Riverview School For Girls [GxG]

twenty

Willow couldn't focus. Her head was fuzzy; full of guilt, shame, regret. Val's words had stuck with her, sharp as razor blades, cutting her up from the inside out. They hurt because they were true.

Willow was a bad friend.

She was rude and selfish and cold. She was distant and bitter and obnoxious. She was too busy trying to keep herself together, she hadn't noticed her friends falling apart around her. And when she should have been there to pick them up, she wasn't. She was dreaming about almond eyes, and soft hands, and mischievous smirks. She was so used to playing the tortured victim, sometimes, she became the villain. Neglecting her friends, leading them to believe they didn't matter.

They were too good for her. Sydney was too pretty, Dahlia was too compassionate, Val was too loyal. Willow was just a shadow lurking behind her friends' blinding glow. If she didn't share a dorm with them, they never would have known of her existence. She would have been a nameless face in the corridor, someone to smile at, and promptly brush off. But she had gotten lucky. Her friends had fallen in love with her quiet intelligence and tidy politeness.

And she had treated them terribly.

At lunchtime, Willow decided not to eat in the dining hall. She needed more time, more space. She needed to avoid her friends' bright eyes for a while longer, until she knew how to fix her attitude towards them. Instead, she sought out Jordan, eating a sandwich in the quiet courtyard, sitting on the same bench where Willow had selfishly poured all the bitter pieces of herself onto Dahlia's shoulder.

"Hey." Jordan smiled when she sat down beside her.

"Why do you eat out here?" Willow asked, tightening her blazer around her shoulders, trying to guard herself from the chill.

Jordan shrugged, "It's quiet." She said shortly, taking a bite out of her sandwich.

Willow glanced across the empty courtyard, then up into the sky above, painted grey with rain clouds, "Yeah." Willow sighed in agreement, "It is."

"What're you doing out here?" Jordan nudged Willow's knee with her own.

Willow continuing staring up at the sky, wondering whether she could fall into it, and get lost in the thick grey clouds, never to find her way out again. "I'm avoiding my friends." She replied truthfully.

Jordan rose her brows, "Why?"

"I don't think they're very happy with me."

Jordan nudged Willow's knee again, forcing her to meet her eyes, "And why's that?"

"I'm a bad friend."

"No, you're not."

"You don't know that." Willow felt weak under Jordan's gaze. She felt vulnerable. "Sometimes, I think the world revolves around me." She admitted.

"It doesn't?" Jordan teased.

Willow scoffed, "Shocker, I know."

Jordan smiled kindly, "You're a lot of things, blondie, but self-centred isn't one of them."

"I think it is, though." Willow sighed sadly, then opened her heart a little further, "I sat on this bench with Dahlia once, after I told her I was gay." She reminisced, "Dahlia was so understanding; she knew exactly what to say, exactly how to make me feel better." She paused for a moment, the memory coursing through her, "I don't remember a time where I was even half as kind as she was. Not to her, not to any of them."

Jordan watched her silently, fiddling with her tie distractedly, "Some people are bad at being kind." She said, "It doesn't mean they don't care, it just means they don't know how to show it."