"OMG, did you see Nikki's latest post? That new haircut is so cool." - the ever-popular Liora gasped. She gossips really loudly, and I could hear her and her friend Sylvia from 10 feet away.
"You think that's cool, you should have seen Beryl's this summer - the green highlights looks so good with her blonde." - Sylvia replied.
"Ugh, no, that blonde is so fake... her black hair looks so much cuter."
"Wait- girl, shut up right now. Check out that blue in that girl's hair!"
"I know, right?" Sylvia flipped her hair. "That crop hoodie is so cute, I want one!!"
"Who is she?"
They were talking about me. I knew it. I walked quietly, silently listening. They were too obnoxious to actually be aware of the fact I could hear it all.
"She's new, I think..."
I walked past them, leaving them to whatever else they had to say. School felt the same otherwise, plus a few passing glances. It was probably the hair, but I don't know.
A group of boys this time. I knew them too. The very same jocks those two girls simp over constantly.
"Yo, you watched last night's match?"
"I know, man... It was insane. Did you see the way Boron just shot it right into the goal?"
"Number 5 for the win, bro. The absolute GOAT."
The boys shared a fist bump and walked off, as I walked away myself.
The hallway was full of teenage chatter, a familiar yet alien soundscape under this new guise. Snippets of conversations drifted around me like pollen in the air.
"Did you finish the chemistry homework? I swear, those equilibrium problems are designed to make us cry." - A stressed voice, clutching a textbook.
"OMG, did you hear about Mr. Radon and Ms. Katrina? Apparently..." - A conspiratorial whisper, quickly fading into the general hum.
"My mom is totally freaking out about finals already. It's only September!" - An exasperated sigh. "School opened two months ago!"
I kept my head down, trying to absorb the rhythm of this new environment, the subtle social cues that Lexi would supposedly be picking up on. It was a strange out-of-body experience, observing my old world through a new lens.
Then, I heard Carly's voice. It was sharper than the general murmur, tinged with an edge I knew all too well. She was talking to Archie, just a few lockers down. I slowed my pace, pretending to fiddle with the strap of my backpack, trying to catch their words without being obvious.
"…so what even happened while I was gone?" Carly asked, her tone flat. "Everyone's acting weird, and there's this… thing."
"What thing?" Archie replied, his voice casual. I could picture him leaning against the lockers, probably scrolling through his phone, brushing a stray red hair off his face.
"This… structure. By the oak tree. It wasn't there before." There was a pause, and I could almost feel Carly's gaze sweeping across the hallway. "And everyone keeps… looking at me funny."
"Oh, that," Archie said, a slight shift in his tone. "That's… they put up a memorial. For Aura."
The word hung in the air, a heavy, invisible weight. My breath hitched. A memorial. For me. For the me that was supposed to be dead.
Carly was silent for a long moment. Then, her voice, when it came, was low and tight. "A memorial? For Aura? Why?"
Archie's reply was muffled, something about the workshop, the accident, the school wanting to… "honor her memory."
Carly scoffed, a harsh, humorless sound. "Honor her memory? Half the people in this school probably couldn't even recognize her in a classroom."
There was another pause, thick with unspoken grief and confusion. Then, Carly's voice again, quieter now, but laced with a new note of something… sadness?
"I know her mom explained everything, the sickness and all but still... I can't believe she died at like 16! That's too young... there's no way..."
Archie didn't know what to say... except a poorly timed "Hey, check out that girl's blue hair. That's new."
"Must be one of those 'popular' kids... I bet she put that on her story as soon as she did it." Carly scoffed. "Half these types of girls aren't even natural blondes."
It's true. I took a first day selfie the minute I arrived. Hey, gotta update my Lexi socials...
I think Archie's mental reaction was along the lines of "what am I even doing here" so he just shrugged. "Does it even matter, Carly?"
