Friendship Bracelets

She’s probably the closest thing to a “hippie” you can find at this school.

She’s got long, flowing, yellow hair, with beautiful waves. Her voice has a gentle feeling; like there’s always a smile underneath it.

She brings her guitar to school sometimes, carrying it around without a case. She strums on it occasionally, in class, or sitting in the quad. She’s not very good. Either she doesn't know it, or doesn't care.

She wears mostly loose, comfy clothes, with bright colors; flowy skirts, or sweatpants and sweatshirts, or leggings and Ugg boots. She has a pair of Toms shoes that she wears sometimes; they used to be white, but she painted them with rainbowy swirls.

She likes bracelets in general. She wears a lot of them. Silly bands, sometimes. Little chain bracelets with charms on them. But she always has friendship bracelets, strung from colorful threads. Four of them on each wrist. Every day.

She eats all natural foods. Her mom is really into the all-organic thing; their entire family is vegan, so Friendship Bracelets’ snacks usually consist of these all-natural nutty-and-seedy health bars. Occasionally, she goes off on a rant to her friends about processed foods; Cheetos are filled with beetle eggs and chickens are tortured and boxed apple juice isn’t really apple juice and doesn’t even taste like apple juice and how can you be okay with the fact that it’s not apple juice.

But she’ll occasionally drink a soda. Or snack on Captain Crunch from a Ziploc bag. It's difficult to predict what she considers an exception to the rule.

She likes to doodle, too. There’s one sheet of paper at the front of her binder that she’s been gradually decorating since the beginning of the semester; adding more and more doodles. Leaves. Fruit. Flowers. Mindless swirls and checkers and lines. Hearts, and peace symbols, and yin-yangs.

And there are little cards she’s making for her boyfriend—Drawings of the two of them together, dressed as fruits. In one of them, she’s dressed as a strawberry and he’s dressed as a lemon; in the other, he’s a watermelon and she’s a lime. In both, the two fruits are holding hands and smiling at each other, and the caption reads, In sweetness and in sour, I love you.

I’ve seen her with her boyfriend—Between classes, they lock their arms around each other and kiss outside of classrooms. Looking at the two of them together, it’s strange. He seems to be Friendship Bracelets’ polar opposite. He wears mostly gray, and his eyes are full of glares.

Does he ever smile, like the cartoon watermelon of him she drew? When they’re alone, maybe? Is she the one to bring it out of him?

And when they’re together, about to part for class, about to be late for class, arms clasped around each other and lips migrating across each others' faces, they both seem to have looks of pain in their eyes. Like they love each other so much that it hurts, like they love each other so much they can hardly stand to be apart, like they love each other so much they can hardly stop touching each other and they can hardly stand to look each other in the eye.