[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Ea6a6rX.png[/img]
[sub][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf01riuiJWA]Exit Music (For A Film)[/url][/sub]

By the time Sara Delgado woke up to a room that was as comfortable and familiar to her as a prison cell, Himani Chakrabarti had been running for a half hour with no destination in mind. Running was one of the only things that made sense to Himani; one foot in front of the other, forward momentum, feet stamping the ground in a quiet affirmation combining with the aching heat of muscles screaming along the skin as if the entire body was announcing to the world that she was alive and here to stay. In another life, Himani would have done well as a cross country runner. Joined a team. Maybe go to the Olympics. Be somebody. But in another life, Himani might not have had to run at all. Everyone ran for different reasons, some for sport, some for exercise, some just because it was a cardio day; Himani ran because it was freedom. Himani ran because if she didn’t, she would drown. Himani ran because she didn’t want to look back. The pain in her legs as she pushed closer to the seven mile mark was nothing compared to what would happen if she didn’t run. 

The route Himani took was never the same but she knew the streets and walks like a GPS did. Going left one way led to this location, going right was a dead end, three streets ahead and that was where the nice old couple sat in chairs petting a dog that was almost as old as they were. Himani liked that couple, they always waved at her on the days she passed and Himani always considered stopping to pet the dog, to converse with the old couple, but she never did. She couldn’t stop. Stopping was death. Her pace was as important as the route she took; it didn’t matter how fast she went as long as she was going and she always went to the same place. To the only place where Himani was allowed to smile. To the only place where she was [i]able[/i] to smile. 

When she ran, her hair was in a ponytail, only a few loose strands draped against her forehead and drifted with the pumping of her legs to bristle against her ears. Himani hated her ears. They were big, goofy, floopy, unpierced, and the only time they were ever visible was when she ran like this. When her hair was freed from the confines of a scrunchie, she made sure it covered her ears. Himani hated her hair. It was long, messy, an ugly shade of brown, unkempt even when she brushed it, and it sometimes got food on it when she ate too quickly because her hair reached all the way to the top of her breast. 

What face did she make while running, she wondered. Was her mouth open even more than normal - her stupid overgrown front teeth made it so hard for her to close her lips which was another thing Himani hated, were her eyes wide, nostril flaring, eyebrows bristling? She hated each of those parts of her face. Her eyes were too big. Her nose was too pointed at the tip but too wide in the nostrils. Her eyebrows were too bushy, like Frida Kahlo. Her upper lip was always slightly lifted thanks to those hideous buck teeth. When she ran, those flaws didn’t matter. No one looked good after running for miles and Himani could feel normal for those wonderful times between starting and stopping. 

At school, Himani smiled from the first bell until the end of the school day. She laughed. She had people who liked her at least enough to not talk shit about her until she was well out of earshot; of course with her ears she was sure she could hear them from the next state ove. She had people applaud and cheer for her. Well, not [i]her[/i]. The Pirate. They loved the Pirate, how he ran in the gym during pep rallies, how he danced by the stands at football games, how he tripped and fell on his big stupid ugly face for a comedy gag. Everyone loved the Pirate and under the Pirate was Himani. Everyone loved Himani. 

Except for Himani.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/sBxHBgY.png[/img]

By the time Himani Chakrabarti ran for the sixth mile with legs screaming at her to stop, Sara Delgado was gently folding the bedsheet back under the pillows she had fluffed already. Her mother had taught her the proper way to make a bed and it was an almost zen-like experience to Sara now. Every morning she made her bed, every morning she took a small amount of pride in the making of said bed, and every morning for five minutes she sat on the end of her bed and tried not to cry as she spoke three words to herself under her breath like a meditative mantra. [color=#1b9bd6]“Today’s your day. Today’s your day. Today’s your day.” [/color]At the end of those five minutes the mantra always ended with a slight change of wording. [color=#1b9bd6]“Tomorrow’s your day…” [/color]

Sara’s room was comfortable but cold. The walls were bare except for a single hanging poster of the periodic table, something that Sara didn’t even need hung up anymore - she had learned the table before her sophomore year and had impressed her chemistry teacher by correcting the mistake and mentioning that Seaborgium was 106 and Bohrium was 107, not the other way around and then again for mentioning that Bohrium and Borium were two different things with the latter not even being on the table at all. For the rest of the semester, the chemistry teacher would randomly ask Sara a number and Sara would say the element on the table. Sara thought it was meant to embarrass or humiliate her on the off chance she got it wrong but she never did. For her troubles, all she got was a begrudging A+ on the report card and a revolving door of lab partners who spent labs on their phones while Sara did the experiment, the lab report, and got them a passing grade because of it. 

