I caved into irritation and at breakfast, I marched up to her chair while she ate in her usual spot, as far away from anyone as possible with a million books around her. She looked up at me with one brow raised.
"Can I help you?" She huffed and I nodded. "Actually yes, yes you can." I smacked down a flayer for the night owls program, where kids who want to study late at night(I don't know why) can go over to the library, sign in, and work on whatever they need to do till it's around midnight.
The whole room gasped that I, Felicity Georgia Baxter, dared to snap at Kana Kane. Ash and Mel looked at me from the doors like I had gone mad thinking that I, a simple Gallagher student could stand up to this tall, overpowered, could very much beat me to a nonexistent pulp, very rude, and very mean girl.
She looked at the flyer and nit her brows together taking a while to read what it said:
The Night Owls Program invites YOU to come at any time to the library before midnight for some late night study time! Please sign in and do your work quietly, please.
I didn't get why she was taking so long to read it. It was only two sentences long, did she have trouble reading it? I sighed then read aloud for her but quietly so she wouldn't get embarrassed if she didn't like that fact that others knew she had trouble reading.
"The Night Owls Program invites YOU to come at any time to the library before midnight for some late night study time! Please sign in and do your work quietly, please." She turned red and glared at me.
"I know what it says, I'm not stupid." She growled and I snapped. I was done with her bullsh!t. Her bullsh!t? Done with it.
"Okay whatever, you can read, congrats. Now, will you please take in that stubborn mind of yours that some of us would like to get some sleep at night without you turning on and off the light every five minutes when you remember more homework you have to do!" She glared at me and then snatched the flayer out of my hand studying it a bit more then shrugged.
"Whatever. Not like I care." She commented then shoved it right back at me. Ash put a hand on my shoulder and I gave up.
"You gave it your best shot." She encouraged and I wish more people could be like Ash. She was nice and understanding. She was funny and cute. Unlike that brute we had to share a room with. Mel nodded and looked at the poor flyer with pitty.
Mel was the very reason there was a Night Owl Program. Kana basically said the whole idea was stupid to her face and to everyone else at the school.
I turned to Kana again. "What's your problem with us anyways?" Kana got up and out of her chair. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me. You're so rude to everyone here! What the hell did we ever do to you anyway?" Kana turned red again then was left speechless. "Well?" I was done with putting up with the crazy drama she always made.
I get it, she's not the most social butterfly in the flock but that doesn't mean she gets to channel all her anger out on us. She makes rude remarks, goes too rough when it's just training, she terrifies us all. Kana bit her lip then sat back down.
She muttered something and Mel broke. "Huh?"
"I said, p!ss off!" She stood so quickly books and food went flying and the one to take the bullet for me was none other than my friends. I would have been covered in food but no, they took it for me.
"Guys!" I got napkins and tried to dab the milk that soaked their clothes and the jam that stained everything. They were covered from head to toe in bread crumbs from her PB&J and notes with highlighted paragraphs were everywhere. And she just watched all her hard work on those notes, flutter to the ground like fallen feathers.
I then saw the most shocking thing of all. Tears. Tears welled in her eyes as she just looked at her notes, her clothes at were also victims of her violent sudden movement, then finally at me. I've never in my whole life seen someone so defeated. Her shoulders slumped and she shook her head over and over again going faster every time and running her sticky hands through her hair.
"I don't understand." I saw her mouth and then she stormed out of the doors letting them bang and echo throughout the Grand Hall. I looked at her milk covered notes. They were on the many tests she was having the next day. I felt bad, no, worse than that. I was officially the worst.
I picked them up. All of them, every single last sticky note and textbook. What the heck did I think I was doing? She wasn't the one being mean(well kind of but still) I was. I sighed feeling guilt city coming up and I turned to Mel and Ash and we went to our room so they could get changed and hopefully, I could apologize.
But Kana wasn't there. She was a no-show in all of her classes that day. I came to her classes in between mine to pick up her homework and at the end of the day, we found her, square in the middle of her bed, crisscrossed on her bed, reading a textbook and eating a sandwich.
