embry.

8/26/21, 12:21 p.m.

wednesday. what a terrible mid-week day. it's like it's mocking you, saying, hey, you're halfway done, but you've still got so much left to go. it's just as bad as the days before it.

well. maybe meeting jordan yesterday wasn't bad.

embry generally likes her life. her parents moved here for fresh air, and who is embry to complain? maybe this little town is nice. it has its comforts. like the stars.

embry's stars had always been car headlights, bright windows, blinking satellites. never actual stars. they're impossible to see in the city, anyway.

but here? they're so... visible. maybe embry hopes to be visible too.

school happens. when you're new, you can feel the stares. the teachers struggling to remember your name. the classes with students younger than you because you didn't take that course at your last school, the classes that other kids your age are taking that you've already been through.

it makes it hard to make friends.

embry's sat with the girls who invited her to their table. she met most of them during college algebra. but she thinks they've forgotten about her by now, so she sits at the empty picnic table at the corner of the warm, sunlight courtyard, lunch half-eaten and homework from the last class staring blankly at her.

she scribbles in an answer, then peers around the courtyard, taking in the faces.

the girls she sat with earlier in the week are laughing politely, almost secretively, as if they're trying to hide their amusement. they've clearly forgotten about her.

the football guys are roughhousing, throwing around a football, flirting with their girlfriends, talking and laughing and yelling.

her new neighbor—jordan, that's her name—is sitting with a blond girl and a curly-haired guy who keeps staring at one of the football boys. they're talking. discussing. embry looks away when jordan's eyes meet hers.

embry distracts herself, takes a bite of her school-lunch, cold sandwich, but the damage is done. footsteps crunch in the green grass, and a voice asks, "hey, do you want to come eat with us?"

embry looks up. there's jordan. the blond girl sitting at the table behind them, smiling at her.

if embry wants friends, here's her opportunity. if she wants any semblance of a social life here, then here it is. these people won't forget about her. jordan clearly hasn't. they seem nice, good—real.

embry mutters a quick, "no thanks," picking up her homework and lunch and walking away.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

8/26/21, 7:03 p.m.

embry lays on her bed, staring up at her boring, white ceiling. brown comforter beneath her, fan slowly whirling above her, the sky washed with orange and red colors of sunset somewhere beyond.

she hates everything.

she can't help but wish, sometimes, that everything was different. that she wasn't so... difficult. or different. or some other d word that revealed how awful she was around other people.

why was she like this?

somewhere, deep down inside her gaping, empty soul, was a yearning. a yearning for something new, something different, something she's never known before.

fact: embry has never loved someone before. at least not in a truly romantic way.

she loves her parents, sure, and her friends. and she's kissed people before, and dated a couple times, but she never loved.

it was awkward when you didn't love your partner back.

once, embry dated this girl. she was beautiful, sure, and certainly not the loving type. she was fierce and cruel and so similar to every single person embry had dated before yet so different.

and even she had the guts to say i love you.

and embry just sat there, mouth closed, eyes blinking.

that relationship ended quickly.

maybe it was because embry couldn't say i love you back. maybe it was also because embry, as the girl said, was too focused on school and grades and college to ever care about another human being.

maybe those words were true.

embry was missing something. a puzzle piece that somehow got lost on the way from the factory to the store.

a gaping hole, which, looking at it from one angle, might not be noticeable, but as the puzzle? you can feel every missing edge, every absent color.

embry just didn't know how to fill in the hole.