Different

Chapter 3

Just A Little Thank You

There was still a smile on her face when our eyes met. "Just a little," she said again. Her eyes were intense, and I flinched a bit. "Okay?"

"Just a little," I whispered back. Sitting completely still, I closed my eyes and waited for her to be done. She pulled the hair away from my head in little bits. I would hear the snip of the scissors, and then she'd move to the next part. I tensed only a little at the sound when it came close to my ears. There was a strange feeling of unreality, like this was all just a dream, and I was still asleep, almost ready for the alarm to go off and wake me to get ready for school.

I turned my head a little and looked at Padme. She was standing in the kitchen where my mother had cooked dinner. It was just weird.

"All done!" Padme announced. "Do you have a mirror?"

"Upstairs," I said.

"Do you want to go look?" She seemed nervous, and I wondered what she thought of being here with me, which made me realize something.

"No one has been in the kitchen since my mom died," I said, "except for my Uncle Obi-Wan."

Padme took a half step back, and I heard her gasp. I stood from the stool and moved around her with my eyes on the ground. Once in the upstairs bathroom, I turned my eyes to the mirror over the sink. My hair was noticeably shorter. When I turned my head to the side and looked at it more closely, I determined it wasn't as short as the lady who usually cut it would have made it. Actually, it was better—less of a change but still a little shorter so I didn't have to worry about it getting too long.

I was smiling when Padme appeared in the mirror behind me. "Is it okay?" she asked. "I didn't take much off."

"It's…just right." I looked at her eyes in the mirror and smiled back at her.

"Great!" she exclaimed. "Anytime you need a haircut, Anakin, just let me know."

"You'd do it again?" I asked. I could kind of wrap my head around her doing it this time. After all, she was here. I was here. And I needed a haircut. Could I consider the idea of Padme Naberrie actually coming here again with the intended purpose of shortening my hair? I couldn't fathom it.

"Of course," she said. "I like cutting hair." I dropped my gaze from the mirror and thought about it, but I still couldn't see her coming back here and doing this again.

Padme moved up beside me, and I leaned forward on the sink, grasping the edge of it tightly. If I let go, I might run. She was right next to me. "You don't really like things to change very much, do you?"

"No," I whispered. "It's really okay, though?" she asked. "Your hair, I mean?"

"It's really okay."

"Can I ask you something else?"

"You just did," I reminded her. "That was a question. Did you mean it to be rhetorical?"

Shit, shit, shit. I shut my eyes a second. I was pretty sure that wasn't an appropriate response. I remembered the school counselor's voice in my head. "Focus and concentrate, Anakin. Try to think about the response before you say it. Is it appropriate for the situation? Does it fit the theme of the discussion?"

Padme mashed her lips together, and I felt my shoulders tense up a bit. "I was going to ask you if you didn't think something was okay, would you tell me it was?"

"Yes," I said truthfully. "At least, probably."

"Is your hair really all right?" she asked again. Her voice was full of concern and anxiety. "You can tell me if it isn't—I can change it a bit or at least know better next time."

"It's really okay," I told her. I watched my hands curl around the edge of the sink. My knuckles had gone white.

"I'm going to get going," Padme said as she put her hand on my shoulder.

"I'm itchy," I said.

Padme laughed. "That would be from the hair I cut off, you know."

"I know. I need a shower."

"Well, I'm definitely going, then." Padme snickered and headed back downstairs. I watched Padme walk through the front door, waving as she left. I shook my head to clear it and then took a quick shower. My head stayed in a bit of a fog for the rest of the afternoon. It wasn't a bad fog—just strange. I felt a little lighter or something. I cleaned up the hair on the kitchen floor and decided to do a load of laundry as well. Dumping the dirty shirts and pants into a laundry basket, I took them downstairs to the washer. I checked everything that had a pocket, just in case I left something in one, which I almost never did. If something did get left in a pocket—like a tissue or something—and it ended up shredded and clinging to everything, I had to wash the clothes all over again. I grabbed my jeans from yesterday and reached into each pocket in turn. Front right, back right, back left, front left.

