Crisscross
By: Stained In Negativity
Lesion

They are healing. The red gashes on the inside of my arm are slowly but surely leaving. To my eyes, they seem to delicate, as if a single movement of my arm will cause the transparent seal to rip, and the twinge will start once again. But I know otherwise. It is after tennis practice, and so far nothing has happened. Everything is well. I do not bleed, I do not hurt, and my secret is not revealed.

Nothing.

The only things I receive are odd looks and glances toward my long sleeves, the only things I hear are whispers behind my back.

Nothing.

Now all I have to do is make it out of the girls' locker room alive. It's true, what the public see in the movies. There are mean girls in every school, and the average, quiet girls can't go a year without having an encounter with one of them. Unfortunately, my tennis team is made up of those types the girls. The stereotypes. The kind that have their noses stuck in the air and the type that are constantly dieting because they think they're fat when in reality they're all skin and bones.

I stop thinking about what makes me angry and focus on making sure I look half way decent.

The person inside of the mirror is staring back at me vacantly. There are ugly bags under her eyes, the rims of her auburn orbs a sheer black. Amethyst and crimson do not match; one's too interesting for the other. But the tainting color is not as visible because it lays upon bronze, a shade that somehow manages to make all others disappear in its presence. Self consciously, I pull a strand of ginger behind my ear and attempt to smooth out the waves.

After what seems like eternities, I am a little reassured about my appearance.

But my reflection says otherwise. The ginger haired girl is still not completely there. Sure, she might be there, she and her uncertain smile. Her scars. But she's just remains of what had been, what could have been. A good for nothing empty shell.

I gasp, hopefully not loud enough to attract attention to myself. But of course, no one would have noticed anyway. I close my eyes, balancing myself. A few seconds ago I thought someone pulled the ground from underneath me, as if I was two seconds short of landing right on my face. I would have been shattered like a vase carelessly thrown at the tiles of a kitchen. But I didn't. Not yet.

Gathering my valor, I look back inside of the mirror. I remember the darkest corner of the room, the one that is always painted with shadows, the one that was home to her. It seems as if I haven't escaped her. I should have known. I She didn't just live in my mirror, she lived in every mirror I ever glanced into, like Bloody Mary.

But my appearance was far worse.

Fatigue.

I grimace.

Imperfection.

I frown.

If I had a rock I would break this mirror, too.

Dejected, I sigh. There's nothing I can do that will make me look better. Pretty. So I turn my back to the mirror, the reflection, and zip up my gym back that lies upon the counter. Slinging it over my shoulder, I head for the heavy door that leads to the outside world. This part of tennis practice, or should I say after practice, I like. It's the one of the few things that causes a faint smile and a flare in my soul to quietly glow. For twenty four hours, I won't be forced to go through the agony of listening to shallow remarks.

But my smile drops from my face as I hear a snobbish coo behind me. "Sora."

I cease walking. Just when I thought I was going to get out in one peace… My hand immediately comes up to where my heart is supposed to be and clutches the fabric of my green uniform, like I am having a stroke. I probably am. No exaggerations.

Reluctantly, I turn on my heel to face my caller. I offer a fake, awkward grin at the girl who is wearing a glossed smirk. Like any other teenage girl, her face is painted so that her eyes will stand out and her cheekbones are made sure to be noticed. The eyebrows above her orbs do wonders to define her bone structure, her stunning face. Her faultless hair is waving like a flag behind her, each step she is taking adding to her own wind of reign. Everything about her screams overconfident. No, she is overconfident.

She's Cynthia.

"Hey," I greet, but it is not a warm welcoming. Neither is it cold.

Nonetheless she does not notice. She stops about three feet away from me, and even from here I can smell her fragrance. It is posh, of course.

We're silent. I bet she's observing things about me as I am of her, and I already know she does not think too highly of me so I don't expect her thoughts to be very kind or sympathetic. I do not have a reason for this, though. I never did anything to her. I guess I am just one of those people that are not very well liked by others.

The pink sheen of a smile on Cynthia's lips is growing even wider. The skin on her face is stretching so much the corners of her eyes are nonexistent, her pupils wide with baleful delight.

"Your hair is so pretty," she compliments.

It takes me some time to respond. I cannot decipher if this is fake, like the rest of her and everything else she has said and done in the past, or if she is sincere. But truthfulness is not one of her strong points, and if this is an honest compliment I should be in a severe shock.

"The color is so beautiful," my teammates continues.

