I stare into her eyes, and I am bothered to see how cold and detached they seem. Is she a real person? I can't be sure.
"Hey," I try to say easily, casually, "Are you new? My name's Anne." She stares at me for a couple of seconds, apparently reveling in the awkward silence that is surrounding us.
"Melanie," she says back, cooly. I smile and back away. This new girl has no emotion, I think. For a couple of seconds I wonder if she is okay, if maybe moving took too much out of her and she misses her old home. I watch her for a couple of minutes, waiting to see how she's doing. Maybe, I think to myself, she's just sad because she misses her old friends, myaybe she is just being cautious about making new friends. But I'm sure that we'll be friends eventually. I look up to smile at her, and maybe make conversation, but she's chatting away with some other girl, as naturally as if she has known her for her entire life. Weird. And I thought the new girl was cool and detached. Oh, well, in cases like this I don't mind being wrong.
I try to jump in to their conversation, but the second I walk over to them, Melanie is quiet. She's staring at me strangly. I walk away again, confused and I hear a whisper behind me, "What's wrong with her face?" I breath in quickly, my face turning red. I want to confront the new girl, a term I now use with disgust, to tell her that nothing is wrong with my face, to tell her that I was born with this birth mark, but I feel like I'm going to cry. I look down and walk away, holding back sobs.
The next day I see the new girl again. I'm ready to forgive her, after an all night crying-session, and smile. She looks at me, and gives half a smile in return. "I heard about your diesease," she says, "is it contagious?"