I didn't really want another heat-and-eat dinner or something out of a box in the pantry. I was still a little bit chilled from the rain before, so I definitely wanted something warm. Padme Naberrie was in my house. She gave me a haircut. I ran my hand through my hair and thought about how it felt when she was touching it. It was good. It felt good and weird. It felt weird now because it didn't take my fingers as long to get through it. It still wouldn't stay down—it was all over the place—but I was used to that. I realized I was still smiling and decided to make shepherd's pie.

I got out a bag of potatoes, peeled and cut them up, then put them to boil while I picked out a bag of frozen vegetables to go with it. I found some garlic bread, too, and decided that might round it out nicely. When the potatoes were done, I placed everything in a casserole dish and stared at it. It was enough to feed an entirely family. A family I didn't have any more. Not quite true. I had my aunt and uncle. I tried not to rely on them too much, but sometimes it couldn't be helped. With the dish in the oven and the timer set for exactly thirty minutes, I heard a buzzing noise. I pulled my cell phone out of my backpack.

It was my Uncle Obi-Wan.

"Anakin," he greeted. "I'm almost done repairing your car." Over a week ago I had gotten in an accident. It's not that I couldn't repair it myself, it's just with high school coming to a close this year I was incredibly busy and Obi-Wan said my education was important. He promised it would be in working order soon. "Have you got a rental car yet?" He asked.

"No."

I heard him sigh through the line. "Don't tell me you've been walking home by yourself every day."

"Not every day," I said. "Today I got a ride home."

"Oh? Did Kit drive you?"

"No." There was a bit of a pause on the phone. Outside the window, two squirrels were running around the big pine tree. Their tails twitched as they chased each other in and out of the branches. "Well, are you going to tell me who took you home? Focus, Anakin."

"Sorry," I mumbled. I guess it made sense that Obi-Wan wanted to know how I got back here. "Padme Naberrie took me home."

"Who's that?"

"A girl from my school." I thought about it and decided he was going to want more. "We're in ecology together. We have a project we're starting this week about bees. I'm supposed to go to her house tomorrow to work on it. It was raining, and she saw me on the road, and even though she parked on the wrong side, she moved, so I got a ride with her, and she cut my hair."

There was silence before"Did I just hear you right? Ana-Anakin...Do you have a girlfriend?"

"She is a girl," I said. The word he used—girlfriend—didn't quite hold meaning for me. "I'm not sure if we're friends or not."

"She cut your hair?"

"Yes. She said it needed it. I was going to wait until the end of the month."

"Does she work at a salon?"

"I didn't ask."

"Well, where did she cut your hair?" I could tell by the tone of Obi-Wan's voice that he was getting a little frustrated. I obviously wasn't giving him the information he wanted, but I didn't know what he wanted, so I wasn't sure how to fix it.

"In the kitchen."

"At the house?"

"Yes."

"Your house?"

"Yes." Obi-Wan chuckled lightly into the phone. "I think that counts as a friend, at the very least," he said. "Kit's not been over, has he?"

"No, we go to his house or Uptown to do stuff. He's never been here."

"Right," Obi-Wan whispered.

"Well, I want to hear more when I get there, okay? I'll bring Satine's car over, and you can drive me back." Obi-Wan arrived a few minutes later. He and my dad looked a lot alike according to what I had heard, but my dad died when I was a barely six and I don't remember much of him.

"So tell me more about this girl," Obi-Wan said not long after he entered.

"Padme Naberrie," I said. "Her eyes are brown."

He tilted his head to one side. "That's it, Anakin?"

"Oh, um…" I stammered. I didn't really know what to say about her. "I sat behind her today in ecology."

"I thought you sat by Kit."

"There was a new kid," I said quietly. I didn't want to think about it too much and bring the memory back. "He was in my seat."

"Did you take it okay?" Obi-Wan's tone was guarded.

"No."

He sighed and rubbed his beard. "I'm sorry. I'll call the school again, okay?"

"I thought they wouldn't discuss me with you," I reminded him. "I'm eighteen, and there isn't any guardianship or anything."

"Well, they can listen at least !" Obi-Wan said, his eyes shone with fierce protection. He always felt like he had to look after me. "I'll call Palpatine guy myself. He obviously hasn't read your IEP or your 504 plan. He was supposed to talk to Mr. Organa last semester. He shouldn't be putting you through that."