I do not hesitate. "My hair's always been this color," I say, probably spitting out the words so that she will be distraught.

"But it looks so much more incandescent recently," Cynthia notes, completely ignoring my retort. She does not give up, does she? I have my mouth open to tell her I need to leave, that I am expected home soon, but she says, "Is it because Tai's your new boyfriend?"

I close my mouth, taken aback. Coming from her, the comment, the truth, seems like a lie. A delusional, head-in-the-cloud fantasy that some fan girl has made up to entertain her giggling friends. Not conscious to it, I narrow my eyes at Cynthia, who is merely standing in front of me, the smirk still glued on her perfect face. How much does she know? And how does she know? I thought Tai said I could be the one to brag that I am his girlfriend. He wouldn't go against my word to keep the relationship sort of a secret, would he? Maybe he would if I had told him why…

I realize that Cynthia is waiting for an answer. It wasn't a rhetorical question.

"I have to go," I say, and turn on my heel, the door clear in my sights. But Cynthia steps from behind me and acts like a road block.

"No, no," she insists, reaching out and holding my shoulders. "We don't hang out very much. Let's talk for a while."

Now I'm not facing the back of the locker room anymore. I can see the orange lockers are all closed, I can see the dirty walls from previous graffiti stains. I realize it isn't as hot as it was a few minutes ago, and that's probably because most of the girls from my team are leaving. Or, left. Only one is remaining, and I can see that she is packing a text book in her book bag. Mutely, I watch her leave the room, her foot disappearing past the heavy doors, it slamming shut and briefly echoing throughout the now isolated locker room.

Isolated, except for two.

I bite down my tongue in order to keep from screaming in irritation, and possibly fear. Maybe a combination of both. A growl is growing in my throat, and I too keep that down. My hair will not suffer from being pulled out by my fingers. No matter how well I try to hide my emotions, I see that the smirk Cynthia is wearing is widening. I stare darkly at her, feverishly wishing she can see my hatred for her reflected among the auburn in my orbs. Blind as she is, she probably doesn't.

"What do you want to talk about?" I ask reluctantly. My tongue tingles with abhorrence.

Cynthia gives off one of those high pitched giggles that sends the image of shattering glass run across my mind's eye.

"Everything," she replies. She even waves her hand as if she were shooing away a fly. She sighs deeply. I bet she's exhausted from fake merriment. It must be very tiring. "I have a marvelous idea," she continues. "Let's catch up on Sunday. We can do a little shopping while we're at it."

Catch up? We do not even have anything to catch up on. Our accountantship has solely been based on competition, loathe and possibly envy. I do not know why she would ever be jealous of me, but I never said she was doing the envying. That's all me. I am a bit ashamed to admit it, but sometimes I wish I could be more confident like her. That's the characteristic that makes others want to be around her, whereas I'm not so entertaining. We're almost polar opposites. She makes me hate myself. But I take another look at her, trying to see what is beneath the makeup, but I realize that there isn't anything there. It is only then that I appreciate what I am. Or start to.

"Well?" Cynthia urges me. "Are we shopping or what?"

Should I? I don't have anything to do, and maybe I can get her to buy me a few things, since we're friends, and I am using that term very, very, very lightly.

"Sure," I finally say.

We smile at each other like best friends taking pictures, a Kodak moment, but she and I both know it is fake.

Cynthia suddenly takes out a magazine from out of nowhere- well, somewhere, but I truly don't care- and she shoves it in my face. It's too close for me to distinguish what it is, but it must have something to do with makeup because I recognize one of the logos, plus the cover is glittery with shades I know are in this season.

"You can borrow this," my arrogant teammate offers. "It'll help you. On Sunday we can go to the salon, too, and get you a makeover."

My eyebrows curve downward.

Should I be offended? Because I am.

Numbly, I roll up the magazine and stuff it into my gym bag. I don't care if she says something about the periodical being crumbled, I just want to go home and relax. Cynthia doesn't seem to mind.

Still smiling. "I can't wait until Sunday."

"Me too," I agree. Nothing could be further from the truth, though.

Cynthia's staring at me weirdly. I wonder if my facial expression gave away my true feelings. But her watch isn't accusing or offended, it's observing. She's watching something on my forehead, I decide. Maybe someone thought it would be funny to write I hate Cynthia on my forehead, but that's taking it to the extreme.

I explode. "What are you staring at?"

