Note: This story takes place shortly after the events chronicled in "Rebirth."
*****
The young lady walked as though she casually dominated the world even though she was simply moving through the campus along with the students as they made their way to their destinations. No one seemed to be in any particular rush on a spring day like today. The sky was blue with but a few cotton ball clouds floating through. It was just warm enough so that the breeze was comforting and forceful enough to create a bit of white noise as it rushed past the leaves. She enjoyed simply going places and seeing things and the campus was lovely in and of itself.
There was a mix of old and new, with one hundred and fifty year-old legacy buildings of rustic, aged masonry and glass and steel monuments to the size of alumni donations. They blended together well enough to be not a particularly jarring contrast to the eye. She liked to explore people as much as places and she had honed her observational skills well over months. You could tell a lot about people without even talking to them. Did they have a casual gait or did every step look like it was contemplated well in advance? Was their smile easy? What sort of clothes did they wear? A million small things came together to tell you all about them before you'd even said hello. Her lady love told her that it was very Sherlock Holmes of her, and she could see it, too. Not only was it a fun exercise, it helped her in any number of aspects of her life.
She found herself under a massive oak tree with music streaming into her wireless buds and a book on her phone. She liked tangible books but sometimes they just weren't practical. Her mother disagreed, but daughter suspected it was just because mother spent inordinate amounts of time in front of one screen or other anyway. That much she could understand, but it didn't stop some occasional generational ribbing that led her mother to roll her eyes.
"They'll fall out of your skull if you keep doing that," Kayley would say in her own matronly tone.
"Go away," mother would command and off daughter would go with a smile knowing mother was trying to hide her own grin without even looking.
Time passed and the breeze blew and it was a lazy, relaxing while. Deciding to take a break once Chapter Five was done she stretched out on the perfectly manicured landscape and looked around again. She could finish the whole book in nothing flat if she wanted, but it wasn't about reading for speed, it was all about stretching out a lovely moment in time. A jovial, but elitist group of pretty girls walked by, hair and makeup perfect, ignoring the eyes that they knew were upon them because they were who they were, while behind them a couple walked the stone path. The way the eyes of the blonde young man lingered on that of the more athletic female soul with darker hair told her there was definitely a crush going on that the other seemed oblivious to. Part of her entertained the various possible outcomes of it all and most of them were amusing. She also pondered all the ways the she could help that along were she so inclined.
Not that she would, really. But she could. It was good to have skills.
To her left off in the distance was a young woman under an oak not unlike herself, but she was hardly enjoying her time there. Rather, her knees were bent with her arms around them huddled into herself. She'd occasionally break the pose to slide a finger under her glasses to wipe away tears before the got a chance to speed down her cheeks. Her glasses were a bit thick and she didn't bother with a lot of makeup, probably just because of a strict upbringing hinted at when the lack of makeup was coupled with the very not trendy and head-to-toe covering. She had nice bone structure and could really stand out even with the thick glasses if she applied herself.
Curiosity got the better of her so she lifted herself from the greenery and crossed the concrete pathway to the tree where the young woman sat and sat next to her. "Hi there. Everything all right?"
The other shifted away, quickly wiping away another tear, smearing across her freckled cheek, causing her glasses to jump and for her to resettle them on the bridge of her nose. "Fine."
"You don't look fine, if you don't mind my saying so."
"I kinda do. I'd really kind of like to be alone right now."
She looked straight ahead huffed in amusement, "That's not true."
The other looked to her, seeing her still staring off at the tree she used to be under. "What's
that
supposed to mean?"
Her head lolled casually towards the other, "It means what I said. If you wanted to be alone you'd be in your dorm or somewhere else where you were actually alone. You're out here because you want to be seen."
She cleared her throat and sniffed. "Sounds like you've got everything figured out. Well, if you're so smart, why am I out here then?"
"You're looking around trying to figure out what it is in people that could make whatever happened happen. Or you want to see if anybody gives a damn, if only to confirm to your sad heart that no one does. So, to that end, what happened?"
"Like you care. Look at you."
She gave herself a once-over, "What about me?"
She recited the problems as she saw them from head to toe, "Hair perfect, makeup perfect, nails perfect, clothes perfect; has there ever been a day when something
didn't
go your way?"
"Quite a few, to be honest," she said. "We all go through our awkward phases, girls especially." Her eyes followed clouds as her mind followed. "My mother sat me down one night when I was a girl and feeling down. She explained that she knew how I felt and that I'd blossom as I should, as the bright, brilliant soul I already was."
She was then playfully put upon, "Then she proceeded to spend the next hour and a half laying out exactly how my face and body were likely to fill out and how I could speed that up and accent that through exercise. She assured me that it'd all work out. It did."
The distraught young woman was slightly less so now in that she was curious as much as anything else. "She diagrammed to you how you were going to fill out?"
The young woman looked over, pleased at the memory as much as the other's reaction. "In excruciating detail." She laughed at the way the other's mouth dropped just a little. "Yeah, it sounds crazy, but my mom's a scientist and that's just how her mind works. She thought she was being helpful and, after it was over and I got over all the 'Ewwww, Mom!' and time had a chance to do its thing, she was pretty much right." A few added enhancements didn't hurt either, but Amanda didn't need to know about those. She finally wondered aloud, "What's your name anyway?"
"Amanda," she said finally. "Amanda Wells."
"Kayley Samuels. Nice to meet you." She took a breath, "Let's try again; what's the matter?"
Sadness welled up within Amanda again, afraid to put words to it because it might bring the tears back. "People suck."
"For the most part," Kayley agreed as she pondered it. "Individual people can be cool or not, but people, as an all-encompassing group, generally suck. Why, in particular, for you?"
Amanda sniffed and exhaled slowly, looking up at the sky still hoping that it'd swallow her whole. "You try to fit and you can't fit because they don't want you to because it's just too much fun to screw with you."
"So who screwed with you?"
"People I thought were my friends." Amanda was sure she knew what Kayley's response would be so she beat herself up for it first, saying aloud what she'd been saying to herself for days, "I know. Just because people are being nice to you, that doesn't mean they're your friends and I know I just walked right into everything, but...it seemed like they might... And I thought she might..."
"You left your little town and that's a scary thing all by itself and you call your parents once a week. Or more."