"Please don't," I said quietly.

"Why not?"

"Because," I said as I took a deep breath, "It's too much. I can take care of myself. Trust me."

With a huff of air through his nose, Obi-Wan reluctantly conceded. "I should have been your guardian." Obi-Wan said for the zillionth time. "But by the time your mom...Passed on you had just turned eighteen and..."

"Obi-Wan," I whispered. I felt my whole body seizing up on me.

"Sorry, Anakin." Obi-Wan looked at me and sighed again. He sighed a lot "It's just that…if I had more direct ties to you legally, I could do more for you."

"You do more than enough," I told him again. We'd had this same conversation twenty-four times. "I'm eighteen. Everything's in my name, and I'm okay."

"No, you aren't," he mumbled. "You need to go back into therapy. You had fewer attacks on that medication."

"I don't have any extra money for more prescriptions, and the therapy isn't covered," I reminded him. "Making up for what Medicaid won't pay for Ahsoka's care is expensive enough. I can get back into it after I graduate. Once I'm at college, the financial aid stuff will kick in, and I'll be able to afford it."

"I told you I'd pay for it."

"And I told you I wasn't taking any more of your money. You can't spare it, and you're already helping with Ahsoka."

"I still can't believe they didn't give me her guardianship. You shouldn't have to deal with all of this." He almost sounded like he was whining, but Uncle Obi-Wan never whined. He was too dignified for that, that's what mom used to say anyway.

Back some months ago Obi-Wan fought to have both of us put under his care, but I proved to the courts that I was high-functioning enough to do it on my own.

"I should be her guardian," I said. "She's my sister."

"Your needful sister," he emphasized.

"But my sister still." We stared at each other for a minute.

We'd been at this impasse before. "I'm doing all right, Obi-Wan," I told him. "I mean, I'm not really much more fucked up than I was before. I'm doing as well as can be expected for someone who lost their mom, and it happened less than a year ago. All my other issues are just icing."

"Icing!" Obi-Wan grunted. I ran my hand through my hair again, which reminded me of the haircut. "You shouldn't be alone here," Obi-Wan said. He knew this argument was a lost cause, too.

"I'm not selling the house."

"You wouldn't have to."

"Obi-Wan," I growled. I normally kept my temper under check or at least tried, but Obi-Wan somehow found a way to always wind me up. "I want to stay here," I said firmly. I looked at him until he finally nodded. He knew this was a subject on which I would not budge. I wanted to be independent. I wanted my mom to know I could take care of myself and Ahsoka without becoming a burden to Obi-Wan and Satine. "The meds I take now work well enough. Ahsoka's SSI covers her stuff, and the other supplemental income I get is enough to pay the bills. I'll take care of the issues at school, too."

"If you went to that other school in Tatooine, the resources would be better. Your mother's family's from there." He reminded me again. "You'd have more connections. More than just Satine and I."

"I didn't want to change schools when I started high school, and I certainly don't want to change now. There are only three months left!"

"I know." Rubbing his tired eyes he added under his breath, "I never can win with you."

"I'm all right, Obi-Wan. Really. Even the social worker said so when she checked on me last week."

Obi-Wan nodded mutely. "If anything else happens in that class, I'm talking to Palpatine," he told me as he dropped the keys to Satine's Civic in my hand.

I drove him back to his place on the other side of town. We didn't talk much more. I wondered if the idea of talking to Mr. Palpatine might have put him off. He hated that guy. Briefly I wondered if Mr. Palpatine taught when Obi-Wan went to school there. Obi-Wan was my dad's younger brother by thirteen years, and it wasn't that long ago that he was a student at Academy High.

"Take care, Anakin," Obi-Wan said as he got out of the car. "I still want to hear more about this Naberrie girl."

"Okay," I said. "Thanks."

As soon as the word was out of my mouth, I knew I had screwed up.

Padme drove me home and saved me from the rain. She brought me my book bag. She gave me a haircut. I hadn't said thank you.

Shit, shit, shit.

