The Desert Standoff

known so close to senior year. Suzi doesn’t consider herself to be overly close with too many of the other kids in her school but she doesn’t dislike them. She just finds most of the things they do to be childish. Even with that being true, she couldn’t imagine doing her senior year anywhere else. She wouldn’t want to go to prom without the same people she has spent her whole life around. Suzi has known almost all of these people since she was a child. Some even longer. Half of their parents were friends with her parents and everybody knows everybody and that’s just how she likes it. She wants to keep it that way. This new girl is fully out of her element. She’s not told anybody where she’s from and according to the rumor mill she really hasn’t said much of anything to anybody really. She seems like she just wants to keep to herself.
“I don’t even mean like not thrilled, I mean look at her clothes. She just looks like she smells ... or like her mother has three dozen cats and never washes anything. Seriously, it’s disgusting. Does she even own soap?”
Suzi shoots Bethany a look so angry that it could curdle blood and she reaches out and pinches her right on her elbow. Bethany shrieks and drops all of the things in her arms. “Ow! What was that for! You pick this up right now!” Bethany stomps her foot as if that’s going to make Suzi drop to her knees and pick up her fallen things or she will somehow decide to apologize when it’s very clear by Suzi’s expression that she’s going to be doing nothing of the sort.
“No. You deserved that. What a horrible thing to say.”
Suzi steps over the pile on the ground and jogs over to the new girl with the brightest smile she can muster, even if it looks like the girl might very well hiss at her for her efforts. “Hi!” Suzi says, and the new girl says nothing. Her long dark hair is lackluster and her high cheekbones seem almost sunken in, like she hasn’t been fed properly. Not wanting to appear as if she’s feeling bad for the new girl Suzi doesn’t remark on it. “I’m Suzi! I know you don’t know me and this place doesn’t exactly have a welcome wagon, but I wanted to introduce myself!”
The girl nods, her hair falling like a curtain wanting to block her from Suzi’s view.
“Anyway, I think you’re in my calculus class; if you need to catch up on some notes I have tons! They are all color coded... I think that might be why I can never remember anything from those classes. Something about making the notes look pretty as well as that dull voice droning on in the background, it’s just not conducive for my learning style.” Suzi pushes her own hair back over her ear. The girl doesn't really seem like she’s in the mood to talk to her. “Okay, well, I won’t push you. Just know that if you ever need somewhere to eat lunch I’m totally always free. And I don’t mean that in the ‘Oh, hey, new kid, come sit with me so I can poke you’ way but in like the ‘Hey, I wanna know you and olive branches because I’m not a total dick’ way... Okay?” Suzi skips in front of the new girl and stands still.
After a long moment, she nods, and Suzi feels a little more successful. “Okay great!” Suzi steps aside so that the girl can be on her way.
*****
The very last place that Suzi is expecting to see a new face is the drama club. Mostly because … well, they sort of suck. Suzi loves it more than any of her other clubs or activities, but she knows that they aren’t a very talented group. She figures that it doesn’t really matter since none of them have any plans to make the club into a lifelong obsession or anything and so the fact that they are just having fun and nearly everything turns into an improv session anyway is just fine. At least no two performances will ever be the same, that’s got to be saying something at the very least.
So when the new girl shows up one day, Suzi can’t help the fact that she gets in her face just a little bit too much. Her overly enthusiastic self probably isn’t properly appreciated by the seemingly sullen girl. She doesn’t say much. She doesn’t really participate, but she seems to like watching. Perhaps she just doesn’t have anywhere else to be or just doesn’t want to go home. However, one day, she offers to sew the costumes for their collection of skits that they are going to be performing to raise money for some function or another. Not likely that they will make much, but Suzi wants to do it for the experience and she knows for a fact that her parents will throw money at almost anything she does. They weren’t crazy about her fire hula hooping phase, but they still supported her then and they will do now.
The night of their cold opening and costume rehearsal, Suzi is being sewn into her gown and conversing with some of her other castmates. After weeks of attempting to make friends with the girl who has finally introduced herself as Natalie, she is resigned to the notion that perhaps she just doesn’t like to talk or that this might be all that she’s emotionally available to say on any given day. Suzi never presses, but she does go out of her way to make sure that whatever is happening, Natalie is included. Even if she doesn’t want to speak. Suzi firmly believes that nobody should judge another person because you never know what might be happening in their private, personal life regardless of what they