Current Events. Current Events.
I scan each door I pass. Where was room 201?
I think as I walk. Another year, another school. Without failure, it always happens. I had resisted at first, but they always won. Time for a new faster family, Jenna. You’ve been here too long. So they pick me up and move me across the country. I get a new family, and they try to care, try to make me happy, but in the end, I know it’s just for a year. So I make it my goal to get through that year unscathed and unnoticed.
“You look a little lost,” you say. It’s a simple observation, nothing more. It isn’t judgmental or even pitying.  You don’t give me some smile that makes my heart flip or a smirk that makes me hate you and want to smash our lips together at the same time. You just looked at me. You observed.
“No,” I immediately deny. Accepting help leads to friendships which lead to hurt when I leave. Hurt is not a part of the “unscathed and unnoticed” plan. You roll your eyes and sigh. Your legitimacy in your annoyance is what shocks me the most, I think. You are honestly annoyed that I had turned down your unspoken offer for help. Your eye roll and sigh doesn’t mean “you poor pitiful creature” or “I’m pretending to be annoyed to seem cool but really I think you’re hot”. It’s real. You’re real.
“Don’t be difficult. You’re only hurting yourself. Just tell me what class you have.”
Before I can refuse again, the final bell rings and I am officially late to my first class on my first day. Perfect. Just perfect. Way to make a great first impression.
My eyes scan you quickly. It was just some help, not a marriage proposal. I would just have to make sure we have nothing to do with each other in the immediate or distant future. My jaw ticks as I fight this internal battle. I need to get to class, but I don’t want help. I frown at you, angry at you for being nice to me.
“Current events,” I spit out. You nod once motioning for me to follow you.
I do.
The walk is silent. Not the silence of companions nor an awkward one. It is the same silence as the silence of strangers sitting next to each other on a train. It is the silence of two separate people with their own lives who are going to stay like that.
“I never caught your name,” you say as I trail behind you.
“Doesn’t matter.”