The breeze was welcome on her dewy skin and she rubs her shins together casually, pretending as if she didn’t have a mosquito bite the size and shape of a small European country. Hair dances across her shoulders and she wonders why she ever cut it in the first place. She is sitting on the tennis court, having left behind the gaggle of talkative girls that usually surrounds her.
The bell rings for the end of lunch period, but she does not move, her legs feel like they are stuck together with sweat. Every movement feels like a VCR tape skipping and repeating in lines across the screen, fuzzing over and blurring.

Two people walk across the parking lot in front of her. She catches the eye of one through the fence, the gaze flickers away and so they remain casually affixed on something so much more interesting than each other. The moment is separated by too much space.

She yawns and stretches, every movement seems like a pose, like she’s putting on the loneliest fashion show, just for herself. She feels like she has just woken up from a nap.

The trek to class is full of dilly dallying and several detours, but she will eventually make it past each winding hall and each open window letting in gentle spring breeze.

—By Emma H., 16, Vancouver