A Worn Backpack Part 2

“Sophie, have you seen Catherine today?” Molly asked through a sea of static.

“No. I was kinda surprised actually. She calls me every day. She didn’t call me at all today. Did something happen to her?”

“No. I don’t think so. She probably just got sick of her parents arguing and left the house again. She wasn’t at school working on the start of the year barbecue with you today?”

“No,” Sophie replied abruptly in her low, mannish voice, “I was the only one there. She didn’t even email me to let me know she wasn’t coming. I just worked on the posters for an hour and left. Maybe she came later.”

“Ok,” They hung up.

Catherine was the Head Yearbook Editor this year, and the school naively thought they could hand out free yearbooks, so she was stuck raising thousands of dollars in addition to compiling, editing, and creating the entire book. Sophie was her underdog. They had only been friends for a year, and hadn’t known each other much longer. Sophie was two years younger than Catherine. She first met her two years ago. Her school combined junior high and high school, and Sophie had been the awkward 8th grader always staring at drawings that Catherine taped up in her locker. They became friends the following year, when Sophie started high school. Catherine somehow felt that she was the only one who saw how beautiful Sophie really was. She was short, with a big build, and looked like she could endure anything. Her almost-brown, blonde hair was so thick it could break a brush if left in tangles, and she had grey-green eyes that would never shine. But Catherine saw the depths of a hidden magical forest when she looked into them.

They were getting closer, and for the first time in her life, Catherine felt like she may have actually found a friend who she could hold as closely as Mollie. Not a twin, but at least a sister. She was wrong. Sophie didn’t care for Catherine the way Catherine cared for her. She had recently discovered this, but this wasn’t what drove her away.

The sun was edging towards the horizon. She figured it was somewhere between 9 and 10. When Catherine was younger she always wore watches. Every minute of every day she wanted to know what time it was. When she got older, she somehow seemed to snag all her new watches on something and break each one, so she stopped wearing them. For the past year she used her cell phone in their place. Her cell phone now lied on the floor of her room, among a rummage of books and clothes she had left behind.

She watched signs go by as she walked the heavy, un-lit road on the highway. She finally noticed one that peaked her interest: rest stop 1 mile. She decided that was the best place to stop for the night. She walked until it was almost too dark to see. Then, guided only by the diamond filled sky, she slipped into a bathroom stall, sat down onto the seat, and fell asleep.

As she slept in her strange oasis, she dreamt of a day over a year ago. Her school was holding a student auction to raise money. One of her classmates, Johnny, had the most beautiful golden locks of hair you could ever imagine. They curled into loose twists of hair, and fell heavily over his forehead. Some of the boys in the high school thought it’d be funny if he shaved it all off, so they told the auctioneer they’d pay $20 to see him cut off his hair. Before anyone knew what happened, the bid had grown to $200 to see his head clean shaven. The auctioneer, knowing their little school was too poor to miss this opportunity, asked him in a pathetically pitiful voice if he wanted to do it. He agreed. After it was all done and over with, Molly and Catherine offered to take him out. They weren’t close friends, but they knew him, and felt bad. It had been Molly’s idea, but she never would have done it if Catherine wasn’t there.

Months later Catherine fell in love with him. A year later he rejected her. But her dream skipped over all the mishaps that happened between them. She saw his face, glaring at her with a cold expression, slowly softening down until it almost looked as if he would cry. She suddenly awoke, hearing a truck horn howling through the air. She had slept through the night in an infested public bathroom stall. She peeked out the door and saw a young girl washing her hands, as a maternal woman held her up to the sink. Catherine crept out of the stall, trying to pass by unnoticed. The woman caught her in the corner of her eye and hurried the girl out of the bathroom, her hands still wet and soapy. Once Catherine looked in the mirror, she understood why the woman was frightened. Catherine looked like a drunkard criminal. She was an absolute mess. She tried to smooth out her hair a bit. With no success, she finally decided on washing herself in the sink, and shampooing her hair with hand soap.

She walked out of the bathroom, her hair soaking wet, thinking over the worth of never seeing Johnny’s face again, placed against never having to feel the pang of a broken heart because of him, as she saw something unbelievable 10 feet from the rest stop pavilion. Before her eyes was the answer to her incredible hunger. Some men were propping up a stand of food and drinks to hand out, just as she had remembered from long ago. She hurried over to them, looking at all the glorious food placed before her so intently, it almost appeared like she looked through it.

“Can I help you miss?” asked an elderly man setting up a display of Cupcakes and Twinkies.

“Can I have some of this?” Catherine asked eagerly.

“What would you like miss?”

Catherine passed her eyes over everything set out. Nothing appealed to her. As a short line of hungry children built behind her, the man finally handed her some Lays potato chips and an enormous chocolate chip cookie. She walked away, remembering Molly exclaiming at the disgusting smell of a freshly opened bag of Lays, eloquently comparing it to the smell of passing gas. She ate a few chips, half the cookie, and drank her water bottle empty. As she sat on a bench near the pavilion, she noticed a young woman, maybe in her twenties, reading a newspaper, leaning against a blue car. A policeman came over to the woman.

“We have a missing persons report, detective. It was just called in. Female. About 5’5. Long, dark brown hair. Brown eyes.”

She refilled her water bottle and left the rest stop, continuing her journey across a desert of black pavement with a sketchbook, a few pencils, a water bottle, an almost full bag of Lays, a half eaten chocolate chip cookie, and a pit in her heart, which had migrated up from her stomach after she had eaten, all crammed into her worn backpack.