Chapter 8-SOMEONE NEW, TOO CLOSE
533 Words
Her name was Tonia
Transfer student.
Pretty. Loud.
And unapologetically confident , the kind of girl who knew the effect she had the moment she walked into a room.
She joined their class on a Monday, all lip gloss and sideways glances, and by Tuesday, she’d already made three friends and a scene.
By Friday?
She was laughing at Tyler's jokes.
Touching his arm when she didn’t need to.
Sitting beside him like it was hers to claim.
Tara noticed. Of course she did.
She wasn’t the jealous type. Not really. But something about Tonia’s presence crawled beneath her skin like thorns.
She tried to tell herself it was nothing. That Tyler didn’t see Tonia the way Tonia clearly saw him.
But that was before the art club.
It was supposed to be just her and Tyler their usual quiet sketch hour.
Instead, when she entered the art room, Tonia was already there.
Sitting in her seat.
Right next to Tyler .
“Oh! Tara, right?” Tonia smiled sweetly, tilting her head like she didn’t already know her name. “I didn’t know you were part of this club too.”
Tara forced a polite smile. “I’ve always been part of it.”
Tyler looked between them, awkwardly.
Tara sat on the far end of the table. She didn’t want to but she didn’t want to ask either. That would feel like begging for a seat that used to be hers.
She watched as Tonia leaned over Tyler's sketchpad, her voice low, playful.
“You’re so good at this,” she said, brushing his hand lightly. “You should teach me sometime. Just us.”
After the session, Tyler tried to catch up with Tara outside, but she didn’t wait.
She walked faster. Her chest was tight.
“Hey,” he called, catching up. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said quickly, too quickly.
He frowned. “You left early.”
“Didn’t know I needed permission.”
“Tara , come on.”
She turned to him, eyes sharp.
“Did you like it? Having her all over your sketchbook like that?”
“What? No, Tara , I wasn’t even......”
“You didn’t stop her.”
Silence.
Then softer: “You didn’t even look at me.”
That night, Tara wrote:
“Dear you,
There’s a girl with eyes like mirrors,
And when she looks at you, I disappear.
You didn’t mean to, I know.
But you let her make a home in a space I thought was mine.
Now I’m wondering…
Was I ever really in it?
Or was I just holding your sketchbook, waiting to be seen?”
The next morning, Tyler slipped a folded page into her locker. No words. Just a sketch.
Two figures. One in the background, blurry. The other front and center, laughing with someone else.
And beneath it, scribbled faintly:
“Sometimes we don’t know what we’re doing wrong
Until we’ve already hurt the right person.”
Tara didn’t cry.
But
something inside her cracked.
And she wondered , not for the first time
if love could exist between two people who still hadn’t said it out loud.
- Writer