The bell shrieked, a sudden end to the noise. As the students shuffled out of the hallways and towards their designated homerooms, I scanned the room numbers, trying to find mine. Room 207. Ms. Irene. I knew this place all too well.
The classroom was already mostly full, a mix of familiar faces. I knew these people as Aura, but they didn't know me. My eyes scanned for an empty seat, and there it was – one lonely desk in the back row, right next to Carly.
My stomach did a little flip. Of all the empty seats in the entire school…
Hesitantly, I made my way towards it, trying to project an air of nonchalant new-kid awkwardness. Carly was already there, staring out the window with that same heavy sadness from the hallway. The seat beside her, where Aura used to sit, was the only one available.
As I sat down, the plastic chair scraping against the floor, Ms. Irene looked up from her attendance sheet. "Ah, Lexi, welcome! Glad you found us. There's an empty seat right next to Carly." She offered a kind smile, oblivious to the tension radiating from the girl beside me.
Carly didn't even acknowledge my presence. Her gaze remained fixed on the window, her jaw tight. The air between us felt thick with unspoken words, with the ghost of a friendship that was now fractured by a lie.
Sitting in Aura's seat, right next to the girl who was still grieving her… it felt like a cruel joke. The universe, it seemed, had a particularly twisted sense of humor.
I decided to make the first move. I turned to Carly, a plastered smile on my face. I'm a new girl looking to make friends. "Hi, I'm Lexi..." I said, faking confidence. Everything about that sentence was completely fake, and it felt strange to me.
"Carly," she said politely, but I knew what was going on inside. She was hurting; I could tell by the general vibe she radiated.
I was about to write the word 'aura' there... happy accident? Coincidence? Well my name is technically a valid Scrabble word...
Aura isn't my name anymore though, is it?
"Nice to meet you, Carly." I said with a smile, before my gaze shifted to her hair. I don't know what got into my mind then, but I blurted out, "Your hair is so pretty, can I touch it?"
That was true though, I've always loved Carly's red hair. Unlike her brother's, hers is straight and really smooth to touch. Archie's is more wavy, but I don't know how his hair actually feels. I don't think I want to find out though.
The second the words left my mouth, I could have kicked myself. Lexi wouldn't say that. Lexi would compliment, maybe ask about a product, but not blurt out something so… tactile. That was an Aura thing. My fascination with textures, with how things felt, had always been a quirk, one of the many things that set me apart. And it had just slipped past the filter I was supposed to be maintaining.
Carly’s polite mask shattered. Her green eyes, already swollen, probably from crying earlier, narrowed into slits. She didn't say anything, but the air around her crackled with a sudden, intense fury. I knew that they all too well. She flinched away, pulling her head back as if I'd threatened to yank a handful of her fiery strands out.
I quickly retracted my hand, my forced smile faltering. "Oh, um… sorry. That was weird. My bad."
Carly just turned away, staring straight ahead at the whiteboard, her back stiff. The message was clear: stay away. I wanted to sink into the floor, to become as invisible as my 'deceased' self.
The rest of homeroom was agony. Every time I shifted, Carly stiffened. Every breath I took felt too loud. It was a stark reminder of the tightrope I was walking, how easily a single misstep could expose me, or at least solidify Carly's hatred.
The very essence of Aura, was a dangerous liability for Lexi. I had to rein it in. I had to. The need to touch, to observe, to pull apart and understand everything around me – it was a constant battle. This dull, agreeable Lexi was hard enough to play without my actual instincts getting in the way.
The bell for first period felt like a relief, but I knew the day was just beginning. And Carly's quiet fury was definitely a sign of worse to come.
I started to regret the fact that Aura sat next to Carly for pretty much every class I have, minus her economics class while I had physics. (She's not really into science... I think that was Archie's fault.)
I knew it was weird for Lexi to suddenly have all the same subjects as Aura, so I gave up history (not a huge sacrifice, I never really liked it anyway) for political science.
