Paige. The kids at my school would raise an eyebrow at the name. The popular kids wouldn’t recognize that name. The medium-popular kids wouldn’t recognize that name, either. Maybe the nice kids would pretend to recognize it. Maybe from a club meeting, maybe from that middle school production of Hoodie, where I was the lead. However, I do exist. I’ve attended this school for three years now. I’ve been in French with Lacey since my sophomore year, when she transferred from the glamorous state of California, all California accent and flirty A-line skirts and flowy, shoulder blade length golden hair. All pretty-popular girl. All much better then me.

“Excuse me!” Speaking of Lacey, she’s smashed into me. Lacey flicks her hair over her shoulder, and gives me the patented Lacey smile. She raises an eyebrow. “May I please get into my locker?” Her sky blue eyes meet my muddy brown eyes, and I’m temporarily frozen.

“Yeah.” I step a bit to the right, and she twirls her combination into her locker. I pull my shirt down, and stare at Lacey. Today, she’s in a bleached white button-up shirt and a pink flowered skirt. She grabs her Geometry workbook and a sketchbook, and closes her locker. Lacey turns to me, and raises an eyebrow.

“Do I have something stuck to my shirt?” She sounds confused, and I speak carefully.

“No, not at all. I just… spaced out, is all.” I move to go to my locker, and I trip over Lacey’s foot. Her face is tinged red, and my face is red from tripping into the locker door. I feel stupid, and I’m embarrassed, and there’s blood dripping from my nose and my lip. I know my lip’s going to be swollen, and Lacey puts a hand out for me to grab.

“I’m so sorry! I should’ve watched where I was standing… I’m such a klutz!” She passes me a travel pack of tissues, the kind wrapped in plastic with patterns on it. Cherry blossoms. I hold a tissue up to my face, and Lacey sits across from me.

“Look down. It’s tempting to look up, but that could cause you to drown in your own blood.” Lacey cringes, and laughs. “That’s gross. Still, look down at the floor. And try not to sneeze.” My eyes scan my olive green shorts, and I feel gross sitting across from Lacey. After five minutes, my nose isn’t bleeding. My lip is, however, but I can just keep the tissue against it. I look up, and Lacey has another tissue in her hand. I take the tissue from her hand. Our fingers lightly brush, and her face is a little redder.

I stand up, and she hands me a Physics II textbook. “An apology textbook. So you don’t have to go in your locker.” I take the book, and she hands me another thing. A sky blue notebook.

I stand up, tissue against my lip. Before I go, Lacey hands me one more thing. A yellow pass that has the date as today, with our English teacher’s signature. I smile at Lacey, and she smiles back.