We didn't ask any questions like where she went, why didn't she go to class, nothing. We let her be. She didn't bug us when we got near she didn't glare at us when we gave her the homework we picked up she said thank you and nothing else.
Soon it was our regular time to go to bed and Kana didn't just leave the light on. Oh no, she stood up, packed her things, looked at the same flyer I showed her and marched out the door but on her way out she turned off the lights.
I couldn't sleep that night for two reasons. One I still didn't know how to say sorry and two, I still had her notes. I didn't know what to do, just give them back and say sorry? I sighed, it was 11 in the night and I still couldn't sleep.
I got up, grabbed Kana's notes, and with all my bravery I walked quietly down the hall to the library. Once I was there and signed in there were only two people there. Kana, and the Librarian. Both of them were asleep.
I cautiously walked over to Kana and was surprised to see the exact books and notes from before the breakfast fiasco all written down but she still had a lot more to go if she wanted to recreate her old notes. But she was fast asleep.
That night I worked my butt off to read her sloppy writing and write it down on the paper she had with her and I highlighted the places where she did before and then shook her shoulders till her sturred then walked out the door leaving her to her notes.
Then I finally got some sleep but only until midnight. I woke up in cold sweat and saw Kana passed out on the floor, papers spread out everywhere around her and her arm stretched out trying to reach her bed but she clearly fell asleep before she could even make it.
I grabbed her limp body and put her down on her bed and took off her bag and shoes putting her notes and a neat an organized pile in her bag so she could find them in the morning.
I still wonder where Kana went after the breakfast fiasco. I guess I'll never know. I smiled to myself. Kana really has changed. From that point on she was a bit nicer to us, she thought about the people around her more and held back her snappy remarks(most of the time).
She would study in the library if she had to stay up late. She didn't reenact the elastic scene or the breakfast fiasco and I did my best to understand her better.
I stayed out her way when she looked in a bad mood or she just looked like she needed time alone. I stopped writing down 'I'll give her one more chance.' Instead, I wrote down. 'I'm glad I made a new friend.'
The best part was that I saw a whole new girl, I saw a kinder Kana an I let her know that I was there if she needed help. Soon she warmed up to us I guess since she asked Mel for help on homework one day and actually memorized our names.
In fact, it was the same day that she asked help for homework that we started to grow a stronger friendship. Sure she was a jerk on the way but so was I. In fact, I think that's when I first started to feel feelings for her.
She was so passionate about what she believed in that it was kind of contagious. She polluted the air with her confidence and she started to do better in her grades. She worked harder than I've ever seen her work before. She shared her stories with us and they inspired me. If she could survive such a harsh and cold childhood maybe I could survive too.
Every boy in school was in love with her I wondered how she did it. Then I found out quickly by falling myself. She wasn't the smartest girl in school, she wasn't the prettiest, she wasn't here for academics, she was incredibly athletic but that wasn't where she shined.
She cared. she had feelings, something most of us didn't know she had. Like when she helped out Bree and acted like it was nothing. When we spared she would give us pointers and sometimes let us win. She was helpful and wild. She bent the rules to her will, she rebelled and it was crazy how she did it.
She would rebel openly with no fear whatsoever. She could look death in the face and spit in its eye and not care. She could be faced with the world's best spies out to get her and she would sass them without a second thought.
She was brave, she was strong, but she also let her weak sides show. Once when Ash got hurt she didn't hesitate to help her even if it met getting hit by the punching bag in the face. She walked over as quickly as she could and helped her up.
She could be gentle or not. She was a whole new kind of free. She did what she wanted, she did what the rules did, she did all these things without over thinking it. She was real, like a character out of a story. She wasn't perfect, she had flaws, flaws she wasn't exactly proud of them or let them show very often but they were there.
Her story was so interesting, she struggled through such a hard time but didn't come out unscratched. She was scared and just a kid deep down really. But she fought against it all, she fought back against fear and it was just incredible. She was incredible.
