. Why? Brooke’s beautiful, smiling face popped into her mind.

“NOOOOO,” she screamed as she pounded her fist against the steering wheel, beginning to sob wildly in anger, frustration, and surrender. WHY!?! Brooke’s face danced before her eyes and, along with the tears, completely blinded Christalena to what lay ahead of her directly in front of the bridge. Standing on the center line of the road and staring into her headlights was a
deer.

A muted thud, followed by a screech and a much louder crash awoke Pat from her thoughts. A numbing fear invaded her stomach. She began to jog, then sprint, as wild thoughts flew through her mind. She abandoned her high heels and tore
barefoot across the street, reaching the stop sign to see another set of skid marks. She raced in the direction that Christalena had taken. Ahead of her, something lay in the street. Her mind fought panic. She was
breathing hard from her run, and the last thing she needed was panic. She stopped. Ahead of her was the bloody body of a deer lying lifeless in the road, and another set of tire marks. She followed them slowly with her eyes, dreading where they would end up. She knew. She ran to the bridge, the corner grazed with gray paint. She jutted her head over the edge, and as she saw two protruding taillights in the water, she screamed. Never had Pat ever screamed with such force or length. “CHRISTALENA!”
There was no response. Her eyes flew to the river bank, which consisted of a 20 foot drop. She let out another wail.
It was her turn to run with reckless abandon. She bawled uncontrollably as her bare feet pounded against raw pavement and scraped the skin off the bottoms of her feet. It didn’t matter.
With every stride her side ached. It ate at her, and she let it out in a giant release of sobs and tears, of every pain she experienced, physical and emotional.
She threw open the school doors and everyone inside stopped what they were doing. Pat stood there, chest heaving, her hair clinging to her tear streaked face.

“Call 911!” she managed after a sob. Everyone remained standing silently.

“CALL 911!” she shrieked with vehemence at the line of people waiting for pictures. “DID YOU HEAR ME? CALL-,” she sobbed, “call-.” She fell to her knees.

A police officer that had been monitoring the dance came to her side.

“What’s going on?” he asked calmly.
“Christalena’s car went, went off the bridge,” Pat softly managed. The crowd of people erupted in conversation.
The officer got on his radio and pulled Pat to her feet. The two jogged down the pathway for what seemed like the hundredth time that night to Pat. She cleanly pulled open the passenger door of the police cruiser, and it took off, sirens blaring. A mass of students began to pour out of the school doors and
pursue the rushing squad car. The crowd moved as one body, not in a dead sprint, but not walking. The pack
of students in ties and dresses made their way to the accident in more of a curious, slow, casual jog. It took them a few minutes to reach the accident. They approached to see a few more police cars and an officer roping off the entrance to the bridge with yellow caution tape. The students arrived like a crowd
coming to watch a Roman gladiator match, or witness an execution, or like a pack of wolves fighting over the choicest portions of a fresh kill.

Pat stood in the middle of the bridge with her hand over her mouth, tears still streaming down her face while an officer tried to ask her questions. Red and blue lights illuminated the darkening scene as the silence of an ambulance wailed in the distance. The students jostled for the positions that offered the
best view.

The early morning Monday sun peeked over a grove of oak trees on the east horizon. The autumn breeze was chilly, and fallen leaves of every color swirled in tiny whirlwinds throughout the parking lot. The field’s faded green grass was covered in a thin white frost and stood unmoving. A foot sunk into this frozen grass, making a slight “crunch” sound. When it was lifted, a green imprint of the foot stood out in the white frosted field.
The feet made their way onto the path leading to the school doors. It seemed as if this were the first time she had walked up the path, though her mind told her it wasn’t. But in a sense, it was the first time this girl had walked up this path.

She walked not with her eyes down and locked the ground, but with her chin high and her back straight. Her steps were confident. As she calmly opened the school doors and made her way into the school, noise ceased. Every individual person stopped their conversation short and gawked at her.
She was dressed completely in black. She wore long, baggy shorts that stopped halfway between her knees and her feet, and had on a Ramones t-shirt in salute to her friend. Her hair was bright, vivid, florescent green. Conversation was dead.
She strode down the silent hallway, apart from everyone else in the small John Adams High School. She was separate from the crowd that gawked at her, and she would rather have it that way. Her hand clutched her crucifix, no longer tucked beneath her shirt, but swinging freely for everyone to see. She was not
afraid. She held her chin up in defiance at the gaping crowd around her. It was the crowd that worshipped popularity, the crowd that was responsible for Christalena’s death. It was the crowd that stood by and did nothing except fight over the
best view to observe of her friend’s demise.

With each stride, her assurance and poise were strengthened. This time as nobody talked to Pat, she was not lost. She stood tall and alone. Pat had self-confidence, and she didn’t mind rejection or separation from the crowd of predators and duplicates. She could bear it.