Between

Sometimes people say everything happens for a reason, that everything serves a greater purpose later on. How could one believe that when your father dies because of someone else’s actions because someone else made reckless decision how did what happened to him serve a greater purpose.

Death, a thing that still puzzled Naomi Xavier.

Naomi’s POV

I can’t speak for my mother or my twin brother but I haven’t moved on since my father died. The haunting memories and images are too much to bear. Every time I ask for help they tell me it just takes time and some bullshit about time heals all your wounds you just have keep moving forward. The fact that I watched him die didn’t help with moving forward the fact that I looked him the eyes the eyes I used to see full light and happiness then watching the light slowly fade as he lost consciousness and I couldn’t do anything except watch tears streaming down my face stinging my eyes in my head begging someone to wake me up from this nightmare and begging my eyes to shut or for my legs to move anything to stop witnessing what was happening before my eyes but I couldn’t stop watching I couldn’t pry my eyes from the horrifying sight in front of me. Also in true cop movie fashion they never caught the guy. One would assume I want justice for his death or that I want to become a cop or a judge but I just want closure. I just want that memory to leave my head.

To make it even worse I feel incomplete without him but I guess I just need to push forward and prepare for another day in pris- I mean school. I mean there’s no real difference besides the fact that we don’t have to stay there 24 hours a day. My mother enrolled my brother and in private school after dad died 6 years ago but... she never really explained why and just said that she wanted us to have our best chance

All of the girls there cling to me at school but not because of who I am because of who i’m friends with, Nichole Avyanna she’s pretty popular so I guess they get close to me in an attempt to get to her. Nichole knows they don’t really wanna be friends with her but she told me she just ignores them because she doesn’t understand why she’s popular anyway she just always has been and I as a person don’t really care about popularity,as a matter of fact i hate it the constant whispers and the fake smiles they put on around you and the pretending to care about anything i have going on other than to whisper about it excuse me not whisper about it that would mean they were quiet i mean quietly shouting secrets, but There is that one girl who avoids me like the plague but uninterested in literally anything that doesn’t involve that laptop she carries around. There is a lot of speculation About what could possibly be on her laptop but that’s not what I’m curious about. What I’m curious is why she’s avoiding me. Did I do something to her? I don’t remember doing anything that could cause her to avoid me or be afraid me. Maybe I should talk to her and find out.

I usually ride with Nichole to school but for no reason in particular I felt compelled to drive my own car. I walked downstairs to notice that mom cooking breakfast before work. she used to do be a politician because she said she wanted to make change happen and not just talk about it and dad helped her to do it but without him she didn’t seem to have anyone to help keep her engaged as an activist because dad believed in her in a way that no one ever could ever dream of so since she lost her motivation after the disaster she resigned as a state senator and switched careers to use her degree from medical school.

To ease some of the pain she took in foster children and that’s where she met Quenton our foster brother and we loved him so much that we adopted him. He’s 14 years old now and he never knew his parents so he could relate on not having but on having a parent and then losing them.

I hop into my car after kissing my mother and goodbye and I head off to school. I arrive at school only to notice that Nichole’s not in our usual place. So I simply just head to my locker like I would if she were here to meet me. I open my locker and a slip of paper glided gracefully to the floor and I of course picked the not up and began reading it.

When I opened it up and everything was neatly written in blue and it says

let’s meet at the park at 5pm - secret admirer

Nothing more nothing less. You see I’m not one for going places to meet people who don’t even have the courtesy to put their name on a note asking me out. I get guys asking me out all the time due to the whole popular friend thing and there are guys walking up to me all the time hoping to get a piece of the popular girl’s best friend but this high school cliche note was somehow different from the others I had gotten in the past I felt like the note was written purely infused with love and I could somehow sense it which made bypass getting possibly groped and or murdered and consider the note that was written for me.

Ill just say the note was better than what some the guys did like the staring if your gonna stare at least talk to me the staring is very uncomfortable a lot of the time. I place the note into my back pocket hoping that i wouldn’t just forget all about it. Then I just head off to class and mostly just get lost in my own thoughts and that’s how it was until it was time for lunch and I make my way back to my locker at the end of class we weren’t doing much so i decided to do my favorite pass time reading a book I read all the time. reading is like living in many lives every time you open a book, living through characters and feeling upset when they’re upset and feeling second hand embarrassment whenever they do something cringe worthy something was happening to the main character when the bell rang so to say that i wouldn’t put this book down if tried prying it from my hands would be an understatement as long as shit was going down i guess i would be reading and walking so I’m not paying attention which means of course means I’m gonna slam right into another person and the book was just getting really good and I instantly look down and I don’t know which book belongs to me cause it just so happens that they are reading the same book as me. I didn’t really notice him until I looked up and my eyes met his and when I looked into them it felt like I was gonna fade from existence and just get lost and judging by the fact he wasn’t speaking means he was either just as embarrassed as me, staring at me too, or wondering why the fuck is this weird girl staring at me. I chose the latter of course being that he was embarrassed so I just looked down and attended to the things lying on the floor and instantly went to apologizing

“um I’m so sorry about this” i say biting down on my lip to hold back my laughter at how awkward it was getting

“don’t be its my fault for not paying attention i’m such and idiot” he says with a smile

I find myself staring almost lost in his facial features for what seemed like forever but was probably just a couple seconds.

“um... well since we ran directly into each other I feel like i should introduce myself hi I’m Naomi and my locker is right over there.”

“Matt” he says simply with his smile shining brighter than before.

“I noticed youre reading the same book as me” I say

“it seems so yes” he says laughing a little

“if you don’t mind my asking what page are you on?” i ask

he says literally the exact same page I was on when i slammed into him.

“that’s the page I’m on ” I say

“really” he says raising a brow

“yes, you don’t believe me?” I question

“nope, prove it” he says

I started talking about what was happening up until the point where the whole crashing into him thing when I’m interrupted by a text I look at my phone a see Nichole’s name I look at him and sigh

" I guess I need to get going” I say

“are we gonna continue this conversation another time” he says

“sure you know where to find me” I say referring to my locker

“ok see you around ” he says walking off

I head off to my locker and put my stuff away in my locker and look at Nichole’s text. it basically said she was ready to get something to eat and that she was starving. i find her in the cafeteria and I we head off campus to go get lunch. we only get 40 minutes and i wasted 20 of them talking to Jake which i don’t really mind to be completely honest. when I found Nichole she was over in the corner trying to examine Nick’s mouth with her tongue they have been dating for a year and they’re still in the honeymoon phase but i don’t that’ll last long or will it last forever? I started my car we started talking as i drove to the place where we were going to get food and she told me about the party she would be throwing beacause her moms wouldn’t be home for a day so I would of course be in attendance because her parties are always the best and they rarely happen because her moms are rarely out of town. Then of course I tell her about the note that i found in my locker and how I was considering going there.

“don’t go there” she said bluntly

“why” i said

“if they really wanted to go out they would’ve at least left their name it just sounds shady” she explains

I just nodded and turned off my car and walked into the restaurant and ordered food and we talked about more odds and ends and discussing her party and how many people she invited already and when we finished our food we left and the rest of the day blended together until around 2 o’clock when the bell rang for us to be released from school. I drove straight home and fell on top of my bed exahausted so exhausted that I fell asleep almost instantly went to sleep.