I couldn't let it go. I had to fix it.

The short, panting breaths coming out of my mouth were making me all dizzy and light-headed. I sat in Satine's car in the driveway of Padme Naberrie's house. I came here to thank her, but I couldn't get out of the damn car. Every time I tried, my insides felt like they were going to pop right through my skin and splatter over the cement. I didn't understand myself at all. She had been in my house, and it hadn't caused any reaction like this. She'd been close to me, touched me, cut my hair. Why couldn't I walk up to her house and say thank you?

My hand grasped the handle of the car door, and I tried again. The result was the same. I dropped my elbows onto the steering wheel and put my face in my hands. I slowly shook my head back and forth while I growled and swore at myself. Giving up on talking to her but still insisting on correcting my infraction, I turned the car back on and drove Uptown to the Hallmark store to look for a thank-you card. At least I could put it in her mailbox. I was pretty sure I could handle that. Thinking about it didn't seem to upset me.

None of the cards said "Thanks for the ride" or "Thanks for the haircut." I found some cards that just said "thank you" on them in gold script with the card all blank inside, so I bought one of those. Then I sat in the car for thirty minutes trying to figure out what to say. I wrote a few words, then tore the card up and went back inside for another card. The cashier gave me a weird look, but I ignored her. I did that two more times before I settled on something that I didn't think was too bad.

Dear Padme,

Thank you for giving me a ride home and cutting my hair. I'm sorry I forgot to say that before.

Sincerely,

Anakin Skywalker

I took a deep breath and slid the little card into an envelope and sealed it. Then I flipped it over and wrote Padme on the front. I looked at it for a bit and decided to add her last name—Naberrie. I smiled as I drove back to her house and pulled up near the mailbox. I realized I hadn't put her address on the front of the card, so I added that as well. Of course, since I hadn't planned to write that much on the card, it didn't all fit with the same-sized letters. At least I had the extra envelopes from the other cards I had messed up, so I ripped the card out of the first one and put it into a blank envelope. I wrote her name and address again. Just before I put it in the mailbox, it occurred to me that the mail carrier just might think they were mailing a letter out, not receiving one, and could collect it and take it back to the post office. It didn't have a stamp or anything on it, so it could end up being lost completely. She would think I was insanely rude and might never speak to my again. How would we get our project done? I pulled the card back to my chest. Maybe if I wrote my return address on it, it would at least come back to me due to a lack of postage. How long would that take, though? Coruscant mail wasn't known for being overly fast even when there is the correct postage on a letter. I considered taking it up to her front door, but the thought immediately started my heart pounding. Just looking at the little, covered porch and thinking of myself walking up there and ringing the bell made my stomach clench and threaten to expel dinner. Satine would be really pissed if I threw up in her car. That idea started a whole other attack.

I dropped the card onto the passenger seat and got out of the car altogether. The air outside the car smelled fresh and clean, which helped calm me a bit. I leaned against the driver's side door and put my face back in my hands.

"Anakin?"

Shit, shit, shit!

I lowered my hands and saw Padme Naberrie standing at the curb near her mailbox. "What are you doing here?" I looked down to the street under my shoes and kicked at a tiny little rock there. There was another one a few feet away, so I kicked it, too. Then a third. I kept kicking rocks until there weren't any left in my reach and then started looking for more.

"Anakin? Are you okay?" I didn't know how to respond. I wasn't okay, but focusing on the rocks had made the attack go away at least. I could breathe normally, and my heart wasn't pounding too much. I wasn't okay, though. I needed to give her that card, and I wasn't sure how to do that.

"Sometimes you just have to do, Ani. Don't think. Just do." Mom's voice in my head came at a pretty good time. I turned and opened the car door, leaned inside, and grabbed the card. If I gave it directly to her, at least it wouldn't get lost in the mail. I grasped the envelope in my hand, backed out of the car, and walked slowly over to where Padme was standing. She was still calling my name as I raised my hand and gave her the card. I ran my hand through my shorter hair and cringed a bit as she reached out and took the card from me. I couldn't stand to watch her read it, so I got back in the car and drove away. It might not have seemed like much to anyone else, but I was reasonably pleased with myself.