“I thought you were hungry,” she whispers, lowering the food onto the plastic bag directly between us.
She pulls out a reading book from her bag, and I watch her flip page after page while nibbling on her sandwich timidly. When the last bite disappears, she places the cracker next to the remaining bread and pulls the doll into her teeny arms, quietly reading her book.
It doesn’t matter how long I stare at her or how long I pretend to look away, my stomach doesn’t stop groaning, and she doesn’t spare a second glance at the remainder of her lunch—the same lunch sitting closer to me than her.
Tentatively, I inch my fingers toward the food, waiting for her to snatch it away from me as the other kids sometimes do. But she does the opposite. She gives me this sad little smile that kicks me in the gut when I take the first bite.
It’s awful. Both her sad look, and the crap I’m eating.
The bread is probably drier than the cracker next on my list of things to eat. The butter isn’t even spread properly, as Troy’s wife would. She always made sure she got the spread to every corner, and nothing was too clumpy or too thin, and it would always go into a container to stop it from becoming mush.
This tastes like a child made it, and the butter is only in the middle of the bread. I stuff the rest into my mouth, not bothering to savor it or enjoy the feeling of something other than water in my stomach, just in case Pigtails changes her mind.
Too caught up in filling my face, I miss the prickle of her stare until she finally asks, “What’s your name?”
Her voice is so soft and delicate, like a princess who always has flowers in her hair, a big puffy dress, and a blinding smile.
I run my tongue over my dry lips, trying to get some moisture on them after eating the driest food ever. My eyes drift to the drink bottle that’s now next to the plastic bag. It’s the super crinkly plastic kind from the grocery store that’s thrown away once it’s empty.
She shouldn’t be so giving. Someone is going to take advantage of it one day and hurt her.
“It doesn’t matter.” My nose wrinkles as I grab the bottle and inhale a healthy amount of the liquid, leaving her half of it. “I’ll be gone soon anyways.”
“Oh.”
She sounds sad. Why does she sound sad?
The bell rings, and she doesn’t waste time packing away her stuff and scurrying off like her tail is on fire.
The next day, I spot the pigtailed girl in the locker room again at the end of recess, standing in the corner while Skinny and Ugly laugh. Something in my stomach churns when I see the tears running down her cheeks, her face burning red like she’s been crying for a while. Then she wipes them away with her sleeve and hides behind her hair when the final bell rings.
I didn’t see her at the gap in the corner during the break. I thought she found another place where she could hide from the world.
I guess I was wrong.
She runs to her classroom before the two idiots can say another word, and I watch as they cross the foyer and into the room behind me.
There was one other thing I learned yesterday: Skinny and Ugly are in my class. And Skinny and Ugly like to pick on the younger grades.
I know their type; the bad kids who think they’re invincible just because someone smaller than them can’t fight back. Like Pigtails.
When lunch rolls around, I follow them out and wait for them as they grab their bags and disappear to one of the benches near the back of the school. Before Skinny can put his ass on the seat, I sink my grip into the back of his shirt and yank backward. I kick my leg out, so he stumbles over my foot and loses his balance, landing on the ground with a solid thud.
Ugly is as stupid as he looks because he lunges for me, with no form or practice, all rage. He stops screaming when my fist collides with his face, and he rears back, squealing like a little baby.
Skinny tries to scramble to his feet, but my foot lands on the side of his ribs. “What’s your problem, dude?” he hisses, clutching his side.
“Talk to the mouse again, and I’ll do a lot worse to your stupid face,” I sneer and snatch one of the backpacks. I almost hit them again, just because it isn’t empty like mine.
“Who?” I’m not sure which one speaks.
“Pigtails.”
Without a second glance at them, I shove one of their lunch boxes into my bag and storm away. I can feel them gawking at me, probably nursing their wounds at the same time.
They won’t tell the teacher. What are they going to say?
He hit us because we were picking on the girl two grades younger than us.
I don’t think so.
She’s already there by the time I get to our spot. The rat doll thing is perched next to her, holding half a cracker, while the other is between her teeth, nibbling away like a rabbit as she reads her book.
The same pathetic sandwich is on the same useless, ripped plastic bag. Her pigtails are messier than yesterday, with one sitting near the center of her head and one just above the ear, tied with mismatching hair ties.
Her shoes are holey. A church would be jealous.
Her top is ripped.
The second she sees me, she becomes the same scared mouse from yesterday, hunching her shoulders and staring at the ground as if she’s willing me to go away.
I drop beside her, and she flinches, even though I am a safe distance away.
That needs to stop.
I’m not going to hurt her. Other people can try to.
Besides a sideways glance of curiosity, she doesn’t acknowledge me as I pull out Ugly’s or Skinny’s lunch box, clicking the side open and revealing the type of lunch I thought she would have.
A banana and a decent slice of bread with chicken, mayo, and greens layered in the middle. I push a finger into the bread, checking that it wouldn’t pass as cardboard.
“Eat.” I shove the whole container in her direction and grab her untouched sandwich.
Her eyes grow wide as I take a bite of the awful thing—I’m not even going to call it food.
I bare my teeth out of reflex when she snatches the bread from my hand.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Her pigtails swing side to side as she shakes her head frantically, trembling as she rips her sandwich in half to push it back into my hand.
Is she serious right now? She’s going to hog a sandwich and a half all to her—
She also tears the other sandwich in half, leaving one on the container and bringing the other to her lips.
“We’ll each have a side,” she says.
I shove the sandwich she made into my mouth and swallow it down. The other one tastes better than anything I’ve eaten in a long time.
Her gaze is trained on me with keen interest. “I thought you shouldn’t share food.”
“Shut up. You don’t count.”
She looks up at me with her little button nose and ridiculous hair, and her eyes sparkle with something I can only call admiration. She’s looking at me like I’m her savior. Just because of a piece of bread?