Kathy opened her locker at school the next day and found a package of shoelaces on the top shelf. Confused, she knit her eyebrows and picked up the shoelaces.
"Shoelaces..." Kathy said to herself, "Ohh..."
That's right, I broke my shoelace last week on the way out of the building. Thank you mysterious nice person who will not identify his or herself to me. It's not like I can just figure out who it is. Who would be nice to me?
Kathy spotted Jenny walking to English and she walked over to her.
"Hey, Jenny..." Kathy said guiltily, trying to smile.
Jenny eyed Kathy suspiciously and didn't say anything.
Kathy said awkwardly, "Hey, um, did you put these shoelaces in my locker this morning?"
Kathy held up the shoelaces and Jenny looked at her like she was nuts.
"No?" Kathy said, chuckling softly, "Um, okay. Sorry, that must've sounded totally weird."
"Not to sound harsh, but why are you talking to me?" Jenny said in a quiet, hurt voice, "The other day you freaked out on me and now you're just talking to me like everything's normal."
Kathy's smile faded and Jenny said, her tone pained, "T-then you came back to school and you just shaved your head and now everything's fine and dandy, huh?"
"Jen, I..."
"You broke my heart, Kathy. Do you know that?" Jenny said. Her voice was urgent and her eyes were glossy, "I'm sorry to be blunt, but... What you did to me... Was terrible."
Kathy nodded and smiled guiltily, "I know."
Jenny crossed her arms and waited while Kathy continued, "I came to do two things; to ask you about these shoelaces and... to apologize."
Jenny's expression softened and Kathy went on, "You're right, what I did to you was horrible and thoughtless and... I guess... I just really felt like I needed someone to blame, because I didn't feel like there was anyone I could talk to. You were the wrong person for me to treat like that. I'm sorry, Jenny."
Jenny's eyelids fluttered and she wiped tears from her eyes. She sniffed and said, "Thank you, Kathy."
The girls smiled at each other and Kathy held out her arms.
Jenny hugged Kathy and said, "You know, you can always talk to me."
Kathy looked at her and said, "Really?"
"Of course." Jenny said, shrugging, "I'm all ears. Someone else who's really good with the listening and advice is Tae-Hyun."
Kathy's face fell, quickly followed by Jenny's.
Jenny stuttered, "Oh... Kathy, I'm sorry, I forgot that-"
"No." Kathy said, "I just remembered... That I need to apologize to her, too."
Jenny raised her eyebrows and said, "Oh. I see. Um, good, good."
Mr. Sullivan, the English teacher, opened the door to his classroom and cleared his throat at the two girls in the hall.
Jenny turned to him and said, "Sorry, Mr. Sullivan, we're late."
Mr. Sullivan nodded and said, "I know. Care to join us?"
"Yes, Mr. Sullivan." The girls said together.
Jenny looked at Kathy and said, "Well, we can talk more later."
"Yeah..." Kathy said. She and Jenny followed their teacher into the English classroom and sat down.
Mr. Sullivan turned to the class and pointed to the whiteboard.
"Alright, The Catcher in the Rye..." Mr. Sullivan began talking about the book the class was reading.
Okay, Kath, Kathy thought, You apologized to Jenny, now you have two to go.
Tae-Hyun and Leo.
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