It was like choosing between the devil and the deep sea. History or Politics. Initially my mom had suggested history, saying it's an easy, scoring subject.
There's too many things to memorize in history though... which Mom may have been great at, but... it's overwhelming for me. That's why I jumped at the chance to pick politics instead. Because it's not history.
Politics class, just before lunch, was a loud, chaotic mess, as usual. Ms. Carbide was trying to get us to debate the recent budget allocation for local green spaces, but the room was mostly just full of half-hearted arguments and whispered gossip. I was trying to look engaged, nodding along with the occasional point, when Carly’s voice cut through the noise, sharper than anything else.
She wasn't talking to anyone in particular, just sort of projecting her thoughts into the general airspace, her face set in a furious mask. I internally smiled. Carly's always been a great debater. But my smile flipped over when I heard her say this...
"It's just ridiculous, you know? How quickly everyone moves on. Like nothing even happened. Some people just think they can replace everything, just waltz in and pretend they're... filling a void."
Her eyes flicked to me, a deliberate, icy stare that sent a shiver down my spine. The classroom quieted, sensing the shift in atmosphere. Ms. Carbide paused, her pen hovering over her notepad.
"It's like, one minute someone's here, and they're real, and they matter," Carly continued, her voice rising, tinged with a raw, almost desperate anger. "And the next, everyone's just gawking at some new, superficial distraction with a flashy haircut, trying to be the center of attention. As if anyone could just replace someone. As if they even cared."
Every word was a direct hit, aimed with pinpoint accuracy. She didn't have to say Aura's name. She didn't have to say my name. The message was perfectly clear. Lexi was supposed to be impervious to this, to just offer a sad, understanding look. But Aura, buried somewhere deep beneath the blue highlights and the fake smile, felt a sharp, humiliating burn. It was one thing to be hated for being a "replacement"; it was another to be hated by my best friend, who thought I was dead, for something so horribly, painfully true.
I could feel the stares. The pitying ones, the curious ones, the ones that were starting to look a little less sympathetic and a little more like judgment. Carly's bottled rage, her protective fury over the ghost of her friend, had just exploded, and I was caught squarely in the blast zone.
What was Lexi supposed to do now?
She cried. She sat down at her desk, thankfully further away from Carly... and then cried. As Carly's speech returned back on track, more and more people lost interest in the drama... because they saw me... tears flowing all over my face like an idiot.
"Omigosh Lexi, what happened?" Liora's voice, usually so loud and attention-seeking, was suddenly hushed, laced with an exaggerated concern. She knelt beside my desk, her perfectly manicured hand resting gently on my shoulder. "Babe, stop crying… tell me what happened."18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpwcqffzo8M
I mumbled something incoherent into my hands, the tears still streaming. It was a strange relief to just let them out, even if it was for show. Lexi, the fragile new girl, was having a public breakdown. Perfect.
"Did someone say something to you?" Liora pressed, her voice dripping with maternal concern. She shot a pointed glance towards Carly's general direction, though Carly remained oblivious, still heatedly debating the green spaces budget. "Oh my god, did Carly upset you? She's been so moody since… you know."
A cluster of other girls from Liora's group began to gather around, their faces a mixture of sympathy and morbid curiosity. Whispers started circulating. "What happened?" "Who made her cry?" "Poor new girl…"
"Come on, sweetie, let's get you out of here," Liora cooed, gently pulling at my arm. "You need a minute. Ms. Carbide, can Lexi go to the counselor's office? She's really upset."
Ms. Carbide, looking flustered, nodded quickly. "Yes, yes, of course, Liora. Please take her. Are you alright, Lexi?"
I just nodded, unable to speak, letting Liora guide me out of the classroom, away from the watchful eyes and the unbearable weight of Carly’s accusation. The hallway felt like a tunnel, Liora's firm, guiding hand the only thing tethering me to the present. The counselor's office. Another step in the Lexi playbook, another layer of performance. But for a few painful minutes, the tears had been real.
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