The sun peeked in through the open blinds inside Sara’s room and shined its morning light on the spotless floor that was swept every weekend, the study desk that looked unused other than the numerous post-it notes with platitudes and doodles of a cookie with eyes and hands holding hands with a carton of milk with hands and eyes, and the bookshelf with a bunch of textbooks and study guides organized by subject matter. On the nightstand next to Sara’s bed was her cellphone, a navy blue covered diary, and a clock radio. The only personality to be found in the room was contained solely within the post-it doodles but even they seemed trapped in the diminutive canvas. Trapped in the same way their artist was. The only thing missing from Sara’s room were bars on the window. 

Ever since she and her mother moved into this house, owned by Sara’s [i]abuelita, [/i]Sara was given the biggest room in the house and all she had to show for it was a neatly made bed every morning. The clock radio buzzed to life with a static hum as the frequency of the morning jazz song (today it was Art Blakey) woke Sara from her five minute mantra, a sniffle punctuating her mumbled words as she slid off the bed and turned off the alarm before scooping her diary and phone into her hands, transferring both to the study desk as she opened her bedroom door (devoid of any poster hangings as well) and stepped her bare feet onto the creaky carpet floor en route to the toothpaste pastel colored bathroom. 

Her mother’s towel was still damp as it hung on the towel rack and Sara sighed in realization. Another early shift. Another breakfast alone. Another morning where her only conversation was with the friends in her head who were interested in hearing her talk about the difference between arachnids and insects. It wasn’t always so empty, but with her dad in Mexico for most of her life, her mom taking whatever shifts she could at the hotel, and her [i]abuelita[/i] living…elsewhere…Sara hadn’t had a conversation with another person in what seemed like forever. No one to tell her good morning. No one to ask how school was. No one to call and talk with until the sun went down. Nothing. No one. No one except Chipper and Derry, the names she gave to her cookie and milk doodles. They were the best of friends, Chipper and Derry were. Sara was jealous. 

At school, Sara got some of the highest grades, tutored, was well on her way to being in the consideration for valedictorian - though she figured that wasn’t guaranteed and that someone more popular but with a worse GPA would get that satisfaction - but that was all she had. Her name at the top of a list no one cared about. Inside her drawer at the study desk was her acceptance letter to Pomona College, underneath which was a pamphlet about financial aid and scholastic scholarships, both of which she had applied for. Yet another list her name was at the top of. What good was being at the top of lists if no one cared? What good was being one of the smartest, academically, at school if teachers still got her name wrong (it was [i]Sah-rah[/i], not [i]Sehr-uh[/i])? Everyone at school had friends. Laughed. Smiled. Didn’t eat lunch in the janitor’s closet. Everyone knew each other in some capacity. Had memories and jokes, gossip and stories, kisses and romances. Everyone, even with their dramas, went to parties and hung out and would look back on these years fondly. 

Except for Sara. 

While Sara was showering and getting dressed, then getting changed as she double checked the theme of the day, Himani Chakrabarti had finally stopped running. She wasn’t out of breath or even all that tired, but she was in desperate need of water, which was the reason she stopped running. Close by the school, close enough that some students dropped in during lunch periods and still had enough time to spare, was a convenience store. Himani waved to the cashier before going to the cold beverage section, grabbing a water, cracking the top, and drinking half the bottle before grabbing a second one. Cradling the fresh bottle under an arm, Himani brought two fingers to her neck and looked at her wrist. She didn’t have a watch, she’d just seen people do this in medical dramas. 

When she stepped outside the convenience store, the drawstring backpack with the FILA logo on the bottom re-slung over her shoulders now that it contained a bottle of water more and four dollars less, the morning heat wafted over her and added another layer of sweat to her forehead and legs. She had been wearing running shorts and a sleeveless, plain blue top. Sweat had formed on her legs, perhaps the only part of herself that she didn’t hate, and she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. She couldn’t go to school like this. Sweaty. Not in school colors for spirit day. But inside her backpack was a small bar of disposable soap, a hotel sized portion of shampoo, and a change of clothes. One of the perks of being the mascot was the school trusting her with a key to the gym storage area where the mascot was stored; that same key got her access to the gym locker rooms which had a shower attached to them. 