Cynthia's fingers twitch at the sides of her body. "Your eyebrows need fixing," she states vacantly, and unzips her purse to look for something. Tweezers, most likely.

"No they don't," I object. My eyebrows are in the fact what people complement me most on, besides my eyes or my brilliant hair. They say my eyebrows make me my expressions look soft, innocent yet compelling. "My eyebrows are just fine."

"But I see a stray hair," she says. Now her hand is out of her purse and she is holding up a gleaming tweezer above her head, as if trying to make the lights above us grace it. I suppress a groan of frustration. If I wasn't so mad I would be laughing right now.

"I can fix it when I get home," I retort. "A stray hair won't kill me."

"But of course it will!"

Cynthia seizes me by the shoulder with one hand on the count of the other one being busy with the beauty utensil. I wiggle, trying to get away from her, but she is surprisingly strong. I feel stupid all of a sudden. Why don't I just let my gym bag fall to the ground before I fight her off? I toss of the extra load to the ground. As I turn my head to face her, something roughly brushes against me, the pointy tip burying into my skin. It travels from the tip of my eyebrow to the end of my jaw, and it stops when I cease moving.

I push away from the other girl. My hand comes up the side of my face as I almost lose my balance, but luckily I find support on a counter. To my shame, I'm shivering. It wasn't cold, but I still had goose bumps forming on my skin. It's a while before I can say anything, and when I do manage to open my mouth, I taste salt. It reminds me of a late sunset weeks ago, one where I was slumped against my desk admiring the early shadows fall through my uncovered window. An arm on my lap, bleeding…

The cold floor of the nurse's office is actually pretty nice. The tile are white, but if one looks very closely at it one can see the faint grey dots among the brilliant red ones. One set of them are not real, one set of them are. If I didn't know any better, I'd think they were faded droplets of blood, too. They have the same shape, the same feeling. But the ones on the tiles are meant to be for design, whereas the crimson stains are from dull anguish.

Same difference, though, right?

Right?

Right?

Right.

I really do not like where I am right now. Or, should I say, the circumstances. The shadow that suddenly falls across the creative discoloration I am admiring is shallow. The black is transparent and fake. I do not know how it can be, but that is truthfully what it is. I do not even want to glance up to see Cynthia's glossed smirk. Doesn't she ever get tired from grinning? There's nothing to grin about, besides my suffering.

The only part I can see of Cynthia is her shoes. They're white, just like the floor. I lean over just a little bit more so that I might be able to taint it, just as I did the ground. But she evidently realizes what I am trying to do because she steps back a bit. And I can't lean over more so that I can follow through on my plan, because then I'll fall over. I do not need another injury.

So I wipe the idea off my mind and concentrate on the blood dripping from my face. It's ironic how I keep on getting injured. Both purposely and accidentally. I wouldn't be bleeding terribly right now, but on my way to the nurse's office, as my hand covered the part of my ruined face, my nail poked through the thin opening of the wound and made the cut worse. More blood. It was not a surprise, and I was having too much fun playing with the gash to give a damn.

Who would have thought tweezers could be so dangerous?

It's not funny.

"I'm so sorry about what happened," the owner of the shadows says in her sweet coated voice.

I don't say anything.

"Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?"

Go to Hell.

"No," I say quietly. "Just go home."

I can practically see her shrug nonchalantly, as if nothing. I see her shadow move as she does, and it isn't long before I can barely see any of her. But I can still hear exclaim, "See you Sunday!"

Not likely.

Cynthia seems like she has run into someone, because I can hear her mumble, "Sorry…" It doesn't catch my interest, though. I hope she gets hurt like I did. Maybe that would bring her down a peg or two. But I know that will never happen.

Someone else enters the room. This somewhat surprises me, because it is after school and any normal person would have gone home already. Who'd want to at school more than they have to? The first thing I see about the new comer is his brown shoes. There's a flash of faint gold as I look up, and my jaw practically hits the floor at realization of who it is.

I sit up straight. "Matt! What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," the blond smoothly replies as he makes his way to the chair across from me. His green jacket is still buttoned, but it seems wrinkled. He more of sinks into the seat than sits in it, and as soon as his back is leaning against the chair for support he fumbles with something in his uniform pant's pocket. But his other hand is resting in his lap, limp.

We hold eye contact. Though he's looking at me, I feel as though he's looking right past me, right threw me. Maybe it has something to do with his eye color. Cerulean. The color of depression and cold. Possibly hate. I don't know a lot of people who are like him, with his eye and hair color. His little brother has the same colors as him, but he's softer, warmer. Everything about Matt Ishida is both emotionally and physical brawny. Serious.

