I didn’t know her, which wasn’t a surprise since none of us knew each other. It was our first day of High School and none of us knew each other, but she was different, unknown in a way mysterious and obvious.

She was the kind of person who seemed almost above us, more important, but she didn’t act like it. She acted like we were more important than her and, many people liked that, thinking they mattered more than they did. She had a sorrowed look in her green eyes, as if she carried the pain of the world so we wouldn’t have to.

My first thought, from looking at her, was that you could talk to her and know her for your whole life, but you would never really know her-only what she chose to tell you.

She also had an odd way of speaking, as if she knew things beyond our imaginations and could see things we thought were hidden.

She seemed to see through you, all of you. Nothing was hidden from her view and yet she couldn’t tell who did or didn’t like her.

On the first day, I spoke to her. I wanted to understand her but all that happened was I fell in love with her.

You couldn’t not love her, it was a fact. Loving her was natural, because she was kind and sweet and the most pure kind of good. I didn’t love her like a sex-toy, simply as a friend, a sister. Someone whom I would entrust my life.

She was amazingly lovely, with red hair to her ankles, ivory skin, delicate bone structure, and pale pink lips.

Her name was Nakita.



She caught the eye of many a hottie, but none was so infatuated by her as the outrageously handsome Jonathon Mathews, hottest boy in school.

He followed her to her car every day and did everything and anything to get her to talk to him.

She would smile and answer his questions but she never really seemed to see him, or anyone other than me.

I guess that’s what I liked, that she saw me and tried to show me how amazing I was. As she pointed it out, I began to see it too.

My true blue, California girl, tanned skin, and my curling blond ringlets to my middle-back, but, according to her, my most amazing feature was my big blue eyes, which she told me sparked and danced with light when I smiled and seemed to rain pure gold when I cried.

Without her, I never would have seen myself for what I was, a straight ten to her obvious nineteen, but she didn’t see it. She said I had all the beauty and she had all the boyishness but she was to girl-looking to ever be described as boyish.


Nakita met me by the front doors every day and told me about anything and everything and I countered with things about me.

The thing about Nakita is, no matter what, she listened to everything you said and remembered it, like everything was a valued bit of information that could not be forgotten or wasted.

I liked that she listened to me and remembered everything I told her, if only because it was the kind of listening I never got at my foster home.

My foster parents, Kyle and Rita, didn’t like Nakita. They told me that red hair was a sign of the devil but, if you knew her- not all of her but enough- you would know that the devil was the exact opposite of her, but they didn’t listen.

I always figured that they wanted me to remain isolated, but Nakita showed me that wasn’t the truth.

But I’m getting off topic. I only have a short time to tell you everything before we need to be moving again so I need to start now and get off the past and into the present.


I was confused that day because Nakita wasn’t at the door waiting for me and she never got sick. Jonathon kept walking up to me and asking where she was but I had no answer.

Sometimes I wonder if I should’ve known, I mean, something was always bothering her and she once told me she never felt safe.

I should’ve listened to her hints and kept her safe, h***, we both should have, Jonathon and I. But we didn’t.


The first few days, I worried, but then the school told us she had moved and I knew something was up.

Nakita was the kind of person who always made sure to tell you if something big was gonna happen to her but she hadn’t dished about this.

I was scared and didn’t know who to turn to, so I chose Jonathon.


He didn’t know her nearly as well as I did, so he was mostly moping around the park and crying randomly at school. His parents had sent him to see the counselor more than once.