The Weight of the Stars - K. Ancrum Page 0,1
she just became what she looked like. It was easier than fighting it.
Ryann slammed the door open and walked in, passing right in front of the room, obscuring the light of the projector.
“Always a pleasure, Ryann,” Mrs. Marsh, their history teacher, drawled sarcastically.
Ryann trudged to a chair in the back of the room. She dropped her bookbag on the floor, then tapped the kid in front of her on the back to ask for a pencil. Jefferson, who sat in front of her most of the time and generally had loads of pencils, waved his empty pencil case. He reached forward and tapped the girl in front of him on the shoulder.
“Hey. Ryann Bird needs a pencil.”
The girl didn’t even turn around. She just sat ramrod straight in her chair and said very quietly. “Ryann can bring her own pencils to school. Just like everyone else.”
It was deafeningly quiet. Mrs. Marsh cleared her throat meaningfully.
“Any student who needs a pencil can get one from the pencil jar on the front of my desk.” she said, looking at Ryann pointedly.
Ryann got up, went to the front of the room, and grabbed a few.
As she walked back to her desk, she reached out and let her fingertips glide over the top of the desk of the girl who’d denied her. As gentle and silent as a promise.
33 MINUTES
Their town was small. New residents couldn’t escape scrutiny if they tried, but this was definitely the first time Ryann had seen this girl at her school. Even so, Ryann couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was familiar somehow.
She hadn’t been called on in class at all, so Ryann didn’t know her name. She was brand-new, so it wasn’t like Ryann could look her up on Facebook by looking up mutual friends from school and scouring their network for her name.
And she looked different.
She was at least half black—which was rare here. This town was unfortunately pretty homogenous.
She had very short bleached-blond hair and severe, thunderous eyebrows. Her mouth had been tight and angry looking—which was rich because she was the one being rude.
Ryann stared at the back of the girl’s head and tapped her pencil against the side of her desk.
12 MINUTES
The bell rang. Ryann shoved her things back into her bookbag and rushed toward the door.
“Miss Bird, can I see you for a minute?”
A wave of exhaustion and irritation swept over her, but Ryann turned around to face her history teacher.
“Come wait by my desk.”
Mrs. Marsh wiped off the projector and cleared the whiteboard while the rest of the students filed out. When the last person besides Ryann had gone, she closed the door.
She settled back down at her desk and pushed a small stack of worksheets to the side. “I have a favor to ask you.”
“Will I get extra credit?” Ryann crossed her arms and stared down at Mrs. Marsh.
“Hmmm … maybe I’ll round up when we do a bell curve.”
Ryann nodded. “Continue.”
“As you noticed, we have a new student with us. Her name is Alexandria Macallough.”
“Rude girl, won’t make direct eye contact?” Ryann asked.
“Yes. Now, I know that normally a request like this wouldn’t come to someone like you naturally, but it would be a huge help if you could look after her a bit. She’s going to have some difficulty adjusting and making friends here, and from what I can see, you have a bit of a track record for reaching out to people like that. Plus with the circumstances—”
“What circumstances?” Ryann interrupted.
Mrs. Marsh explained further. Ryann nodded and relaxed a bit as she listened.
“That’s different,” she said when Mrs. Marsh finished. “I thought you were going to ask me something else. But yeah, it’s no problem. I’ll see if I can get her to open up.”
“I’m sorry. This is such a difficult circumstance for me. I’ve never had to assign someone to befriend someone else before,” Mrs. Marsh admitted. “But I just felt like you might be the only person who could reach out in a way that would work.”
Ryann snorted. “Well, that’s flattering. Are you going to want to check in with me about it?”
“Maybe every few weeks or so. It’s important, but not so important that we need to meet every day,” Mrs. Marsh said.
“Hmm.” Ryann crossed her arms again and thought about it for a bit.
“I would really appreciate it and I’m sure Alexandria would, too,” Mrs. Marsh said softly.
Ryann’s phone buzzed in her pocket, so she whipped it out. Her best friend, Ahmed, had