Every day she ran and every day Himani showered and changed in the school gym locker room. Today would be no different. Himani wasn’t sure if people knew that she treated the showers like they were in her home, but the alternative would be going to school caked in sweat and stench and while she was well aware that some students, definitely underclassmen, would surely be into the idea of smelling a sweaty girl’s armpits or, like, licking sweat because she’d been on the internet, in practice the only thing that happens to a high school girl showing up sweaty and rank is being known as the smelly girl. Himani was many things, and as she looked in the mirror in the bathroom next to the showers, the things she believed herself to be came flooding into her. She was ugly and no matter how much lotion she rubbed on her face she always would be. She had big front teeth and no matter how many times she brushed and gargled and brushed and gargled she would always have them. She had gross hair and even as she brushed and brushed and brushed she always would, but at least it covered her big, floppy, ugly ears. And at least she wouldn’t be the smelly girl. 

Himani smiled as she finished brushing her hair and brushing her teeth. The mirror didn’t crack but the girl looking back at her was believably happy. Which meant Himani was genuinely happy. Her enthusiasm for all things BHHS might have been annoying to many, but her enthusiasm in general was earnest. She loved the school. She loved the people. She loved the students. She loved being the mascot. She loved that her outfit for school spirit day was a red t-shirt that she made herself that had BHHS in big, bold, black letters, under which was a picture of her in the mascot costume under which was her graduation year. The back of the shirt had the statement “LET’S SHOW ARRRRR SCHOOL SPIRIT!” with a pirate sword as the exclamation point. Her black shorts just had the BHHS logo on either leg and on her face she stuck four star stickers, one red and one black on each cheek. And on her ugly, frizzly, dirty brown hair she put a red and black bandana - like the one famous pirate Jack Sparrow wore; some of her hair still spilled out from the back, and of course there was still hair to cover her ears. 

Homecoming week was the best. It was when Himani was at her most popular because of school spirit being at a school year high. Pep rallies. The game. The dance. She didn’t have a date for the dance, of course she wouldn’t-  she wasn’t gorgeous like everyone else, but she loved going to the dance and dancing to the fast songs and swaying like she had someone to dance with on the slow songs. Showing up to school as a cowboy, a hippie, in pajamas…the one week it was cool to show pride and excitement in your future alma mater. As Himani put her jogging clothes in her gym locker and headed for the quad now that students were starting to arrive, she couldn’t help but to smile as wide as ever. In a few hours she’d be in the costume, rallying the crowd, responding to their cheers. Everyone would be there. Everyone would love it. Because everyone loved homecoming week.

Except for Sara. 

Sara didn’t even know why she bothered sticking to the theme of the homecoming events. Any effort she put forth went unnoticed and made her question the point of even trying so hard. On Wednesday while people wore cowboy hats, denim jeans, or god forbid the people who wore Cowboy Barbie pink, Sara had a historically accurate outfit based on the Spanish vaqueros complete with sombrero and overly warm sarape and buckskin shoes and woolen bolero jacket. The most she got was a teacher telling students to take their hats off indoors so people behind them could see the blackboard. The janitor was concerned she would overheat, though, which she thought was a nice consideration until he followed it up with the bleak thought that an ambulance called to a high school is never good for anyone, especially if they found one in the janitor’s closet. Sara laughed it off but she was the only one. 

Naturally after a week of trying, Sara tried a little less with her outfit today: a red and black striped shirt and a little face paint on her cheek that read ‘BHHS’, only really perceptible if you were looking into her eyes and she assumed that no one would even notice. Nor would they notice that her black pants sort of combined with the striped shirt to give her an almost Freddy Kruger vibe. All she was missing was[url=https://i.imgur.com/DZGQNcc.jpeg] the hat[/url].After checking her outfit in the mirror in the bathroom, Sara returned to her room for the last time that morning in order to put her diary, phone, and the completed homework folder into her backpack all before swapping the main pun drawing that was pinned onto the center of the backpack. Today’s pun? [url=https://i.imgur.com/JORXV9K.png]Carrate[/url].

The kitchen was quiet with the only evidence someone had even used it being the coffee mug sitting in the sink with a puddle of water pooled at the bottom. Sara sighed as she took out the items for today’s breakfast. Before, back when her[i] abuelita[/i] was still around, she would almost always have some fresh made [i]pan dulce[/i] and hot chocolate for Sara; now the only thing greeting Sara were the ingredients she prepped the night before just so she could cook them that much faster. Before, when her mother would miss mornings, Sara would at least have a note telling her to do her best, to have a great day, little words of encouragement or the puzzle section from the newspaper so she could have entertainment while she ate; now there was nothing other than that damn coffee mug.

