Appaloosa

I couldn't stand this girl. For no reason at all. She had atomic orange curls springing in every direction, fully loaded chipmunk cheeks, and a different shirt with the same horse on it every stinkin' day. Her freckles looked so out of place on her sickly white skin. It was a month into 7th grade when I finally learned her name. Tracy. It was as bland as her personality. I didn’t understand her in the slightest; every time she spoke, her monotone voice would send my mind running for the hills. When the bell would ring, she would always be the last one to leave the classroom, but somehow scatter to be the first one to arrive at the next. I guess karma put her in just about every one of my classes and it drove me crazy that I could spend days studying for a test and never make the same grade as her in any of them. Why did she bother me so much?

After a long weekend, we came back to school on a Tuesday. I walked into my first period to find that I had beaten Miss Punctual to class. My peers all coming in one by one, but not Tracy. Class seemed quiet today with no one to rush to answer every question the teacher asked. I remember looking up from my doodles when I heard the door open. A different Tracy walked in that day. After handing the teacher a pink tardy slip with a note attached, she quietly made her way to her desk, not once looking up from the floor. Everyone's eyes were on this racoon-eyed girl. I did a double take when I got a glimpse of her face, thinking she had really messed up her makeup; that was not the case. After class, everyone followed her out. We soundlessly watched her walk down the hall with her head hung low. All of a sudden, my stomach twisted. I was repulsed, not by her, but by myself for unfairly judging her all this time. I went home every day that week regretting the fact that I didn’t talk to her. I wanted that friendless girl to know that I (all of a sudden) cared, but I couldn’t build up the courage to say anything. Who am I to ask what happened when I hadn't ever spoken one sentence to her?

I could tell time was passing because she wasn’t the gossip of the halls anymore. I no longer saw Tracy through a hateful lens, but instead through a window of remorse. After three guilty weeks, I still found myself trying to talk to her but coming up short on things to say. The last bell of the day rang one afternoon, signaling the weekend was finally here! I rushed to throw books in my bag when I noticed Tracy was unknowingly walking away from her spiral. I shuffled over to pick it up, immediately tickled when I saw the obvious horse art. She couldn't get enough of those things. So, catching up, I held out her pony pad and confessed to liking the 'Dalmatian spots' on the horse. She went on to give facts all about the Appaloosa horse breed. The words flowed out of those pale lips so easily. Suddenly, her voice wasn’t so colorless, her stance not so closed. I was hanging on to every word she was singing. Instantly, her face painted with blush.

"Oops!" Tracy smiled with half of her mouth. "You found my favorite subject."

"It's better than math." I joked, thumbing to the class we just walked out of.

We slowly crept out of school side by side. Awkwardly not talking. I knew she had to walk the opposite direction of me, so the second we pushed open those double doors and exchanged good weekend gestures, I turned to walk away. On my way home, I kept thinking to myself how different things would be if I just gave her this chance weeks ago. With a grey cloud storming over my head all weekend, I eagerly waited for school the following Monday. After the whole week of her absence, I began to get a feeling I wasn't going to see her again.

Time went on. After graduating high school, I waited several years to start college. It was my first semester and I was finding my way to the bookstore to pick up my expensive purchase when I heard my name softly questioned.

"Kaleigh?"

I turned around to see a grown, beautifully curled, red-headed woman standing proud and strong. I had to pick up my jaw from the ground after I figured out it was Tracy. After a long embrace, she pulled away with tears in her eyes. Before I could ask, she explained to me, in a flash back to that Friday, that she was going to go home and end her life. After our horse chat, she changed her mind. Tracy went on to tell me that she built up the courage to tell her grandparents that her dad had been abusing her for years. She was removed from that toxic house and decided to live with her grandparents a few cities over. Tracy will shortly finish her education requirements and begin her career as an abuse counselor.