Crissy watched the students passing by. She always sat alone at lunch, always in the back and in a corner. No one ever sat with her, or even near her. The tables surrounding hers were empty, a painful reminder of what she already knew: Everyone hated her.

She took a bite of her apple. Lately, fruit was all that she could stomach. She was giving serious thought to becoming anorexic, to stop eating completely so that she could die and be rid of Christoph forever. But that would technically be suicide, a direct ticket to hell, and with her luck Christoph would be there soon enough to continue her torture on into the afterlife. So she ate the apple down to it’s core and then began on the half of a banana that she had placed on her tray instead of her roll. At first, the lunch lady would always complain that it was against the rules to switch out things that way, but eventually gave in and let Crissy do it whenever she wished.

A tray flew down beside her and a boy pulled up a chair. “Hey, Crissy!” he said with a grin. Crissy ate two more bites of her banana before the boy spoke again. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

She remained quiet, tossing the empty banana peel to the unused section of her tray and opening her milk. The boy made an annoyed grunting sound as he impaled his chicken with his fork. He roughly tore off a piece of meat. “I just thought you looked lonely. You don’t have to be so rude.”

She sipped the milk diligently through the flimsy straw, eyes forward and never once looking upon him. He poked around at his food aimlessly, stirring up the mashed potatoes but not bothering to try them. “You know,” he started, picking up the oatmeal and raison cookie, “you’re pretty cute.” He gripped the cookie and tried to break it in half, but had no success. “I mean, if it wasn’t for your brother, I’d be all over you everyday.” Although saying slightly important words, his eyes were fixed on the cookie, which he was currently banging on the table in an effort to break through it’s rough, crusty surface. Finally, in frustration, he tossed the cookie onto the floor and casually dusted off his hands.

Crissy, completely unamused, stood up with her tray. Before she could take more than two steps, however, the boy reached out and grabbed the tray, removing it from her hands. “I’ll take it up for you.” he said warmly.

She shrugged and began walking away, leaving him with the tray. She was getting quite sick of fake happiness, shallow cheerfulness, and translucent joy. But what irked her more than anything was plastic sincerity. She yearned to see Sara, the one person in this school who seemed the slightest bit natural. Sara was so free, brave, and strong. She was the exact opposite of Crissy, who always took the long way around the hallway to avoid seeing most of her classmates and never went into the bathroom if she heard the voices of other girls inside.

She hadn’t gone far before the boy caught up with her. “Aren’t you going to thank me?” he asked.

“No,” she said, speaking to him for the first time, “because I didn’t ask you to do it in the first place.”

“So you can speak! And what a lovely voice you have! Why don’t you go out with me? We can keep it a secret from Christoph!”

She finally turned to look at him. He was handsome enough, with black spikey hair and all-black clothes. From the accessories he wore, which included dog collars and various chains and piercings, she could tell he was a Goth, and an eerily cheerful one at that. His eyes were black and she wondered if they were contacts. His skin was slightly darker than Christoph’s, but not much. He was taller than Christoph too, and his clothes weren’t half as neat. Strange, she thought, that she always compared everyone to Christoph. “Christoph would kill you.” she finally said, as an answer to his question.

Well... how about we kill him? It’d be easy enough. You could lure him up to the roof and I’d be waiting with a really big hammer.”

Crissy found herself smiling, finding the morbid remarks about her invincible brother quite funny. No one had ever talked about him like that. No one had the guts to. Her smiled became a wide grin and she began laughing loudly. The boy began laughing too and soon both were leaning against the lockers, their bodies shaking with their chuckles.

Finally the boy stopped. “Wait. That wasn’t even very funny.” he said seriously.

Crissy was still giggling. “You’d think it was if you knew my brother better.”

He smiled down at her. She looked like a normal little girl when she was laughing like that. She no longer looked like the bitter woman who never spoke to anyone. “You really are adorable. Won’t you go out with me?”

“You only want to date me because I’m cute. You don’t care about my personality.” she said bluntly.

“True, but at least I’m admitting it.”

She thought for a minute. Someone was being honest? This was quite strange. He was handsome, she thought. His face was innocent, like Christoph’s, even though he was obviously trying to look scary. The pierced nose and the black contacts did give him a somewhat frightening appeal, but his attitude quickly dissolved all fear she could’ve possibly felt of him. “I’d better not. Christoph would kill us both.” she said.

“I can handle Christoph. Don’t worry about that.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Zacchaeus, but everyone just calls me Zac.” he said, scratching his head in a comical way. “Kind of like how everyone just calls you Crissy, right?”

She looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

“Your real name... its Christina, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t. It’s just Crissy.” she said with finality.

“Oh.” he said meekly, looking down. “So... um... are you gonna go out with me or what?”

She sighed heavily. “I already told you. I just can’t!”

“All right.” he said with a deep breath, “I’ll drop it for now, but I’m not gonna give up. I’ll keep trying.” And with a wink and a wave, he was darting off down the hall.