The only sound in the ktichen for the next twenty minutes was the cooking of oil, potatoes, chorizo, the gentle scrape of a spatula adding peppers and onions, mixing the ingredients, the crackling sizzle of a pan over a medium heat, and the clink of a fork as she placed her [i]chorizo con papas[/i] onto a tortilla and ate her breakfast. Water rinsing the plate added to the puddle in the mug and after pausing to say a short prayer by the cross hanging in the living room - something her [i]abuelita[/i] did and Sara did simply to respect the home Sara was graciously allowed to live in - Sara was outside and locking the door behind her. She had five minutes to get to the bus stop. Most senior didn’t take the bus to school, but most seniors weren’t Sara Delgado. Her seat on the bus was practically reserved. Right in the front, behind the driver, she sat by the window and her backpack next to her. No matter how full the bus got, no one ever seemed to want to sit next to her. 

From the bus window, the outside world looked so pleasant, especially at this time of morning when people were waking up and beginning their commutes or morning exercise. Behind her she could hear people talking about a break up, discussing the progress they made in some video game, saying how they were going to not bother going to the football game tonight so they could catch a movie instead. Dozens of conversations going on all around her and Sara was hearing bits and pieces of all of them. Was this what ghosts felt like? Invisible but present? Chuckling lightly at jokes she wasn’t meant to hear, silently correcting the people comparing homework, checking her own wardrobe when others complemented their friends. The only difference between her and a ghost in this moment was that people got excited at the idea of seeing a ghost. 

As the bus roared to a stop and the doors filed open, Sara was the last one to step off - the doors damn near closing even as she was still descending the steps, and she stepped off with a smile. Even if no one knew her name, even if no one ever really thanked her for helping them pass trig or history or chemistry, even if she had to eat another lunch in the janitor’s closet she still smiled as she stepped onto the sidewalk and towards the quad. Sara didn’t know why. She didn’t have much in the way of school spirit and at the rate she was going she wasn’t even going to leave here as anything more than a face in a yearbook that other graduates struggle to even remember one single anecdote about…but still she smiled. She wondered if anyone else smiled as they walked towards school by themselves and promptly shook her head. Why would anyone do that? That was weird. No one other than Sara smiled for no reason, putting on a brave face for as long as it took for it  to fade- which in Sara’s case was up until her classmates filed in and brought with them their drama and their conversation and their continued ignoring of Sara Delgado. 

Except for Himani. 

Himani Chakrabarti was in the quad, leaping in front of arriving students - underclassmen being the majority - and after the heart attack shriek of surprise from the unsuspecting students, she handed them a flier using only her words. [color=#e8f631]“YARRRRR I SEE YOU’RE FLYIN’ THE SCHOOL COLORS. GOOD ON YA, MATEY! YOUR SPIRIT IS REQUESTED AT TODAY’S ASSEMBLY! DON’T MISS IT OR I’LL MAKE YA WALK THE PLANK, LADDIE! YARRRR!” [/color]It was early in the morning but that didn’t stop Himani from making sure students started their day having a laugh even if it was at her expense - at least four different students whispered how ‘cringe’ she was being after she moved on to the next group, but Himani didn’t let that stop her. If she let the remarks of other students ruin her mood then she wouldn’t be Himani Chakrabarti. Their words couldn’t hurt her anymore than others already had. 

By the time Himani was sure she had gotten to most everyone she saw in the quad, it was almost time for class to begin. The girl with endless energy and school spirit darted up the stairs into the school and up the stairs towards the classroom; she wasn’t supposed to run in the halls but for Himani, running was life and anything else was the opposite. As she made her way to Mr. Phoenix’s class, she said a loud hello to everyone in the classroom - the same way she had to everyone in the quad. Everyone.

Except for Sara. 

Sara had noticed Himani running in the quad and got her hopes up that she would be greeted in kind. She even slowed her steps and held her breath when Himani was greeting some sophomores just in the grass as Sara passed them, but after Himani did her piratey song and dance for them, she turned and looked through Sara, sprinting right past Sara in order to greet a group of three. Sara didn’t drop her smile, but it did crack and quiver. Her footsteps regained their speed as she made her way towards the entrance to school.

[b]“Sara!” [/b]A voice called behind her and Sara froze. Her head turned with her body to see the face of someone she had tutored. She knew him well because he took three lessons to learn the difference between sin, cosine, and tangent. After all this time he still didn’t know her name? 

[color=#1b9bd6]“It’s…it’s actually pronounced…” [/color]Her voice was so quiet and foreign to her own ears that she barely recognized it. When was the last time she heard herself? Her spoken word went unfinished as the guy calling her name waved to a red headed girl who came bouncing over to him. The way they embraced was all Sara needed to see to know that he had the right pronunciation all along. Turning back around, Sara disappeared into the school as she always did. A ghost roaming the halls, scoring high on tests, haunting the janitor’s closet, sitting in the front row in Mr. Phoenix’s class. 

Maybe today wasn’t her day after all. [/center]