Saving Neba

𝐈: Nerdy Emery

I shut my locker and there was Sandra's pair of blue eyes and red-glossed lips beaming at me. Nothing unusual, since she was always ever happy. "Emery, I've been looking everywhere for you."

"Hi," I replied and put up a smile.

She pouted and I stretched my lips further. Pulling back the strands of her pale golden hair, she twirled around, her smile returning to her lips. "Notice anything different?"

Sandra wore a flamingo pink sleeveless dress. It was flared and stopped right below her thigh. A dusty brown knee-length four-inched boot elevated her height. Her face was well powdered. Nope, nothing extraordinarily different.

"No?" I answered. The expression on her pale face told me she wasn't quite satisfied with my answer. "Sorry. Nice dress," I sighed, clutching my binders and contemplating which was the best way to end the conversation: dashing to my class and explaining my reasons later in the day, or honestly telling her that I had a Chemistry test which she was well aware of.

She groaned and blinked dramatically. Her fake eyelashes followed the movement of her lids. "I was talking about my bracelet, Em."

"Oh." A pearl bracelet did wrap around Sandra's right wrist. I didn't find it particularly special. I just hadn't seen it before and did not expect Sandra to go around carrying things around her pale wrist, other than her golden wristwatch on her left wrist, of course. "Where did you get it?" Not like I cared though, considering that it was just a pearl bracelet.

"Why, King gave it to me, of course," she said proudly, raising her voice a notch higher, so everyone in the corridor, getting their homework, binders, or books from their lockers could hear her. There wasn't a need for that since Sandra Khaling was well known.

Sandra Khaling, the best cheerleader and most beautiful girl in Rose-Gold High. Well, that's what everyone thought. That is, excluding me, for sure. She was just a really good friend. Well, she was the only person I considered a friend.

I never remembered meeting Sandra. We attended the same school, from kindergarten, I was told. She had always been in my life. But, I guess, the one reason I stuck to her was, without her, my mother wouldn't have been alive.

King Isnaul walked past us. I clenched my fist, wishing he'd ignore us and keep going. However, Sandra had other plans.

"Yoo-hoo! King!" She squealed in her high-pitched voice, something I was not blessed with.

King turned around and put his hands in either side of the pockets of his leather jacket. He walked to us and flashed a smile, to which I responded by attempting a genuine smile.

Sandra responded by throwing her hands around him. "I was just telling Emery about the pearl bracelet you gave me."

King politely slipped out of the hold close and faced me instead. "Shouldn't you be at the Chemistry laboratory or something?" I hadn't forgotten about it, it was just King's being there.

King Isnaul was one of Rose-Gold's best basketball players, beside his friends: Cole and Bryan.

I admired him, almost everyone did. I mean, who wouldn't admire his brown eyes and his rose lips? Or his black hair which always pulled out front and then he'd look cool by running his fingers through them to put them back to place, only to watch them fall out again.

King Isnaul was different from the other boys. He was decent, but not completely out of the bad boy category. He was good-bad, bad-good, pretty much. And Sandra loved him, and she made it fantastically known.

Everyone could see how much Sandra cherished King and how King constantly reciprocated the feeling.

With my binders in one hand, I pulled down the zip of my body warmer and smiled at King. "I should, silly me. I came to pick a few notes from my locker, and all." My eyes located Sandra, who was now standing beside King, her right hand around his waist, bright and breezy as always. "See you at lunch."