I hope he can't see the truth about me.

"Sora?"

I shake my head, on tenterhooks to get thoughts rid of. "Hmm?"

"I asked you a question," he says. Like his expressions, I can never read his tone of voice. It's always deep and calm. Like waves at the beach.

"I'm sorry," I breathe, then wince at what I was about to say. "I wasn't paying attention."

"Oh." He's motionless, eyes never leaving my face. But he seems to be gazing at someone else, not me. "I asked you why you're in here."

"Cynthia attacked me," I spat out, and then recoiled. I didn't mean to sound so self-important. I'm not.

Matt raises a thin, barely noticeable eyebrow. "Cat fight?"

I actually smile. The way he said those two words were so funny. I can't explain it.

"What'd she stab you with? Eyeliner? Tweezers?"

My sudden silence answers that question for him.

"Damn," he remarks, frowning. "That's just wrong."

I nod. "I think it was on accident. She was talking to me in the locker room, and after she invited me to go to the mall with her on Sunday she said something about my eyebrows needing tweezing, and next thing I know I'm here."

Matt is silent for a minute. I hypnotically stare into cerulean. "There's nothing wrong with your eyebrows," he finally says.

"That's what I told her."

The blond guessed the rest. "She didn't listen. Maybe she should trade the tweezers in for some cotton swabs."

I laugh. It's good to hear that there are other people who are not fond of people. Or at least that's what I assume. Matt wouldn't speak badly about someone that he does like, right? It goes against his morals. I've known him for five years, and he's changed a lot since then. But one thing that hasn't changed in him is that loyal quality.

The nurse finally comes and cleans out my wound. With Matt watching, a permanent shy smile is painted on my face. Whenever I feel someone's eyes on me, it makes me want to smile out of embarrassment. I'm so focused on cerulean that I do not even notice that the nurse is doing to my face. I lose my senses. Does the liquid she is cleaning out my wound with sting? Will this injury leave a scar? Does it even matter?

I wonder what Tai will say about my new flaw.

Tai!

I forgot about him. I visibly frown. Wasn't he supposed to meet me right after practice? Since I was a little late, because of Cynthia, he probably left. Did he think I ditched him? I would never… I need to talk to him after I get out of here.

But when the nurse said I was free to go, I didn't leave. I continued to sit across from Matt Ishida. He was silent the whole time, waiting patiently to be attended by the nurse.

"Are you here because of your arm?" I ask, my observations finally registering with my brain. The arm he had rested in his lap hasn't moved at all. I can tell his other hand was playing with keys, probably the keys to his apartment.

"Yeah," he coolly replies. A few strands of his gold hair fall across his face, covering the cerulean. Since he won't leave the keys alone, and since his other hand is useless, he can't put the locks back into place. He shakes his head about until he can see clearly again.

Realizing that I am staring at him, I blink and ask, "What happened?"

"Accident." Matt is quiet for a second, staring back at me vacantly as if deciding what he can safely tell me. Suddenly, he looks away from me and says so quietly that I have to strain my ears, "Karma is something that I'd rather not say. But it does rhyme with 'witch'."

I giggle.

For some reason, I remember that the last conversation I had with the blond was about his younger brother managing to get his whole family together for a fancy dinner. I know Matt doesn't think too highly of his mother, and from the ways he says things and describes it, it seems she doesn't think much of her ex-husband.

"Oh, that reminds me. How did your family dinner go?"

"Horrible," he groans, as if he was in pain by just thinking about it. "It was going well at first, but then everything was thrown in a brown paper bag, set on fire and launched straight to Hell."

Realizing that it wasn't the right time to ask him such questions, I frown and tell him things will get better between his two halves of a family.

I grin to add to my words. The skin on my face moves, probably from the shocked muscles, causing pain to dully merge. But it doesn't stop my merriment. The sort of band aid looking thing numbs its affects a bit.

He smiles faintly back at me. But I notice something different in it, in him. The sheepish grin is forced. It's not the same as a true smile, where cerulean is ecstatic and shimmering like the sun's rays on placid water. One is able to see what is truly lurking beneath the transparent surface. One can see the demons swimming, a vague trace of blackness among crystals.

No emotion, no feeling, no pain.

Like scars.

I glance down at my index finger as it delicately traces the pattern of crisscrosses through the fabric of my long sleeved uniform.